Kay Hutchison

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished chairman of the committee that is going to bring forth the education bill. I am very optimistic we are going to have a bill. I thank him for working so hard in a very bipartisan way to produce a bill. The reforms are pretty well agreed to. Both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are coming together to say: We need a change. Business as usual in our education system is not going to cut it anymore. There are too many children falling behind and nobody in this country wants that to happen. Every one of us knows our democracy depends on a well-educated populace. Most people would agree that the variations in the standards of our public schools across the country mean we are not succeeding in the mandate for a quality public education system. That is why Chairman Jeffords and Senator Kennedy, Senator Collins, Senator Frist, Senator Gregg, Senator Hutchinson of Arkansas, Senator Sessions of Alabama, and Senator Enzi have worked so hard to make sure this bill does not fall by the wayside. I am a little frustrated that it has taken so long to get this bill to the floor. After all, this is a bill we have debated before. We actually debated it last session. It was not passed. We are back again. Surely there are divisions, but let's get the divisions out there. Let's get them out there. Let's make the decisions and let's reform public education so that every child in our country will have the opportunity to reach his or her full potential with a public education. That is our goal. Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Oregon if his State has a testing program with accountability that would be something we would want to have as a nation. Has he had experience with accountability in the State of Oregon?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak until someone from the Democratic side comes to reclaim their time.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to talk about what the President's education plan does. The Democrats are claiming they have offered more spending on education. In fact, the President has proposed an 11.5-percent increase in overall education spending for fiscal year 2002. This is an increase of $4.6 billion, to almost $54 billion next year. Included in this spending increase are key areas that we think will target the young people who need the help the most. It triples funding for children's reading programs, because we know if a child cannot read at grade level, that is a child who is going to fail. There is no question about it. Time after time after time, when high school dropouts or junior high school dropouts have been talked to and listened to, the problem is they can't read. Of course they are frustrated if they can't read. Of course they miss the key points in a history lesson or geography lesson or a math lesson. If they can't read, they don't have a chance. So we are targeting the spending increases at reading programs at the very earliest level. That is why we want to test at the third grade level to see if a child is falling back at the third grade, because we can catch that child, we can save that child, if we can test at the third grade and give the child the extra help so he or she will have the chance to read at grade level and compete and absorb what is being given as their educational opportunities. A 30-percent increase is in this budget for Hispanic-serving institutions and historically black colleges and universities. Those are two areas that are doing great work. I have worked very hard for Hispanic-serving institutions because I know if we put the money there and we give them the counseling they need in those universities, we will have good, productive citizens. Our high school dropout rate among Hispanics is the highest of any ethnic group in our country, and that is unacceptable. So we want to go for the Hispanic-serving institutions and give them that extra help so they will be able to graduate their young people into the good jobs that are available in our country. The historically black colleges and universities do great service. I am going to give a graduation speech this weekend at Paul Quinn College, a historically black college that is doing a wonderful job of educating young people. They have a program at Paul Quinn College where the young men go out and mentor the high school students in some of the disadvantaged areas of Dallas. It enriches both the student who is being mentored and the mentor himself. I see my colleague, Senator Collins, has arrived. I am going to ask her to talk about this subject because she is one of the leading Senate experts in this education field. She is on the committee. She is making the contributions. She knows this bill, and she knows what it can do for public education.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask to be notified when we have 15 minutes left. I assume that will give me about 7 minutes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am going to yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum because I have two more speakers on our side. Until I hear they are not going to make it, I am going to reserve their time.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I would like to be notified when I have taken 3 minutes because I think it is very important that we discuss education reforms. I think all of us have the same goal. Every one of us believes that public education is not meeting the standards we envisioned for this country when we established public education as the basis for democracy. The question is, How do we do better? We have been adding more money for education for the last 50 years, but we have not seen an improvement in test scores or in the actual quality of education of our children who are graduating from public schools. There are some public schools that are terrific. Those are the schools where parents and teachers and principals work together, where there is an openness, where the principal welcomes the parents to be a part of the process. But the schools that are failing are the schools that are afraid of accountability. There are teachers who do not want to have tests. Why don't they want to have tests? You can only assume they are concerned that they will not pass and that their students will not pass. That is not acceptable. We have to have accountability. We have to have information for parents. Parents must know which schools are failing. If those schools are failing, we need to know how to bring them up to the higher standards. The best way to do that is to look at other schools that are alike in demographics, to allow them to see what the good schools with those demographics are doing: What are they doing right? That is what our reforms are meant to do. We are focusing on accountability. Yes, it will hurt in some ways. It will hurt if you fail. But wouldn't we rather have a failure early in a school career, so we can correct it and give that child the real chance in life? Or do we want to continue social promotions with failing programs so the child never has the chance to reach his or her full potential? I do not think that is what we want. We want to let the child succeed. To do that, we need accountability. We might need failure so we know what the problems are and we can bring them up to standard. That means we need to support the programs that work. We need to reduce bureaucracy. We need to increase flexibility. We need to empower parents. There is an absolute tie between parents who are involved and students who are successful. That is not based on the intellectual capacity of the student. When the parent is involved, the student does better.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. How much time remains on each side?

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have been listening to the debate on education reform for the last few days. I think it is interesting we are talking about two different things. I hear Senator Wellstone and Senator Kennedy talk about money. Everything is about money. We are absolutely convinced if we don't have reform of our public education system, throwing the rest of the Federal budget at it will not work. We will not see improvements if we don't reform the underlying system. Our public education system is failing. It is failing because there is such a variation of standards. Some of our public schools are terrific, but they are not all terrific. Some are even abysmal. That is not the standard of quality for public education we should stand for in this country. We are trying to reform the system so there will be a standard under which any child in this country who is educated in our public schools will be a child who can reach his or her full potential so that no child will be left behind. We are trying to set a minimum standard that every child must meet or, if the child doesn't, that we will give that child help. We have seen the high school dropout rates. They are alarming in some areas of our country. What is interesting, when we go to the root of the problem and we talk to these young people who have dropped out of high school in despair, there is a basic reason. The basic reason is they can't read. Why not go down to the third grade and catch these young people who are having problems reading and give them a chance to have the full ability to absorb the education they are receiving? If we shuffle them from one grade to the next grade to the next grade, a social promotion, and they still can't read in the 10th grade, who is surprised that the children are frustrated? They are sitting in classes, trying to learn algebra, math, science, history, and geography, and they don't have third grade reading skills. Of course they are going to be frustrated. What we are proposing is an accountability, a standard, that says every child will be tested in the third grade. If that child isn't reading at grade level in the third grade, we are going to hold them back. We are going to give them tutors. We are going to give them the tools they need to be able to participate in their education and in this country the future. That is what reform is. Reform is not just throwing more money at the problem. Reform is getting parents involved, in getting teachers, in getting principals involved, in letting the local school districts make the decisions about what will be the best for the individual children in that district. That is what reform is. It is not throwing money at it and having regulations coming out of Washington, DC. We are trying to set a standard by which every child in this country will be able to read at grade level in the third grade. I think we are going to see the test scores soar across our country if we can get over the hurdle of talking just about money and start talking about reform. Reform includes accountability. A lot of people wring their hands and talk about tests: We don't want tests; we don't want too many artificial tests; we don't want teachers teaching to the tests. If we are testing for the basic skills, why wouldn't we teach to the test and improve what the children are learning? If we teach to the test and the test is fundamental reading, fundamental math, fundamental science, fundamental history, then we need to have a standard by which to judge what is happening in our schools. Another reform is reporting, making sure that parents have the tools and the information to make the best decisions for their children. In fact, if a parent doesn't know how the school is doing and how the children in the school are doing, how can they know their children are getting the best opportunity that is available? In my State, we have a report card. It is called the Just For Kids Program. The test scores of every elementary and junior high school-- and we are going now through the high schools--in Texas will have a report card that shows the test scores and how the test scores have grown in that particular school. If that school is compared to other schools in the same socioeconomic, demographic area and that school does not compare well, the parents then have the information and the parents will be able to say to the principal, wait a minute, why is this school not performing? We want to give parents the ability to question. We think by questioning, we can see improvements. We are talking about reform, not money. We are talking about doing things a different way. We are talking about reading at grade level in the third grade so in the eighth grade the child will have the chance to learn the higher math, the history, the algebra. We are talking about accountability testing, to see if the children are keeping up, to see if we can go to the heart of the problem, if there is one, and fix it while we still have a chance, before the young person has, in utter frustration, dropped out of high school. We get them at the lower level and we give them the chance to compete. We also have report cards. We have report cards so parents will be armed with knowledge. Parents can go to the principal and say, why isn't this school performing? That is the most powerful force we can possibly have. If there is a coverup, if there is no test, if there is nothing by which the parents can judge the performance, of course, everyone is going to be silent and we will have continued failure. These are the elements of reform that will make a difference in the system. This is what we are talking about when we talk about doing things in a different way in our country. We are not talking about just throwing more money at it, although the President's plan does increase education spending by over 11 percent, the largest increase of any part of his budget. Yes, we are going to spend more money but we are going to make sure that the money goes directly to the school districts with standards that we would ask them to meet. We would ask them to meet those standards in their own way, not in some federally mandated way that might not be right for the children in those particular school districts. I am very pleased that we are finally on this bill, and I hope we are going to come out with something that will show the parents of this country that there really is hope; there is hope for a different way; there is hope for the future for their children in public schools. Mr. President, I am now very pleased to yield the floor to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

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

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about education. I appreciate my colleague from Wyoming talking about it. I saw Senator Frist earlier today discussing the President's education plan and certainly the congressional education plan. I think they are very close. What I think is so important is the emphasis that is being placed on quality public education. Thomas Jefferson said, from the very beginning of our Republic, that public education would be the foundation for democracy. That really set us apart from all the other countries in the world because at that time only the most elite were educated. It was only the children of dukes and duchesses around the world; it was only the elite who could afford private schools around the world. But that wasn't the foundation of America. The foundation for America was that every child would receive a quality public education so that child could reach his or her full potential and, of course, contribute to the great Nation that would become the United States of America. Mr. President, it has been proven time and time again that the creativity that comes from having every child in our country educated has put us in the forefront of technology, of space exploration, of medical research, of quality health care. It goes on and on and on. In the last 10 to 15 years in our country, we have lost the battle that every child would receive a quality public education. Today, this week, this year, Congress and the President are saying: No more. No more are we going to allow some children to waste away in schools that are not performing and lose that potential, that productive citizen for our country. We are going to reform public education. We are going to put more money into it. But there is a wonderful chart that the Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, has shown us that actually reflects that we have increased spending in public education, and the figure has gone up for the past 25 years. But, in fact, the test scores have straight-lined-- even gone a little bit down. Well, that doesn't work. Pouring more money into it without giving our parents and teachers and principals and school districts and our States the opportunity to get in and help each individual child with that child's learning needs doesn't work. It doesn't work to pour more money in if we don't give them the tools they need to do the job. That is why we are focused on accountability, on letting parents know what the test scores are. Yesterday, I visited Stonewall Jackson Elementary School in Dallas, TX. I saw the formula for an excellent school. This is a school that is just in a regular middle-class neighborhood that also includes children who are deaf and have learning disabilities--a very diverse student body. Those children have a spark and creativity for several reasons. They also have the highest test scores. But they have the creativity and the spark because they have a principal who welcomes parental involvement. They have a PTA that has teams. They have a men's group. It is like a men's group at church, and that men's group comes into the public school and helps plant gardens, paint things when the paint is peeling, and it is not on the list to fix right away. They are raising money to install security systems. They are raising money to make sure the library is totally stocked. They are involved in their school, and they are welcome in the classrooms any time. So you have the leadership of a principal, you have parents who are involved, and they have made it fun to be involved, and they are improving the school. That creates a spark in the teachers. Senator Gramm and I walked into that elementary school, and it was all decorated as a Caribbean island. We asked, ``Why are we seeing trees and monkeys in this elementary school?'' It is because they adopt a country every year, and this year it is the Caribbean islands. Last year it was Spain. They adopt a country and they talk about that country and they learn about the language and the customs. They have learned something that gives them a new look at life. I am happy that we are focusing on public education. This is just the overview. The overview is, we are going to reform our public schools so that every child in America can reach his or her full potential with a public education. We are going to start talking about the specifics in the next 2 weeks in Congress. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I'd like to thank the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee, and I look forward to working with him.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today a bill with Senators Lieberman and Feingold that would address a concern that has been raised by state legislators in Texas and across the country. Last year Congress enacted the Full and Fair Political Activities Disclosure Act of 2000, Public Law 106-230, a law that imposed new IRS reporting requirements on political organizations claiming tax-exempt status under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code. The purpose of this law was to uncover so-called ``stealth PACs,'' tax-exempt groups which, prior to the enactment of this law, did not have to disclose any contributions or expenditures and were free to influence elections in virtual anonymity. While Public Law 106-230 was intended to target ``stealth PACs,'' it has had the unintended consequence of imposing burdensome and duplicative reporting requirements on state and local candidates who are not involved in any Federal election activities. In many states like Texas, State and local candidates already file detailed reports with their state election officials. To correct this problem, I am introducing legislation that would exempt state and local candidates from the IRS reporting requirements of Public Law 106-230. This bill is the product of an agreement that was worked out among Senator Lieberman, Senator Feingold, Senator Dodd, Senator McCain, Senator McConnell, and myself. I originally intended to offer this legislation as an amendment to S. 27, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill. Unfortunately, since this particular legislation impacts the Internal Revenue Code, I was unable to offer it at that time without the possibility of invoking a blue slip from the Ways and Means Committee. Last week, I spoke with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee about this issue, and he assured me that he would seek to address this issue in his committee. In this vein, I would like to ask the Senator from Iowa, the chairman of the Finance Committee, if he also will work with me to address this problem in the context of the tax bill this year.

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I thank the Senator from Delaware. I join with him in thanking our leadership for their commitment to us at the end of the last Congress. As we discuss the budget resolution, it is important to make it clear, on the record, that our determination to pass the High Speed Rail Investment Act this year, as soon as possible, is as strong as ever. Virtually all of our key modes of transportation are under stress today. From our overcrowded highways to our packed airports, we are losing billions of dollars in wasted time just trying to get to where we need to go. And lying right along side those crowded highways, running right past those overloaded airports, are neglected rail lines that could be carrying passengers between our nations cities. That is why so many Senators have already joined us in support of our legislation, and that is why the nation's governors, mayors, state legislators, and many others support us, as well. I ask our leaders directly if this budget resolution, which establishes the overall priorities for this session of the Senate, makes room for the commitment they made here on the floor last year. Does the distinguished minority leader care to respond?

Mrs. HUTCHISON

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Amendment No. 225

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. The $69 billion will go to the marriage penalty because we will say so. I hope my colleagues will support elimination of the marriage penalty. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I respectfully disagree with the numbers that my colleague from North Dakota has given. We did not raid the Medicare trust fund when we had $1.6 billion in tax cuts. Now we are talking about $1.1 billion or so, and we are adding $69 billion. This is to eliminate the marriage penalty tax. We are squeezing down the tax cuts and I do not want married couples in this country to think that it is not important for us to eliminate the marriage penalty. We should not penalize people for getting married. I hope you will vote for my amendment, and I hope you will vote for the amendment of Senator Hollings as well.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask for 30 seconds to respond to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. I don't think we exhausted the time. I spoke, but I did not speak for 2 minutes.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. It would add $69 billion to assure that there is a marriage penalty elimination for this country. We have said we want to eliminate it. Now is the time to do it. We want to add the amount we believe it will cost to fully eliminate the marriage penalty in this country.

Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk which adds language to the Hollings amendment that basically assures the marriage penalty is fully repealed.