Jim Jeffords

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I submit for the Record the following remarks made by Ms. Beth Macy at an event honoring Senator Claiborne Pell, hosted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). Ms. Macy, a former Pell Grant recipient, spoke eloquently about the positive difference that the Pell grant made in her life and the difference it has made in the lives of the students she now teaches. Senator Pell, a statesman committed to education, was visionary in his creation of the grant that now bears his name. The Pell Grant still serves as the very foundation of our federal commitment to postsecondary study and it has helped make the dream of higher education a reality for millions of low-income individuals. I was pleased and honored to participate in this event for Senator Pell. I urge my colleagues to take the time to read Ms. Macy's remarks. They remind us of why our support for the Pell grant program is important. The remarks follow: Remarks of Beth Macy When a friend of mine, a writer who is in her 80s, heard I was going to give a speech about having been a Pell grant recipient, her first reaction was to joke: ``Don't do it,'' she said ``Unless they promise to forgive any outstanding loan payments.'' And then she said: ``You always hear about Fulbrights, but nobody ever says how much they appreciated their Pell grants.'' That was my thought exactly. And it has been my thought since the day I realized just how much the Pell grant has done for me and thousands of other people like me. They say the G.I. bill changed America; that thousands of people became the first in their families to go to college, turning education from an elites-only business to a more democratic enterprise. Well, the Pells did the same thing a little later and went deeper, helping more women and minorities than the G.I. bill did. And I say this to you unequivocally because I believe it: Had I not gone to college, I don't think I'd have any of the things I treasure most today--my husband, my sons, my friends, my work, even my psychological well-being. I am not a rich person now, by any means. I drive a used Volvo station wagon with 122,000 miles. My husband drives to the inner-city school where he works in a 1986 Mustang convertible--with a roof that leaks every time it rains. We live in a three-bedroom, four-square house in Roanoke, Virginia, with questionable floor joists and cranky plumbing. The house was built in 1927, the same year my mother was born. Both my house and my mother have character, as they say of things that charm you and annoy you and sometimes make you laugh. My mother was too poor to go to college, and my father dropped out of school in the seventh grade. He told me once that serving as a cook in World War II was the best thing he'd ever done, but he came home from the war to a life of alcoholism, depression and scattered employment. My three older siblings--whose early-adult years predate the founding of the Pell grant--didn't go to college, either; they didn't even consider it. It was just not something people in our family did. I don't want to give you the impression that we grew up hungry or physically abused; we didn't. But we were afflicted with the most serious side effect of growing up poor: the inability to dream. We felt inferior to the kind of people who took vacations and drove cars that started every time. A few years ago I was reminded of how small my world used to be before I went away to college. My husband and I were driving my 16-year-old niece, who lives in Ohio, to our house in Virginia--on her first trip across state lines. We stopped in Charleston, West Virginia, to refuel the car and our bellies, when Sara removed her requisite teenage earphones, bolted upright in her seat and gasped, ``You mean they have McDonald's here, too?!'' Today I teach personal-essay and memoir writing as an adjunct instructor at Hollins University. I also teach freshman comp and remedial writing part-time at our community college. When any of my students complain that their stories aren't worthy of the written word--or that nothing significant has happened to them--I have them make a list of the defining moments in their lives. To find your plot, I tell them, try to think of one event in your life that has fundamentally changed the way you think and act. This is mine: I am riding through the flat cornfields of Northwest Ohio on my way to Bowling Green State University. I am in my mom's rusting Mustang, which is packed to the roof with stolen milk crates and cheap suitcases containing my life's belongings: my clothes and books, my Neil Young album collection and my beloved stuffed Ziggy. The year is 1986, and I am 18 years old. I have never seen the beach, nor written a check, nor spent the night any farther from home than Mary Beth Buxton's house on the outskirts of town. As we drive, there are thousands of station wagons packed with thousands of suitcases; thousands of grinding stomachs converging on universities across the country. As we drive, I'm certain that I'm the only college freshman who fears getting lost, not making any friends, failing courses, being shipped back home. And I know I'm the only one arriving on campus with a lucky buckeye from my Grandma Macy's tree in the pocket of my brand-new too-blue jeans. Courage, as defined by Emerson: having the guts to do the thing you've never done before. The one time I drove off the city-pool high dive, I land flat on my belly. They said you could hear the smack at the tennis courts a quarter-mile away. Sure, I tried something new, but I never climbed that ladder again. In my mom's Mustang, my heart soars and plummets with every mile crossed. I'm excited that I just might break into the ranks of the Official Middle Class, but I fear being found out as the impostor I believe I am. I consider asking my mom to turn around and take me home, but for the life of me I can't even talk. Courage, as defined by me: having the guts to dive in over and over again, until the belly flop becomes a perfect plunge. I climbed back up the high-dive ladder the day I went to college. But I couldn't have done it without the Pell grant, which paid my tuition. To cover room and board, I worked two, sometimes three jobs at a time, and I received several National Direct Student Loans. This is why last year, on my first night of teaching--after working as a journalist for 12 years and earning a master's degree in creative writing at Hollins--the following people inspired me: Sandy and Teree, sisters who both drive school buses and dream of earning associate's business degrees so they can help their truck-driver husbands start their own company; Amy, a single mom who spoke of what it was like to be diagnosed as having ADD (at age 30) and, with the help of medicine, finally being able to THINK; Charles, who'd recently moved to Virginia from a drug-treatment center in Connecticut, ready to try life without drugs; Beth, mother of four, who said she came to college because she doesn't want her kids to grow up thinking she's stupid; And Randy, a mechanic who came to class without first washing his greasy hands. For our first in-class exercise, Randy wrote about the best job he'd ever had, in construction. His ideas were developed, his examples full of detail. But he didn't have a single period or comma on the page. He said he had no idea where to place a period. ``If I get me a computer,'' he asked, ``won't that put in all the periods for me?'' Randy wasn't exactly Hemingway by the semester's end, but he did know how to punctuate a sentence. He came to every class early, stayed late and never missed dropping by during office hours to show me his work. He improved more than any student I've ever taught, and I'm told he's still in school--plugging away at ``The Great Gatsby'' and ``Once More to the Lake'' after his eight- hour shift fixing cars. He wants to buy his own business, too, and I believe some day he will. He was one of several who stayed late that first night to get me to sign his Pell Grant form. I know there are people who like to bash Pell grant recipients. About 10 years ago, on our way to cover a newspaper story, a photojournalist friend and I were riding in a company car, when the subject of lost loves and old boyfriends reared its ugly head. The daughter of a doctor, my friend confided that she still pines over one ex-beau in particular--but added that he was not worthy of her angst, on account of, as she put it: ``He was a total loser. I mean, he went to college on a Pell grant.'' Back then I was too ashamed of my roots to confront that kind of elitism, so I stewed and said nothing. But a few months ago at a teaching conference I attended, a colleague made a similar comment. He said that most of his Pell students are slackers; that they take advantage of government hand-outs; that they don't have what it takes to make it in a white-collar world. This time I could not keep quiet. I told him that most of my Pell students are even more driven than my middle- and upper-class students, with a lot more riding on the success of their papers than a letter grade or the refinement of their creative-writing skills. Most of my Pell students are working toward not only a degree and a decent job, but also a fundamental shift in the direction of their lives. They want to worry not about paying the bills, but about whether their kids are more suited to playing soccer or the violin. When you're mired in poverty's problems, you don't have the luxury of worrying about basic ``quality of life''; it wouldn't occur to you to even use that phrase. I am not rich now by any means. But most of the time I am happy, and I am productive, and I am not ashamed. I thank you, Senator Pell, for your gift of education--on behalf of myself, my students and all the rest of the people out there who might yet get a shot at a life better than the one they were born into.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I want to say thank you to the Senator from Oregon, because without him we would have had a much more difficult time. It was bipartisan from the start, and it ended up very bipartisan. We ended up, I think, with a 98 to 1 vote. Also, Mr. Frist, I am going to use 30 seconds, and then allow those who wish to speak longer to do so. I want to express my particular gratitude to all the members of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, who have worked especially hard on this legislation. I very much value the time, effort, and commitment they have brought to this task. I would also like to acknowledge the two sponsors of the Ed-Flex bill, Senators Frist and Wyden. It is in large part due to their dedication and commitment that we were able to pass this bill with such overwhelming bipartisan support. Finally, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to the many staff people who contributed to the passage of this important Ed-Flex legislation: Sherry Kaiman, Mark Powden, Jenny Smulson, Heidi Scheuermann and Susan Hattan of my staff; Townsend Lange and Denzel McGuire with Senator Gregg; Lori Meyer, Meredith Medley, and Gus Puryear with Senator Frist; Paul Palagyi with Senator DeWine; Chad Calvert with Senator Enzi: Holly Kuzmich with Senator Hutchinson; Julian Hayes with Senator Collins; Cherie Harder with Senator Brownback; Jim Brown with Senator Hagel; and Jim Hirni with Senator Sessions. I also want to acknowledge the extraordinary assistance offered by Mark Sigurski with Senate Legislative Counsel, and Wayne Riddle with the Congressional Research Service. Mr. President, I also thank all of the staff here who have worked so many hours to expeditiously pass this legislation. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. FRIST addressed the Chair.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. WYDEN addressed the Chair.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to consideration of the House companion measure, Calendar No. 37, H.R. 800, and, further, after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 280, as amended, be inserted in lieu thereof. I further ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage of the bill, as amended. Finally, I ask consent that immediately following that vote, the Senate insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and S. 280 be placed back on the Calendar.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I move to table the Wellstone amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. There appears to be a sufficient second.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet for a hearing on ``What Works: Education Research'' during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 10, 1999, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, today the Senate will resume consideration of S. 280, the education flexibility partnership bill. The leader would like to announce that negotiations are ongoing between the two sides in an effort to complete action on this important legislation. However, until an agreement has been reached, the Senate will continue consideration of the Ed-Flex bill, as outlined in yesterday's unanimous consent agreement. Pursuant to that order, the time until 1 p.m. will be equally divided for debate on the bill and, at the conclusion of that debate time, the Senate will proceed to two back-to-back rollcall votes. The first vote will be on the motion to invoke cloture on the Kennedy-Murray motion to recommit and, assuming that fails, a second vote will occur on a motion to invoke cloture on the Jeffords-Lott IDEA amendment. Following those votes, and if an agreement has been reached, all Members will be notified of the remaining schedule for today's session. I thank my colleagues for their attention, and I yield the floor.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First, I want to discuss very briefly the Boxer amendment. Back in 1993, I offered--and it was endorsed in 1994, when we were reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--the basic amendment that Senator Boxer is talking about. We called it the 21st Century Schools at the time, though it was only minutely funded. This past year, the President decided that was a good program. He put $200 million into the program and I deeply appreciate this acknowledgment that it was a good program. Thus, we are talking about something which I agree with and that Congress did back in 1994. The time to review it, however, is when we're reviewing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which has already begun with hearings and will continue. So the concept is one that is acknowledged by everyone as being important. The need for remedial education has increased dramatically, and the way that can be addressed is through afterschool programs. When we get to this issue later in the year, at the proper time, I will be endorsing the concept and welcoming amendments from either side to make the initiative more consistent with the current needs. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, first, let me review for a little bit where we are. As the Senator from Washington pointed out, we have on the floor, an alternative to what would be provided in the Murray amendment. Schools would be able to have some flexibility on the expenditure of money that intended for schools, if they want, to add more teachers--the new teachers are in the President's new 100,000 teachers program. First, I will point out some of the problems with the President's program as it is presently drafted. The guidelines have just come out on it, and they still don't seem to cure this problem. I was on a national press hookup this morning, and at least two States who were on that hookup--Wyoming and North Dakota--have already reached the goal of 18 children per classroom. They would not, under the current guidelines, be able to use the money for what they want to use it, professional development. Vermont is in that same category. The 100,000 new teachers program would affect states differently, and some states would not benefit at all from. Those are just two problems with it. That is why we have the option I suggested, which is in amendment form. We will have a chance to vote on it. It would say that you would have the option of using these funds--which will be substantial; in many cases, $1.2 billion is involved--toward reaching the commitment we made back in 1975 and 1976, to provide 40 percent of the funding for special education. We are down to less than 10 percent at this point. The chart behind me shows that very well. The orange in that chart is what we should be paying to the schools across the Nation for special education assistance, and we are not. In addition to that, a recent Supreme Court decision has said that schools must not only take care of the educational aspects, but they must also take care of the medical aspects of a child who needs medical assistance in the schoolhouse. That is going to add hundreds of millions of dollars more in special education costs, I would guess, in the years ahead, and probably even this year. To refresh people's memory, the agreement on the $1.2 billion, 100,000 teacher proposal happened in the wee hours of final passage of the bill, and I was not present. If I had been present, I certainly would have fought at that time what they did in the language of it. What we are trying to do is make sure the communities would have the option of using that money to defer some of their cost of special education, and then have other funds freed up to provide the kinds of changes or money expenditures they need. The amendment proposed by Senator Lott yesterday offers what I have been talking about. I believe it would be a good middle ground between those of us who are urging that we live up to our promises with respect to IDEA funding, and those who think we should undertake a massive new effort to hire teachers for local schools. The Lott amendment essentially permits local school officials to decide whether they need more money to educate children with disabilities, or whether they need to hire additional teachers. From what I am hearing from Vermont teachers, IDEA funding is the first, second, and third issue raised with me about education when I visit the State. We are fortunate in Vermont to have already achieved the small class sizes the President is trying to promote with his teacher hiring program. Reducing class size further is not a priority at this time. Meeting the needs of children with disabilities is. This is what is hampering our local schools from doing the things they need to do. We would like very much to see the flexibility include such things--which are a priority--as the ability of our teachers to be given additional training so they can perform better in the classroom. I realize that some localities in other areas may hold a different view. They could use their portion of $1.2 billion to hire teachers. The point is that it should be their choice, not ours. In listening to the debate over the past several days, one might get the impression that hiring more teachers is the silver bullet. Clearly, that is not the case. What is missing in the discussion is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. I think it is common sense that the most important aspect of teaching is to have a teacher that is a good teacher. The classroom size can go down to 10, but if the teacher is a lousy teacher, you are not going to have much quality education. On the other hand, if you have a qualified teacher, whether the class size is 18 or 20 or 23, you will have quality education. The size is not going to make much difference. When I was growing up, our average class size was about 30, and I had good teachers. The biggest problem is making sure that we have professionally qualified teachers. In the last Congress, during the process of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, there was a great deal of concern about the quality of our teachers and the effectiveness of the various programs that existed to address these concerns. We thought that the programs that had never been utilized, or were not effective, could be changed to take care of what is the primary need of the Nation. This need is the need for fully qualified teachers--not only qualified in teaching, but in knowing what the standards are that have to be met. They must know how we can move kids into a situation where they have the math standards essential to perform in the international markets, and where the young people graduate from high school ready for jobs that pay $10, $15 an hour. We don't have that kind of thing in most areas of the country. In hearings on that subject, I believe every member of our committee expressed grave concerns that the quality of teaching was not at the levels to ensure that our students meet educational goals. As part of the higher education bill, we included an entire title devoted to teacher quality. And because we were dealing with higher education, we focused largely on the training of future teachers. I believe we developed a very positive and comprehensive approach for dealing with that issue. Another issue along those lines that we have to look at, is what we can do in the higher education areas to make sure the colleges and the universities that have teacher colleges understand the changes that are necessary to ensure that when they graduate people from the education departments, they are qualified teachers. I have examined many, many of the programs for teacher scholarships that are in existence and have found that they are missing a lot of important information for young people who are graduating. These graduates will be our teachers for the next century, and they really don't have the kind of education they should have to graduate and be a good teacher, a professional teacher, one who is qualified to go into the classroom. We have a lot to do in that regard. The money would be much better spent there, than it would be spent on classroom size. The place to do that, however, is in the context of the elementary and secondary education authorization, not piecemeal as we are doing now on the Senate floor. Until we get a better handle on the teacher quality issue, we are making a big mistake by sending local officials out to look for more teachers. Where are they going to come from? Are they going to be good teachers? And, are they going to have a classroom? If you have 100,000 new teachers, where are they going to teach? That is a question that has not been answered. If you suddenly reduce the class sizes, you have to have someplace to put the students who are pushed out of the existing classrooms. You have to have classrooms to put them in. On Monday, it was suggested that the first question a parent asks of his or her child is, Who was in your class? I would suggest that the first question is, Who is teaching your class? If a locality has a plentiful supply of unemployed quality teachers and lacks only the funds to hire them, that locality will find the Class Size Reduction Program to be beneficial. If that is not the case, those funds will be put to much better use by supporting existing efforts to educate special education students. If, in the context of the ESEA reauthorization, we determine that helping to hire teachers is an important component of the overall approach to supporting teaching, then we can do that. I hope, if we do that, that we proceed in a thoughtful way to work through the real needs of schools and students. The 100,000 teacher program does not now adequately address the differences in needs of local schools around the country. Some schools may need more professionals while others need more professional development. I would say it is much more of the latter than the former. In the meantime, let's take Senator Lott's suggestion to allow schools to choose how they spend these funds made available for fiscal year 1999, the $1.2 billion. It is not too late to make this option available. Guidance on teacher hiring programs has been available for less than a week, and funds will not be provided until July. Mr. President, let me again go over the basic problem we have here. First, we had a wonderful bipartisan relationship last year. It really makes me sad to think that has broken down on the first education bill we have taken up this year. Last year we passed 10 good, sound, education bills out of my committee. They are now in operation, and we are looking toward improvement, even though we still have the appropriations fight to go through this year. But, we worked in a way, last year, that benefited all of us. We shared our ideas and worked them out in the committee. This year, this Ed-Flex bill was voted out of committee 10-to-1. The Democrats chose not to be present when it was voted out, and that is fine, because there didn't seem to be any conflict in it. It was basically the same bill we had voted out of committee 17 to 1 last year. So I thought, fine, that is all right; they have other things to do. But now this has turned into what is basically, I think, a political demonstration project to get political advantage by proposing various amendments to this bill. These amendments should be taken care of not on the Senate floor right now, but through the normal committee process, during the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which we are already in the process of holding hearings on. We must examine each one of the programs that have been addressed. They should not be placed on this Ed-Flex bill and bypass the committee process. Certainly we have to worry about the issue after school programs. That is an incredibly important issue. The proposal in the amendment of the Senator from California, is a program that I put into the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA. Perhaps the program needs to be modified-- although it is a pretty good program right now--to take care of the changing demands upon our educational system. However, that should be done during the reauthorization of ESEA, and there shouldn't be much controversy over it. The President has already endorsed it and has added funds to it, making it a substantially better program as far as funding goes. And through the reauthorization of ESEA, we will just improve it to make sure it is better as far as handling our young people. The others are also all worth taking a look at. I certainly agree that we have to end ``social promotion.'' That is a term that has just recently come into use. Let me explain a little bit about where that term came from. Literacy studies have shown that 51 percent of the young people we graduate from our high schools are functionally illiterate. That is a disaster. You ask any businessman. A potential employee says, ``Why don't you want to look at my diploma?'' The businessman says, ``It doesn't mean anything. I don't even know if you can do ordinary math or reading.'' So that is the social promotion that we have to end. We have to make sure that every child who graduates from high school meets certain standards or they don't get a diploma. That makes common sense. There are other amendments being offered which also ought to be considered, but they ought to be considered in the normal committee process, not just for purposes of politics, or whatever else. I am, though, encouraged to learn from the leadership that we have, apparently come to an agreement, which will be expressed in the not- too-distant future. This will give us the opportunity to get on with the educational situation by passing the basic bill, the Ed-Flex bill. And we may agree on some amendments to be offered, and we will vote on those. So I am hopeful that before the afternoon is finished we will have the opportunity to move forward on this bill, and then get back to discussing education in the committee room, within the context of the ESEA reauthorization, where we should be, instead of on the Senate floor. Mr. President, I am now going to read a message from the leader, if that is all right. For the information of all Senators, negotiations are ongoing, and we are very close to an agreement with respect to the overall Education- Flexibility bill. Having said that, the agreement would be vitiated on the scheduled cloture vote. But that agreement has not been fully cleared by all interested parties. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent, on behalf of the leader, that the pending vote scheduled to occur at 1 p.m. be postponed until 1:30 p.m.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I then will continue to go forward and hope that maybe we are coming to an end. It s not that I don't like being on the Senate floor continuously day after day, starting in the morning and ending at night, but there are other things on my own schedule that sometimes suffer. Hopefully, we can reach agreement. Again, the status of our educational system is what we are talking about here generally. Hopefully, with this agreement, we will get back to an orderly process to examine the needs of this Nation. Let me reflect again, as I have before, upon the status of education in this country and why we are concerned about it. Back in 1983, under the Reagan administration, Secretary Bell at that time did an examination of our educational system and compared it with our international competitors. He took a look at where we stood with respect to our young people graduating from high school, and also those graduating from skilled training schools, and determined that we were way, way behind our international competitors--the Asian and European communities. In fact, the commission that was set up to do the examination was so disturbed that they issued this proclamation. To paraphrase, they said, if a foreign nation had imposed upon us the educational system that we had at that time we would have declared it an act of war. Well, we still have that education system. You would think that a tremendous change would have occurred, but it hasn't. I am on the goals panel, and we meet once a year to determine whether or not our schools have improved. Most recently, we took a look at the situation last year to see what had happened to improve our educational prowess and standards relative to the rest of the world. What we determined was there has been no measurable improvement since 1983. That was 15 years ago. We have not improved. That cannot continue, and that is why we are here today and will be working on this as we move forward. As shocking as that revelation was, we found that the only data we had to measure whether there had been improvement was 1994 data. We do not even have a system which will provide us with current data to show us whether we have any improvement or not. That is a terrible situation. We cannot even measure our performance to determine whether or not we have had any improvement. Hopefully, as we move forward, that situation will be taken care of in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. A primary focus of what I will be doing this year, in order to address the situation, is to thoroughly review the Department of Education. Mr. President, $15 billion is spent on elementary and secondary education, and it seems to me that one of the primary focuses of the Department of Education should be to find out whether we are improving. Does this program or that program work or not? Are the young people are influenced by this or not? Yet, with $15 billion, we have not been able to determine whether or not anything is happening. We have important changes to make in the Department of Education. We have to take a look at where our priorities are and take a look at where the $260 million is spent on research. I am frustrated as chairman of the committee to think at this point in time that we are spending all this money and we do not know whether the programs we have been using work or not. If we can't find out with $260 million whether our educational system is improving, we better take a good look at our research programs. That is one thing we will be looking at on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It is certainly going to be an interesting year, and I am hopeful that in the next 25 minutes we will find that there has been an agreement that will allow us to go forward in an orderly process. Now, back to our educational system and the problems we have with it. To refresh the memories of Members as to what this means to our future, we have had terrible problems with finding young people with the skills necessary for this Nation to compete in the world. In fact, we are so short that we have somewhere around 500,000 jobs out there available that are not being filled. Actually, that is down somewhat, I should say. We made a significantly downward push. But why? How? By changing the immigration laws to bring in more people from foreign nations who have the skills to come in and help our businesses compete. That is not the way it should be happening. We should not be looking toward amending immigration laws to supply our businesses with the skilled workers they need to meet the demands of the present-day jobs. This is another area that is of deep concern to me. Several years ago, we set up a skills panel to establish standards to measure whether we were meeting the goals of our industry. I do not know how long ago that was, but it has been many years. We have yet to establish even one standard. Obviously, we have a long way to go if we are going to meet the needs of our businesses. The first thing we have to do--and I know the President endorses this also--is make sure that every student who graduates from high school is functionally literate and not functionally illiterate, as the studies show, and that is a big charge. We do have some things that are good news, though. Although, unfortunately, there is usually bad news connected with that good news. The good news is, we have all sorts of technology which has been developed over the years with various programs. The bad news is that these programs started to become available in the midseventies, and we are not yet in a position to determine how they could be better utilized in our school systems. You can also utilize software in your home computer where you can learn simple elementary math, algebra, and calculus by yourself if you want to. All of these things have been available for over 20 years, but they are not readily available, nor are they in any way coordinated in their use in our school systems. My own kids have caught up on matters by having it available to them individually. However, there is no coordination nor evaluation connected to the utilization of that technology in assisting young people who are having a difficult time or want to go ahead of their class in understanding calculus or other high standards of math, there is no coordination nor evaluation. I was at a conference recently in Florida where the technology people came in, and I was able to talk with them. There are wonderful programs out there, but there is no evaluation system, not even in the industry itself, to determine what works and what does not work. We have all of these wonderful programs--AT&T has a good one and many companies do-- and they are available, but there is no assessment of them. There is no evaluation of whether, one, an individual benefits from it; or, two, whether it can be used on a broad basis or how to fit it into the classroom to make sure the young people will be able to take advantage of this technology. That is another thing we have to look at with the ESEA reauthorization: First, how can we set up a situation where we can evaluate these programs? And second, how can we make sure that, in the afterschool area, we have programs available that will allow our young people to catch up and move ahead? I see the sponsor of the bill is present on the Senate floor. I congratulate him for the introduction of this bill and the hard work he has put into it. He has helped move it forward. I am sure he shares with me the glimmer of hope which will burst forth with a resolution to this problem. I yield to the Senator from Tennessee such time as he may need.

Mr. JEFFORDS

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Alabama.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we want to check with our leadership on this side.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, it is my understanding that under the previous unanimous consent order that the amendments should be offered at this time.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I offer an amendment on behalf of Senator Lott on the IDEA/choice amendment.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Does the Senator intend to offer an amendment this afternoon?

Mr. JEFFORDS. I appreciate that information.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I would like to proceed to explain very briefly the position that we will have on the amendments that have been offered here. This is an agreement, unanimous consent agreement, that was made to enable us to get through this bill. And I appreciate all those that have entered into this agreement. I would like to explain to my colleagues, however, that because these are all--these two that are being talked about right now, the school report card and the ending of social promotion, are both amendments within the purview of the committee dealing with elementary and secondary education. It is my intention to listen very carefully and carry forward the information that is provided on these until such time as we are marking up the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. However, it will be my procedure, in order to have an orderly hearing process in going ahead on these matters, to probably table the amendment of the Senator from California. But I do understand and believe that a great deal of what she says, if not all, is very relevant to our educational system but should be done in the orderly committee process. I want to make that clear so everybody understands when we vote on these things it is because they should be done in the proper order under an orderly committee process. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. JEFFORDS. Do we have a copy of the amendment?

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I believe I was asked a question. I would be happy to answer. I prefer that the Senator finish his presentation.

Mr. JEFFORDS. I will wait until the Senator finishes. I yield the floor. (Mr. SESSIONS assumed the Chair.)

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, how much time do I have?

Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the previous agreement with respect to the Ed-Flex bill be modified to allow 1 hour of the 5-hour debate limitation to be used on Thursday prior to the vote with respect to the pending amendment, and, further, that hour of reserved time be equally divided.