Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield additional time from the opposition, although I know the Senator is in favor of the proposal. How much time does the Senator desire?

Mr. KENNEDY. This will be a lost opportunity for millions of children if we fail to provide the investments in the future of our country. Isn't that what this is about, trying to make sure children will have the ability to read, to do basic math? Does the Senator agree, we have a good blueprint, but we are reaching only so many children, and without further investment, we are failing to meet the opportunity out there; if we fund those programs and invest, it is a landmark achievement?

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam 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. KENNEDY. Madam President, I thank Senators Wyden and Sessions and others for bringing this amendment to the attention of the Senate. In a few moments, I will urge that the Senate accept the amendment. I want to mention to the two sponsors a very interesting program we had in Boston last summer that was a result of the leadership provided by the Federal Reserve in Boston and the PIC and Tom Payzant, who is the superintendent of schools. What they did is provide, with the summer employment program of the mayors, 2 hours of reading for a 6- week period to students who the principles of various schools thought would have difficulty with what they call the MCAS, which is our sort of NAEP test, the principal test that is given statewide and the child cannot graduate unless that child is going to pass the test. They had some 260 students who were involved in that program. The average progress that was made was 1.7 years. No student advanced less than a year, and many of them were at least 2 years or above. It was the combination of the school system working, in this case, with the PIC, which is a combination of the industries, in this case in Boston, really one of the best of the PICs that exist not only in our State but in the country, really outstanding leaders in the business community, the labor community, the education community, and the school system. They made it an objective to try to take the summer employment program and add the educational component to it. This year they are going to have it for 460 students. That might not be the best one even for Springfield, MA, let alone for Seattle or Portland but, nonetheless, it is working. It is an innovative and creative way of trying to develop an education program that is also an employment program where in many instances these children need the employment in the summer as well as the educational program. As I understand, you have sufficient flexibility in the development of this program to try to sort of challenge local communities to find ways in which you can enhance academic achievement in the course of the summer program. At least in Boston it works very well. I was in a plane just last week talking to one of the stewardesses whose family was located in North Carolina. The child was in one of the early grades and had not quite done as well as they should, just missed narrowly, and only had 5 days of a summer program. But the parents were very supportive of it. The child was rather excited about it because they were going to get caught up to the rest of the class. The summer programs are here to stay, hopefully in ways that are going to reach out to children at the lower levels as well as children moving through the middle schools and high schools. One of the things I find most appealing is the good amendment you pointed out to try to find out what is happening out there across the country, what is working, what is demonstrating good results. The summer is really going to be a key time in terms of helping children. The last point I will make is that in looking at the country and trying to enhance education accomplishment, most educators would say, particularly for children who are hard-pressed, that the summer interlude is a dangerous time. Children fall behind. A lot of it is that they are sort of moving along, gradually making some progress. Then they run into the summertime, and they fall behind again; they have to start over again. So this summer period--trying to find ways in which they can have effective programs so children who may be behind a little bit can catch up, get some advantage, retain the knowledge they may have gained, get some advantage in making up for perhaps some other area of need--makes them better prepared in the next full period. All of this deserves our thought. The good amendment is going to help us do some important work in this area. I thank the two Senators for their initiative and those the good Senators have referenced for their help as well. If there is no further comment, I ask, what is the question before the Senate at the present time?

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

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we will in a moment have an opportunity to listen to the Senator from Louisiana on a very important amendment, but I want to add my voice of support for Senator Bond's amendment, the Parents as Teachers Program, to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. One of the things we have tried to do in this legislation is encourage efforts that are taking place locally that have demonstrated success. Parents as Teachers has been an enormous success in my State of Massachusetts. I was not here when Senator Bond commented favorably about the programs in Massachusetts. I am grateful for his recognition of those programs. I underline to my colleagues how valuable and important these programs are and what a difference they make to so many children in this country. We have 20 programs in Massachusetts, as Senator Bond has mentioned, and they provide training and support to new mothers. We need to take advantage of the potential for learning during a child's early years, whether it is part of Head Start or a stand-alone program. This program gives families the support they need to help the children meet their true potential. As we have seen in the most recent studies by the Academy of Sciences this last year about a child's development in the very early years, this is a time of enormous potential, encouraging development of the brain and also character that will suit them in academic achievements. The Carnegie Commission studies in this area are enormously powerful and persuasive, the basis of some of the work that has been done to encourage Congress to support the early learning programs which were adopted last year. We have seen the results in support of the Head Start Program. It only spends a small fraction of its money on this kind of support, but there have been very important results. The Early Start Program, which is the first 3 years of Head Start, only has about 10 or 12 percent of the total Head Start Program funding. Again, it is very limited. Nonetheless, the benefits that come from it are profound. This program is one I am hopeful can be replicated not only in my State but around the country because it has a very dramatic impact on the children and has a very positive impact on the parents as well. It well deserves our support and inclusion in the bill. As has been pointed out by my colleague and friend, Senator Frist, this is not a new program; it is one that has been out there working and has very broad support. We encourage it. We hope other communities will take advantage of it and that the children will be the beneficiaries. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Amendment No. 475 to Amendment No. 358

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 15 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. Those amendments are: Senator Wellstone's on family information centers, Senators Bingaman and Hutchison's on school security, Senator Stevens' on cultural exchange, Senator Landrieu's on Close-up, Senator Campbell's on senior opportunities. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the amendment of Senator Landrieu, Senator Lieberman, and Senator DeWine. We have title I grant discrepancies for two reasons. The first is legitimate. The second is a reflection of insufficient funds. Each State receives a different title I grant because it has different numbers of poor children and different per pupil expenditures. Since 1965, we have keyed the title I formula to the number of poor children in a State multiplied by State per pupil expenditure. The use of the per pupil expenditure is intended to reflect the different costs of education in different States and is intended to encourage States to increase their own education spending. Those are worthy policies that we have had for many years. The reason we see discrepancies within the States is that districts have a great deal of flexibility in determining per child grants. Districts have to serve schools in rank order of poverty. So it goes through the States and then to the districts, and then they have to distribute funds on the rank order of poverty. But they can limit the size of the grants to serve many schools that are eligible. Low poverty districts often have only one or two eligible schools. Those schools see all of a district's title I money, and have large per child grants accordingly. High-poverty large districts often have many schools eligible for title I funds, and these high-poverty districts often spread out their title I money among many eligible schools. Those schools, accordingly, see small per child grants. I support the pending amendment to target limited funds. But the best thing we can do is to grow the total title I pot of funding so that districts do not have to spread limited funding among many poor schools. That is the bottom line. There are four different formulas for title I. There are the basic grants, concentration grants, targeted grants, and education finance grants. They all have different bases for support--they benefit different numbers of poor children in different States and in different communities. There is great flexibility within the local school districts and the amounts they are going to give per school. Therefore, you have the kinds of disparities we have heard talked about this afternoon. The way to address that is to do what the Senate has done, and that is to support full funding for the title I program. When you have full funding of the title I program, these kinds of aberrations, as the two Senators pointed out, don't exist. That is the best way to do it; otherwise, poor children will be fighting over scraps. We have the resources to address this issue. The Senate is on record supporting full funding of title I. I am strongly in support of that program. As I have pointed out, we have a good bill. It is not the bill I would have written. It is not the bill I am sure my colleagues, Senator Frist, Senator Gregg, and others would have written, or the President would have written, but it is a good bill. It can make an important difference for the children who are going to benefit from it. The fact is though that only a third of the children are going to benefit from this legislation because of the current level of insufficient funding. I have behind me a chart which indicates increases in the ESEA budget since 1994. The ESEA is inclusive of the title I program. This chart reflects from 1994 to the year 2001. During the previous administration, we had a 8.6-percent increase in the ESEA budget, but under President Bush it is 3.6 percent. If we look at it more closely, under the Administration's budget, in the outyears--2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010--there is virtually no increase. It is flat funded. There will not be an increase of funding for these needs. We are still going to have these extraordinary disparities. We can remedy that with the funding which this Senate has gone on record in a bipartisan way to support. The next chart shows under the Title I program, which is part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, there are 3.7 million children who are going to be reached, out of 10.3 million eligible poor children. In fiscal year 2008, under the President's budget, it is 3.7 million. I do not know what happened to the pledge of leaving no child behind. The Senator from Louisiana, in her excellent presentation, pointed out the number of children who are being left behind in those schools, as did the Senator from Ohio as well. Under the bipartisan amendment offered by Senator Dodd and Senator Collins, which was accepted in fiscal year 2002, we move up the number of children served to 5.7 million. We have important reforms, and we have important accountability--accountability for the schools, teachers, students, parents, accountability within the community, and we provide that for 5.7 million children. We do state that at the time of the expiration of this legislation in the fiscal year 2008, no child will be left behind. Every one of those children who are missing out will be covered under the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana and the Senator from Ohio. They will be able to get supplementary services and inclusion in summer school programs. They will have the opportunity of attending perhaps another public school if that is necessary. They will be able to go to afterschool programs and get supplementary services. That is under the proposal we have. This is a question of resources. I believe we have a strong bill that can benefit the children for the reasons I have tried to outline. For many schools across this country that need it, there will be assistance with improvements. We are going to have reconstitution of schools where necessary. We have had a good debate and have taken strong action to make sure the evaluations of our children are going to be effective. I have one more chart, and this illustrates what is happening in title I schools. The best estimate from the Education Commission of the States is that 10,000 schools at the present time are failing schools. Under the Bush budget, 2,440 of those schools will have some relief. The average cost of turning schools around has been estimated at about $180,000. Some do it for less. I have some examples. I will come back to those later in the debate. Some have required more. This is the best judgment about what will be necessary. We are saying we ought to use $1.8 billion of the $6.4 billion increase for which this Senate has voted and turn the 10,000 schools around. We can do it. We know how to do it. The difference today is we know what works. We know how to educate children. We know what to do, and we know how to give them the support they need. This legislation is crafted to create a sense of expectation for those children, to give them the support so they can reach that expectation, to give them the best trained teachers and modern curriculum, support for supplementary services, afterschool programs, new technology--all of those together is what we are committing. We have a good bill which also includes funding for meeting our responsibilities for special needs children under IDEA. We have an opportunity to address the very tragic circumstances the Senator from Louisiana has outlined in her excellent presentation, and the unfair circumstances and the disparities about which the Senator from Ohio talked. We have a way of doing it with the targeted resources for the new money. We can do it in that way, and I certainly support using additional resources and targeting the way her amendment has been devised. But still even with that, we ought to be prepared to make the commitment to the children of this country that no child is going to be left behind. That is what I thought the President wanted in his statement on education and what we can do. With the passage of this legislation fully funded, we address the challenge the Senators from Louisiana and Ohio have put before us. We include funding for IDEA which will make the difference in local communities that are hard pressed to provide for the special needs children. Over the next 5 to 7 years, the progress we have seen in local communities that utilize what we have included in this legislation will result in an important upgrading of the educational capabilities for the neediest children in this country. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for bringing this to our attention. No one can look at the illustrations the Senator presented and not believe this is grossly unfair. Also, no one can listen to the Senator from Louisiana talk about the progress that is being made in these classrooms when children are given the support they need, which they ought to receive, which we can do, but which they are being denied because we are not giving the funding. We will miss an extraordinary opportunity if we fail to respond in a positive way to the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana and to the broader issue raised by her amendment, and that is the funding for title I and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, first of all, we are in a position to clear amendments by consent. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for these amendments to be considered en bloc, that any modifications, where applicable, be agreed to, the amendments be agreed to en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc.

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

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I strongly support S. 994, which would extend the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act for 5 years. Current U.S. law imposes economic sanctions on foreign companies that invest in Libya's oil sector, but those sanctions expire on August 5th. The need for the sanctions is as strong today as when they were enacted in 1996. They deserve to be extended. Easing sanctions on Libya by allowing the law to expire would have a far-reaching negative effect on the battle against international terrorism and the twelve-year pursuit of justice for the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Current law requires the President to impose at least 2 out of 6 sanctions listed in the statute on foreign companies that invest more than $20 million in 1 year in Iran's energy sector, or $40 million in 1 year in Libya's energy sector. The 6 sanctions are the following: (1) Denial of Export-Import Bank loans, credits, or credit guarantees for U.S. exports to the firm. (2) Denial of licenses for the U.S. export of military or militarily- useful technology to the firm. (3) Denial of U.S. bank loans exceeding $10 million in 1 year to the firm. (4) If the sanctioned firm is a financial institution, a prohibition on the firm's service as a primary dealer in U.S. government bonds; and/or a prohibition on the firm's service as a repository for U.S. government funds. (5) Prohibition on U.S. government procurement from the firm. (6) A restriction on imports from the firm. Under Section 9(c) of current law, the President may waive the sanctions on the ground that doing so is important to the U.S. national interest. For Libya, the law terminates if the President determines that Libya has fulfilled the requirements of all U.N. resolutions relating to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Those conditions, which were imposed by the international community, require the Government of Libya to accept responsibility for the actions of its intelligence officer, disclose information about its involvement in the bombing, provide appropriate compensation for the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103, and fully renounce international terrorism. President Bush has emphasized his support for these conditions. As he stated on April 19, ``We have made it clear to the Libyans that sanctions will remain until such time as they not only compensate for the bombing of the aircraft, but also admit their guilt and express remorse.'' Yet the Government of Libya continues to refuse to meet the conditions of the international community. Until it does, both the United States and the international community should continue to impose sanctions on the regime. Despite the conventional wisdom that economic sanctions do not work, they have been effective in the case of Libya. As a result of the United Nations sanctions, the U.S. sanctions, and diplomatic pressure, the Libyan Government finally agreed in 1999 to a trial by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands of two Libyans indicted for the bombing. Last January 31, one of the defendants, a Libyan intelligence agent, was convicted of murder for that atrocity. The court's decision clearly implicated the Libyan Government. The conviction was a significant diplomatic and legal victory for the world community, for our nation, which was the real target of the terrorist attack, and for the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103. The Iran Libya Sanctions Act is also intended to help level the playing field for American companies, which have been prohibited from investing in Libya by a Presidential Order issued by President Reagan in 1986. The statute enacted in 1996 imposed sanctions on foreign companies that invest more than $40 million in any year in the Libyan energy sector. The objective of the 1996 law is to create a disincentive for foreign companies to invest in Libya and help ensure that American firms are not disadvantaged by the U.S. sanctions. Since the sanctions on U.S. firms will continue, it is essential to extend the sanctions on foreign firms as well. The Administration has indicated that it has no evidence of violations of the law by foreign companies. But some foreign companies are clearly poised to invest substantially in the Libyan petroleum sector, in violation of the law. A German company, Wintershall, is reportedly considering investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the Libyan oil industry. Allowing current law to lapse before the conditions specified by the international community are met would give a green light to foreign companies to invest in Libya, putting American companies at a clear disadvantage. It would reward the leader of Libya, Colonel Qadhafi, for his continuing refusal to comply with the U.N. resolutions. It would set an unwise precedent of disregard for U.N. Security Council Resolutions. It would undermine our ongoing diplomatic efforts in the Security Council to prevent the international sanctions from being permanently lifted until Libya complies with the U.N. conditions. And it would prematurely signal a warming in U.S.-Libyan relations. Our European allies would undoubtedly welcome the expiration of the U.S. sanctions. European companies are eager to increase their investments in Libya, but they do not want to be sanctioned by the United States. They are ready to close the book on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, and open a new chapter in relations with Libya. But the pursuit of justice is not only for American citizens. Citizens of 22 countries were murdered on Pan Am Flight 103, including citizens of many European countries. The current sanctions were enacted on behalf of these citizens as well. Our government should be actively working to persuade European countries that it is premature to rehabilitate Libya. Some have proposed extending the law for two years, rather than five years as our bill proposes. I strongly support a five-year extension. If we reduce the time period, Colonel Qadhafi will have an incentive to continue stonewalling, as he has done since the verdict was announced last January, and wait until the law expires. Extending the law that requires sanctions on foreign companies that invest in Libya for another five years is in both the security interest of the United States and the security interest of the international community. Profits in Libya should not come at the expense of progress against international terrorism and justice for the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I have a package of cleared amendments. I ask unanimous consent it be in order for those amendments to be considered en bloc, any applicable modifications be agreed to, the amendments be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am happy to ask consent for 10 minutes evenly divided, if that is agreeable. This is a very important amendment. Would that be sufficient time? I ask for 10 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as we return to debate on the Dodd-Biden amendment, I want to clarify for Members just what the amendment does and add two points that were not made yesterday. The amendment conditions title I state administration funds--1 percent of total state funds--on a written assurance that ``comparable,'' not identical, essential education services, such as teacher quality and access to technology, are provided across districts. States have up to four years to comply. If a state fails to send a simple written assurance to the Secretary, their administrative funds are withheld. Once a state sends a written assurance, any previously withheld funds are returned. All a state has to do is file a piece of paper. I think the amendment is too modest frankly in not allowing the Secretary to engage in a more searching inquiry into whether the written assurance actually reflects a comparable education being offered. This amendment is still groundbreaking, however. Since 1965, we have required individual school districts to provide a written assurance that they are offering a comparable regular education in title I and non-title I schools. We have never asked states to assure that comparable services are provided among schools in different school districts. This amendment does. Whereas all title I program funds are conditioned on local compliance currently, only title I state administration are conditioned under the Dodd-Biden amendment. There are two additional points, which were not raised yesterday, that I would like to add. First, state after state repeatedly has found itself back in state court because of its failure to provide a comparable educational opportunity across districts. A State Supreme Court orders improvement. Some improvement is made. But then progress quickly erodes. And the parents of poor children have to go back to court. Since 1968, there have been five iterations of the Serrano case in California, six of the Abbott case in New Jersey, and five of the Edgewood case in Texas. This amendment is significant in not just requiring states to provide a comparable opportunity, but in actually reaching into the state's federal pocketbook if it resists. Maybe when there are federal financial consequences for state resistance to State supreme courts, states will do a better job of complying with judicial orders. Second, the Senator from New Hampshire yesterday repeated an old and outdated argument that ``education is not a formula where more dollars equal better results.'' We have known for a long time though that money well spend does make a difference. In fact, the last time we reauthorized ESEA, we had a series of hearings on this issue. We heard as far back as 1993, that increased education spending targeted to critical areas like teacher quality have a profound effect on student achievement. This is what we heard from Dr. Ronald Ferguson of Harvard University after studying teacher quality and student assessment results in every Texas school district. A measure of teachers' literacy skills explains roughly 25 percent of the variation among Texas school districts in students' average reading and math scores on statewide standardized exams. . . . Better literacy skills among teachers, fewer large classes, and more teachers with five or more years experience all predict better [test] scores. Deep down every United States Senator knows what every parent and teacher knows--that resources matter in education. If resources didn't matter, we wouldn't mind sending our children and grandchildren to the poorest schools. If resources didn't matter, people wouldn't fight ``Robin Hood'' plans that equalize spending by taking from the wealthy districts to give to the poor. Now I don't think we should equalize spending down by taking money from some communities and giving it to others. I think we should equalize up by sending more targeted education resources to the communities that are deprived. I hope the President and the other side will join us in that effort to boost education spending overall. Every child deserves a fair chance. I am rather amazed at these statements that are made on the floor about how this undermines the President's initiatives, because to the contrary, this does not interfere with any of the President's initiatives. I think it gives much more life to the President's initiative, because Senator Dodd's amendment is going to encourage States to provide additional focus and attention to the most needy students in the State. That is completely consistent with what the President has stated. I am rather surprised, frankly, by the reaction of our Republican friends because this has been on a list of amendments to be considered for 3 weeks. This is the first amendment about which I have heard our Republican friends indicate we will not get a vote on it. I do not know what kind of signal that sends. It has been on the list for 3 weeks, and 5 minutes ago I heard for the first time the spokesperson for the Republican Party say we are not going to vote on it. I do not know what kind of message that sends in our attempt to try to move this legislation, but it certainly is not a useful one or a constructive one. I ask my friends on the other side to reread the language of the amendment. It says: A State shall be considered to have met the requirements . . . if such State has filed with the Secretary a written assurance that such State has established and implemented policies to ensure comparability among schools . . . . All they have to do is file the statement. This is not like the existing legislation that requires the Secretary to have approval on State tests. That is real power. Or that the Secretary has to approve the State's findings in terms of standards. That is real power. Or the fact the Secretary will make a judgment on a State's application for Straight A's authority. That is real power. Those are decisions that will be made here in Washington. But to confuse that kind of authority and power with the language here is most unfortunate. Why are they so excited about this? I can't understand why they are so excited so early in the morning about this language? All this amendment says is that States have to file a written assurance. That's it. That's compliance. I reiterate that we have had hearings on this issue in the past. We had days of hearings on school finance. The record of those hearings is printed in Senate 103-254. This is not a new concept. This is not a new idea. We have accepted the concept of comparability at the local levels. All this is doing is saying what I think the President wants to do; that is, he wants accountability statewide. We want accountability for the children so they are going to work hard and study hard. We want accountability for the teachers to make sure we are going to have teachers who are going to get professional development. We want accountability for States in developing standards, and accountability that the States are going to develop tests that are going to be high-quality tests. We have accountability here in the Congress to try to afford the resources to be able to help these children. All the Senator from Connecticut is saying is let's have accountability. Let's have accountability for the States as well to be a part of a team. Most parents would want their children to learn. Learning should be a partnership with the local, State, and the Federal response in areas of the neediest children in this country. I think this enhances the President's initiative. This carries it to an additional level. I hope he would be on the phone calling our friends and saying let's have a unanimous, favorable vote for this particular provision. I yield the remaining time to the Senator from Connecticut. Amendment No. 459, As Further Modified

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are now going to go to the Nelson- Carnahan amendment. But today I am happy to report that we have another package of cleared amendments. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for these amendments to be considered en bloc, and any modification, where applicable, be agreed to, the amendments be agreed to, en bloc, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, en bloc.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, for the information of the Senate, these amendments are as follows: Corzine No. 356; Reed, 401; Reed, 434; Voinovich, 513; Enzi, 642; Enzi/Collings/Murray, 643; Torricelli, 363; Nelson of Florida, 638; Hatch, 354; Hatch, 418; and Levin, 633. We are continuing to process these amendments. I am thankful and grateful to our friends and colleagues on the other side for their help and their good work in making all of this possible. I yield the floor. Amendment No. 385 to Amendment No. 358

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I commend Senator Carnahan and Senator Nelson for bringing this amendment to the attention of the Senate. What we are focusing on, which is enormously important, is the issue of testing and accountability. Their amendment brings to focus whether we are going to give assistance to the States and local communities to develop good quality tests. We have had a good debate on the issue of quality of tests. The Senate has gone on record in a bipartisan way to make sure we are going to have good quality tests. The Senators rightfully raise the question of whether our testing requirements are affordable and how are we going to make sure the States are not going to be in the situation where they will be left holding the bag, so to speak. It is a very important policy issue. Having said that, I do think we have made some progress on this issue. I know it is not sufficient for Senator Carnahan and Senator Nelson, but I want to briefly review how we reached the figures that are included in the legislation. We listened to the recommendation of the NASB, the National Association of School Boards. They made the recommendation that the development of these tests were going to amount to anywhere from $25 to $125 a student. The legislation provides some $69 per student. NASB said that development costs could be anywhere from $25 to $50. In this legislation, we provide only $20 per student. What have we done? We accepted the Jeffords amendment that says, unless we are going to have the funding for the testing program at NASB recommended levels, we will not expect the States to have to comply with that program. That is currently included in the Jeffords amendment, and there was very broad support for the Jeffords amendment. Under the Wellstone amendment, we have also added additional resources of some $200 billion a year that will come to $2.8 billion to make sure we are going to get quality. It is a legitimate question of whether we are going to get the appropriations. The two Senators are making a very important point that if we are going to do this right, we have to get the resources to do it right. There is no guarantee we will get those additional funds, but there is a sufficient guarantee with the amendment of Senator Jeffords that we will get the figures which I referred to earlier. We have accepted the Collins amendment which requires a GAO report by May of 2002. That will provide an estimate of test development costs, as well as administration costs, and we will still have 3 years before the requirements for these tests are actually implemented to use that information if we are finding we are going to fall further behind. That is an additional protection. A final point I will make is in the development of this approach which puts us squarely in the middle of the NASB recommendations at $69, when they have estimated the range goes from $25 to $125--it is right in the middle--and it is at the low end of administrative costs, there is a recognition that there has to be involvement of the State because the evaluations are an important additional ingredient in the States interest in making sure the children learn and have productive results. Therefore, their recommendation understands there is a considerable amount of State staffing and teachers' time which would normally be used that the Federal Government does not necessarily require under the administration's proposal. I think we are addressing this issue. I commend the Senators because it is an enormously important issue, to make sure we are going to get this right. The last thing we want to do is discourage a lot of children and find out these tests are being used as punishment. There are instances currently where they are being used as punishment, rather than detecting what the children do not know and then using those tests to provide supplementary services and changes in the curriculum to help advance the children in education. I am satisfied we have sufficient protections for the development of these tests. We have the stopgap protection of the GAO report that will come in a reasonable period of time, so if we are falling further behind, we will be able to take action. I have in my hand the current annual spending on tests per student by the 50 States. Under this proposal, it is $69. There is not a single State that is even close to $20 today. There are some States as low as $1.37. I will not read the names of the States, but reading from the bottom of the page: $1.37, $2.93, $6.65, $17.16, $12, $14, $8.69, $2, $15, $12, $9, $15, $7, $5, and the list goes on. That reflects all 50 States. We are at least quadrupling, maybe as much as quintupling financial support for quality testing with the guarantee under the Jeffords' amendment. No matter how this vote comes out, I give assurance of our strong interest in this. We will continue to work with my two colleagues on this issue because it is incredibly important and it reaches the heart of this whole issue of accountability. We want to get it right. We are going in a different direction, and we are going into uncharted waters. We do not want to have the children bear the burden of our mistakes. This is something we needed to address. I hope they feel we are addressing it. I know they prefer to have the absolute guarantee. I respect that position, but I hope our colleagues will feel that in the legislation, as we have developed it, we have responded to their concern.

Mr. KENNEDY. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. KENNEDY. We have an amendment from the good Senator from New Hampshire, and then after we address that amendment and dispose of it, the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, has a very important amendment where he intends to address the Senate for a period of time. So we are making some progress now. We have already included a number of amendments, about 15 amendments that were cleared earlier in the day. We are continuing to make progress. We are grateful for all the support we are receiving from all of our Members. We are going to continue to press ahead. I look forward to the consideration of the amendment offered by the Senator from New Hampshire. Amendment No. 487 To Amendment No. 358

Mr. KENNEDY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment Nos. 791 as further modified, 363 as further modified, and 356, As Modified