Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Just further reserving the right to object, of course, we did not give a clear indication whether we would have the opportunity to vote on an increase in the minimum wage. We have seen Members vote for an increase in their own pay, their salaries, for some $4,400. We have doubled the President's salary. We voted for an increase for the military, which I strongly support, and also for Government employees. I wonder when we will be able to enter into some kind of agreement on the minimum wage. I do not think it will take a great deal of time. We will be glad to do it of an evening, if it would be more convenient for the leadership, working out the schedule. But we have not had the opportunity for the Senate to express its will. We would like to at least get some indication from the leader as to when we might be able to do this, since the days are moving along and still many workers, who are working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year, have not participated in the very substantial economic progress and are looking to the Senate to see whether we will address this issue. Can the leader help us at all, in terms of indicating when we might have some chance to address that?

Mr. KENNEDY. Further reserving the right to object, can the leader give us any idea when we will be back on the pending legislation, the bankruptcy legislation? Or when we will have an opportunity to address the issue of the minimum wage?

Mr. KENNEDY. But, as I understand it, the leader now has indicated, by consent request, that we go to morning business, is that correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. Further reserving the right to object, if that legislation were before the Senate, would it be in order for me to offer the minimum wage as an amendment--if it were pending?

Mr. KENNEDY. The bankruptcy legislation?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, what is the pending business if we were to go to the pending business?

Mr. KENNEDY. I have no objection.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I think we were prepared, after these last two speakers, to move ahead. I am told we will reserve. I know just one Senator who wants to speak for 4 minutes on our side, and we will be prepared to yield back the other time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, as I understand it, we are expected to have two votes at the hour of 5:30--on Senator Daschle's and Senator Lott's Sense-of-the-Senate proposals. The time has been divided for those who favor and those who are opposed to the different proposals. I strongly support the Sense-of-the-Senate which has been introduced by Senator Daschle and which I am a cosponsor. The essence of Senator Lott's proposal is: Resolved that it is the sense of the Senate that this Congress has taken strong steps to reform our Nation's education system, and allows States, local schools, and parents more flexibility and authority over their children's education; and the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 will enable this Congress to continue its effort to send decision making to States, local schools, and families. Of course, we are all in support of reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We don't have any dispute over that. I have listened to a good part of the debate. I have yet to hear those other steps enumerated and identified or commented on. The one piece of legislation that we took was what was called ED-Flex. That is basically a modest expansion of what was done under the Democratic Goals 2000 in 1994. Goals 2000 was President Clinton's initiative. At that particular time, the initial ED-Flex gave the Governors the flexibility. We provided some modest increase in the flexibility, and I supported it. But it doesn't deal with the kind of problems which we are talking about. That is at the heart of this debate and discussion. I welcome the fact that since the time Senator Daschle introduced his resolution that our Republican leader has made a decision to have a mark-up tonight on these education bills. That is real action. This is the kind of encouragement we would like to have--that we have the introduction of the Daschle resolution, and then under evidently the urging of the majority leader, the Committee on Appropriations is going to meet this evening in order to try to indicate the priority education would have in terms of the national budget. That is as much as you could ever hope for in terms of positive action of a Sense-of-the- Senate resolution--real action. We will wait to see how the Committee on Appropriations in the Senate of the United States is going to act. What brought about the reasons for the Daschle resolution? Quite frankly, what we heard over the course of the afternoon would respond to those facts. The fact is, since the Republicans have taken over leadership in 1995, in the Senate of the United States, we have found that education as a part of the Federal budget has been the last--not the next to the last but the last--appropriations the Congress has considered. We on this side believe it ought to be the first--not the last but the first. Now we are caught in a situation with the deadline for adjournment is some time at the end of October and there are only 3 or 4 days remaining in the fiscal year. Finally, we have the Republicans saying: All right. We will finally hold an Appropriations Committee meeting on Monday night when the fiscal year starts later on this week, on Friday. We find that unacceptable. Members over here can talk in generalities about flexibility. They can talk about the makeup of the Pell program and they can talk about administrative costs over in the Department of Education. We are delighted to get into a more detailed discussion about those particular items. But what those on the other side of the aisle haven't answered is why the funding for the education of the young people in this country has been the last priority under the leadership of the Republicans. That is the issue. That is the question. With all respect to my friend from Mississippi, and with all respect to the many years he went to public school--I admire that and respect it--it doesn't answer that simple question about why, with all the priorities we have in this country, the leadership has placed this as the last priority. The history of where the Republicans have been with regard to education as a last priority kind of escapes certain facts. This is extraordinary. My good friend from Mississippi said on September 24: Since Republicans took control of Congress, Federal education funding has increased by 27 percent. Why? Because of President Clinton and because of the Democratic leadership. You can say: Well, that is an interesting statement, an interesting comment. Show me. That is exactly what I intend to do. Right over here is a chart that shows what the funding levels have been under the Republicans since 1995. In 1994, the Democrats lost the election. The Republicans took over the House and the Senate. What happened in 1995? In 1995, we had a rescission. What is a rescission? A rescission means the House has appropriated money, the President has signed it, but we want to take some of that money back, rarely used in education, and the Republicans did what? What did they do? We have the suggestion our Republican leader is attempting to convey, that they have been the supporters of expanded use of funding in education. They had a rescission for $1.7 billion below the bill actually enacted; they asked for a rescission of $1.7 billion. In 1996, the House bill was $3.9 billion below the 1995 final figure--$3.9 billion below. In 1997, the Senate bill was $3.1 billion below the President's request. In 1998, it was $200 million below the President's request. In 1999, the House bill is more than $2 billion below the President's request. Those happen to be the facts. Let me state the time line for passage of these appropriations. On March 16, 1995, the House rescission bill came to the floor. The Republican leadership could hardly wait to get into office when they sent this bill up to take some of the money back that funded education. Then we have the omnibus bill in 1996, the last continuing resolution. The funding of that program passed 7 months after the end of the fiscal year. In 1997, it passed on the last day of the fiscal year. In 1998, it passed 1 week after the end of the fiscal year. The agreement for 1999 was passed 3 weeks after the end of the fiscal year. As we have seen, they have virtually all been the last appropriations. Nothing my friends have stated has disputed that. This is the record of the requests under Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. The reason we find that Federal education funding rose during this period of time is that we had the Government shutdown and our President refused to go along with it. He actually raised it. For the majority leader now to say, look at what we have done, is a complete distortion and misrepresentation of the facts. They cannot dispute it. Those are the facts. The reason this was brought into such sharp relief is that last Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee went to work again and finally had their series of recommendations where they have cut back or effectively eliminated the President's program to go for smaller class sizes. They had agreed on it at the end of the last Congress. In 1998, Congressman Goodling said how wonderful it was they had gone ahead and reduced class size for 1 year. Former Speaker Gingrich said: . . . a victory for the American people. There will be more teachers and that is good for all Americans. I'm in. The Republican leader in the House said this will mean more teachers and this is good for all Americans. We say fine, that is why we want to expand it. The Republican leader said it was good for all Americans; President Clinton thinks it is good for all Americans; the various statistics and figures in the various STAR evaluations for smaller classes in the State of Tennessee indicate children are making progress. Everyone seems to agree--except who? The Republicans in the House Appropriations Committee that zeroed that program out. I don't hear from the other side why we have the inconsistency, why it is we have in 1998 Republicans saying it is a victory for the American parents and we have President Clinton supporting it, we have the statistics that say smaller class size for grades 1, 2, and 3 are particularly important in terms of children's academic achievement and accomplishment, and now we find the Republicans in the House of Representatives zero it out, eliminate all of the funding for that particular program. We ask, why? That happened last week. Later, I will review the various studies showing how the smaller class sizes have been important in terms of academic enhancement and achievement. It ought to be self-evident. No one makes this case more passionately and with more knowledge than perhaps the only school teacher in this body, and that is Senator Murray of the State of Washington. She has taught and been a member of a school board and can state the difference between having 15, 25, and 30 children in a classroom. We have had the eloquent statements and comments made by the Teacher of the Year, talking about the difference in being able to know the names of the children and the needs of those particular children and being able to take time with those particular children. It is self-evident. We have seen that. But not according to the Republican Appropriations Committee. We say this is wrong. We saw other examples. In the program for helping and assisting children to read, we have made some progress in the area of reading-- not much, but we have made noticeable progress. We have a long way to go. We know the challenges out there. There have been a variety of different approaches developed. The chairman of our committee, Senator Jeffords, has long been committed to this program. A number of Members enjoy the opportunity to read at Brent Elementary School, here in Washington. We know the importance of children learning to read and how important that program is in terms of their ability to read and in terms of their own academic achievement and accomplishment. Why in the world would we cut that program way back? It is a matter of priorities. I read Members' comments made on Friday saying: We cannot fund everything; some people--knowing they were meaning this Senator from Massachusetts--want to fund all these programs. The fact is, here is a question of priorities. The debate is about priorities. We are saying education is a No. 1 priority; that is where scarce resources ought to be continued. If there are other priorities, there is a problem, and we have to make a judgment. But hold this institution accountable for making education the No. 1 priority. We are prepared to do that. We are prepared to call the roll on it. If Members have other priorities they think are more important, they can go along with those and make their judgment. One of the major achievements of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act last year was trying to increase the total number of teachers. We don't just need 2.2 million teachers in 10 years; 30 to 40 percent are in retirement at the present time. There is also rising enrollments--447,000 more children started school this year. Some might say we have more teachers, maybe the programs that are working need some help and assistance if we are going to try to help those 447,000 students. What we have found out is one of the important cutbacks was in the program to enhance the additional qualified teachers to be teaching in our schools. These are the realities. These are the numbers. This was, actually with regard to teaching, 40 percent below the President's request. It is the Teacher Quality Enhancement Program. We know, even with the President's programs, with 100,000 new teachers, we are not going to be able to do the whole job. The record- high enrollment this year of 53.2 million students--447,00 more children than last year, and the continued rise over the next ten years; 324,000 in 2000, by 282,000 in 2001, by 250,000 in 2002, and continuing on an upward trend in the following years. I do not hear any discussion about: Look, there is an expanding number of students in our schools in this country. How are we going to ensure we will have sufficient teachers who will be qualified; not people who will be in the classroom but well-qualified teachers? That is what we are strongly committed to. I see my friend and colleague from Illinois who, I am sure, wants to address the Senate. These are questions of priorities. As I have said before, allocating the resources is a question of priorities. Money does not solve all of the problems. But one thing we do know, without resources you are not going to be able to invest in the children of this country--you are not going to be able to do it. We believe this is an indication of a nation's priorities. Not all the programs are going to work perfectly. Some may be altered or changed. We will look forward to the debate on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is the principal instrument to help and assist the local schools. Their answer to the question of priorities is suggesting we should give first priority to helping and assisting families in this country in the partnership--and it is a partnership--between the local communities and the States and the Federal Government. We provide very little, 7 cents out of every dollar. This idea we are making these decisions that will decide all education policy--we understand where the education responsibility is, it is locally. They put up the majority of resources in it. But we provide some targeted resource to try to make a difference in specific areas. That is what we believe in. We cannot support this concept that the Congress has taken strong steps. Look at the record: Nothing this year for more teachers or smaller classes; nothing to modernize schools, to help with repairs, to wire the schools for computers; nothing to help train teachers; nothing to help with the basic skills such as literacy--virtually nothing. Virtually nothing. All we have seen so far are cuts in education. That is not strong steps to reform our Nation's education system. I will be glad to yield 10 minutes to the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator will yield further, I searched the Record and I didn't find it as of last week when the leader put in his own resolution and when we talked about this. There was no comment, no sense of outrage at that particular time. This is a poor way of dealing with the families of this country that understand our role in the area of education is limited. We spend about 7 cents out of every dollar, but we try to target it in areas of special need. To be able to on one day see these dramatic cuts and 3 days later hear a statement by the majority leader that it will be far in excess of the President's request, does not he agree with me that the American people are entitled to a more serious discussion and debate of a priority which they believe so deeply is important for their children and the future of this country?

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, we just received these changes. There was an initial presentation, a Lott resolution. Then that was changed on Friday, which was fine. Now this is an additional one. At this time, I would have to reserve the right to object just so we would have an opportunity to read it and familiarize ourselves with it. So I object at this time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, how much time do we have?

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. Whatever time is left, I yield to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 8 minutes. Madam President, a couple of quick facts. If the good Senator from New Hampshire went back to March 25 of this last year--the time we were considering the $790 billion tax cut--we offered an amendment that would have taken one-fifth that amount of money and completely funded IDEA. The Republicans unanimously rejected it. They unanimously rejected it. They thought we ought to have tax breaks rather than funding IDEA. So, before we get all worked up about this position that was just talked about, we ought to understand that. Madam President, with all respect to my friend, the majority leader, I don't find traveling around Massachusetts that the school systems are saying: We have sufficient resources and we don't need any help or assistance. The role of the Federal Government, historically, is to provide a very limited amount of resources in targeted areas, where there are some special needs, and that is why we have these targeted resources. If our good friends on the other side want to have a good deal more funding, generally, in terms of education, they can request their Governors to go ahead and do so. Our role is to find targeted resources. Now, what are these targeted areas we have talked about? Let's get specific. One of the key areas are smaller class sizes. As I mentioned, the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, is our leader on that issue. The project STAR studied 7,000 students in 80 Tennessee schools. Students in small classes performed better than students in large classes in each grade from kindergarten through third grade. Follow-up research shows that gains lasted through at least the eighth grade. STAR students were less likely to drop out of high school. Research also shows that STAR schools and smaller classes in grades up from K through 3 were between 6 and 13 months ahead of regular classes in math, reading, and science, all the way through the fourth, sixth, and eighth. That is one of the programs that we support. That is a priority item. The Republicans zeroed that out. I was interested in the Republican leader saying we are going to have a big bill on the floor of the Senate next week. We are saying: Where has it been? We are glad it is going to be here, but where has it been? That is our point. We have the situation of after-school programs. We know the dangers of young students getting in trouble with violence after school. Juveniles are most likely to commit violent crimes after school, as this chart shows, it is between 3 and 6 p.m. We had a modest program by the President with $200 million. There were 1,700 applications for that program. Only 184 programs can be funded at the current level of $200 million. There were 1,800 unfunded after-school programs. We are trying to fund those. The Republicans say no. Take a look at what these dollars have meant in terms of math scores improving. This is in the neediest areas of this country. From 1992 to 1996, in every one of these areas, and particularly in the areas where the students are the poorest, almost double the performance for children in the area of math and science. In each of the various quarters, we have seen a significant increase in the last 4 years. That is our priority: Smaller class size, after-school programs, and trying to improve student achievement in the areas of math and science. I'll mention one more area, wiring the schools for the 21st century. We have seen the gradual increase in the schools that are wired. But still, for the instructional rooms where children learn, they do not have those kinds of resources. We believe we should provide some help and assistance. Local school districts want that help and assistance. We are being denied that under the Republican priorities. Finally, with all respect to our majority leader, the history and the record shows that it has been this President and the Democratic leadership who have seen the increase in the funding over the period of the last 6 years. That is just a matter of record, with all respect. The final point the Republican leader says: Why didn't they support our tax reductions? The Office of Management and Budget has stated that there would have been a 40-percent reduction in support of education in order to pay for that tax break. I ask the majority leader, if you have $780 billion that you want to give away in tax breaks, why aren't you providing additional funding on programs that have been tried, tested, and have enhanced the educational achievement of the children of this country? Madam President, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished Democratic leader.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. KENNEDY. We heard from the majority leader and the Senator from New Hampshire that we don't have to worry about education funding because they are going to have an appropriations bill that will far exceed the President's request. I ask the Senator if on the one hand he finds it perhaps encouraging that we are finally moving to get education reform, and what kind of consideration we ought to give to that kind of assurance? It is Monday evening. We go into the fiscal year on Friday. The majority leader has said we are going to have a budget that will exceed the President's. Can the Senator tell me why, if they are going to exceed the President's budget, that suddenly we find this money, does he know of any reason we have not had this money before? Doesn't he believe we should have had it before? Or does he know from where the funding will come?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. KENNEDY. As the Senator was going over 1995 through 1999, does the Senator remember when it was the standard Republican position to abolish the Department of Education? I think you and I want every time that President meets with his Cabinet officials one person who is going to think nothing but education, and every time that President talks about national priorities, to speak for the education of the children of this country. That I know has been the position of the Senator from Illinois. Does the Senator understand why, on the one hand, they were going in that direction and then, within about a year after that, we had Secretary Lamar Alexander's answer in terms of the elementary and secondary school reform: That we have a model school in each congressional district and in each of the States, and they to be decided, by whom? By the local community? No; by the Secretary of Education. Now we have another approach. We have the block-grant approach. Can the Senator explain to me, within a period of about 5 years how we can go from, on the one hand, abolishing the Department of Education to, on the other hand, having the Secretary of the Department of Education saying we ought to have model schools in each of the congressional districts, to now block granting everything and sending it back to the States?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I would expect that budget would be vetoed and hope that it would be. I think all of us have every expectation that it will be. This President, from the very beginning of his administration, has set a series of priorities and he has expressed those. In more recent times, he has talked about the importance of Medicare, Social Security, a prescription drug benefit, and targeted tax cuts for needs. He has been very clear about his priorities. But there has not been a higher priority for this President than the issue of education, and he has been strongly committed to it. I have every expectation this legislation will not pass, nor should it pass.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair. I will have more to say on this on Monday. I thank the leader.

Mr. KENNEDY. Those were the standards that were insisted upon when we extended the SEA program, which are having an effect and reflecting higher achievements. They are the smaller classes where the most comprehensive study of any education program was done, smaller classes in the State of Tennessee, the STARS Program. We should universally recognize the important academic achievement of those children who started out with a smaller class size in grades 1 through 3, and about the importance of higher quality teachers, which was at the heart of the Higher Education Extension Act that we passed 2 years ago. He said he would veto it. I welcome the fact. The President continues: If it fails to strengthen Head Start, after-school, or summer school programs, I will veto it. And if it underfunds mentoring or college scholarship programs, I will veto it. It looks like this bill has about 8 vetoes coming up.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in 1991, the Ukrainian people, after decades of difficult and often tragic struggle, won their right to self-determination. They declared their independence, as did other peoples of the former Soviet Union, fulfilling the wishes of generations of Ukrainians. Eight years have now passed since that dramatic time, and Ukraine and U.S.-Ukrainian relations are stronger than ever. We now have a U.S.- Ukraine Joint Commission, chaired by Vice President Gore and President Kuchma, which seeks to improve bilateral relations on a wide range of issues. A significant part of this effort is the sister city project to help Ukrainian communities develop more effective local government. I'm proud that the City of Lowell in Massachusetts is a sister city with the Ukrainian city of Berdiansk in this worthwhile project. I especially commend the members of the Ukrainian-American community for their constant courage and commitment in championing the cause of Ukrainian independence over the years. They never gave up this struggle, even during the darkest days of the Cold War. They can be proud of their achievements. Their efforts in recent years have made Ukraine the third largest annual recipient of U.S. assistance. I'm prouder than ever to support their impressive efforts. I also commend the Ukrainian-American community for its ongoing work to help American high school students understand that the Great Famine of the 1930s was a man-made terror-famine, used by Stalin to suppress the Ukrainian people. Millions of Ukrainians died in this great crime against humanity. Sadly, the twentieth century has been filled with too many of these massive crimes. We must never forget the atrocities that have been inflicted on millions of citizens in other lands, including the Ukrainian people. We must do all we can to build a better world in the years ahead.