Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is very generous, if we get 5 or 6 minutes at the end, that would be fine.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if the Senator would yield, we have a half-hour debate on this from 1 to 1:30. We have now used up 20 minutes. I want to make some brief comments. Obviously, I want the Senator to conclude. We did not divide that time officially, but I hope at least we will have some part of that half hour to make our points, too.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from California.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. KENNEDY. I hope his proposal will be accepted and we can move towards a vote on the issue of class size as well as the Republican s proposal on the IDEA. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Reid.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are about to take our third and fourth cloture votes this week, the first on whether we will meet our 7-year commitment to help communities reduce class size and the second on whether we will prematurely end this education debate. While our Republican friends continue to block action on critical education issues for the sixth day in a row, communities are struggling to make decisions about their school budgets--they need and expect our help. We have an excellent opportunity to deal with key education issues that have been clear for many months--reducing class size, recruiting more teachers, expanding afterschool programs, bringing technology into the classroom, reducing dropout rates, modernizing school buildings. No bill on the Senate Calendar right now is more important than education. Nothing is more important on the calendar of local schools than their budgets. Over the next three weeks, schools across the country will be making major decisions on their budgets for the next school year. In many of these communities, the budgets are due by early April. In Memphis, school budgets are due on March 22. In Fayette County, KY, school budgets are due on March 31. In Boston, Savannah, Las Vegas, and Houston, school budgets are due the first week of April. In San Francisco, they are due April 1; Council Bluffs, IA, school budgets are due April 15. In Altoona, PA, school budgets are due in April. This is why the Murray amendment is so important to consider, so that schools will be able to say, yes, we want to use this money for new schoolteachers, for smaller class size, because we know for the next 6 or 7 years, there will be a continuing commitment and enough resources to be able to do it. The Senate should keep its promise that schools will be able to hire 100,000 new teachers over the next 7 years to help them reduce class size. Communities can't do it alone. They want the Federal Government to be a strong partner in improving their schools. We can't sit on the sidelines or allow this debate on education to stay in gridlock. A teacher from Kansas wants action by Uncle Sam. He writes: Even here in Kansas, many teachers struggle to provide their students with a quality education because they have so many students to reach. We have waited for years for the State legislature to do something, but they haven't. Now is the time for the Federal Government to step in and help. Your support for this bill will speak loudly to myself and other teachers that you truly believe in public education. Please help reduce class size in our country. A teacher from Maine writes: It is becoming more and more necessary to reduce class sizes to address the individual needs of a wider variety of students. . . . Please support the initiative to hire more teachers to reduce class sizes in U.S. public schools. A parent from North Carolina writes: I am a parent with 2 children in a public school and one that will enter school soon. . . . I am very well aware of the critical need for additional classroom teachers. Our children, our future, and our Nation depend upon a strong public school system. Mr. President, last year when we signed onto the first year on reducing class size it was done in a bipartisan way. Listen to what House Majority Leader Dick Armey said: We were very pleased to receive the President's request for more teachers, especially since he offered to provide a way to pay for them. And when the President's people were willing to work with us so that we could let the State and local communities use this money, make these decisions, manage the money, spend the money on teachers where they saw the need, whether it be for special education or for regular teaching, with freedom of choice and management and control at the local level, we thought this good for America and good for the school children. We were very excited to move forward on that. That was what the majority leader, Dick Armey, said about that agreement--just 5 months ago, Mr. President. That is why we find it so difficult to understand why we can't at least get to the point of consideration on this measure. Senator Slade Gorton said about the Class Size Reduction Act: On education, there's been a genuine meeting of the minds involving the President and the Democrats and Republicans here in Congress. . . . It will go directly through to each of the 14,000 school districts in the United States, and each of those school districts will make its own determination as to what kind of new teachers that district needs most, which kind should be hired. . . . We've made a step in the direction that we like. We never were arguing over the amount of money that ought to go into education. And so this is a case in which both sides genuinely can claim a triumph. The Murray amendment is a continuation of what was agreed to last year, in which both sides claimed triumph, and there was a movement made towards smaller classrooms. That is what the issue is that we will be voting on at 1. The Senate should not turn its back on our promise to help communities reduce class size in the early grades. We should meet our commitment to parents, students and communities, and we should meet it now. We need to act now, so communities can act effectively for the next 7 years. Senator Daschle has made a reasonable proposal for an up-or-down vote on a limited number of amendments with limited time agreements.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 6 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, I yield 1 more minute.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we will start off with 5 minutes for the Senator from Louisiana and try to get some additional time.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation which will insure that the federal share of the state Medicaid settlements negotiated with the tobacco industry is used by the states to prevent youth smoking, to improve health care, and to promote child development. Fifty-seven cents of every Medicaid dollar spent by the states comes from the federal government. The cost of Medicaid expenditures to treat people suffering from smoking-induced disease was at the core of state lawsuits against the tobacco industry. While the federal government could legally demand that the states reimburse Washington from their settlements, I believe the states should be allowed to keep one hundred percent of the money. However, the federal share should be used by the states for programs that will advance the goals of protecting children and enhancing public health which were at the heart of the litigation and are consistent with the purposes of Medicaid. That would be an eminently fair and reasonable compromise of this contentious issue. While there were a variety of claims made by the states against the tobacco industry, the Medicaid dollars used to treat tobacco-related illness constituted by far the largest claim monetarily, and it formed the basis for the national settlement. As part of that settlement, every state released the tobacco companies from federal Medicaid liability, as well as state Medicaid liability. Medicaid expenditures heavily influenced the distribution formula used to divide the national settlement amongst the states. In light of these undeniable facts, the dollars obtained by the states from their settlements cannot now be divorced from Medicaid. States are free to use the state share of their recoveries in any way they choose. However, Congress has a vital interest in how the federal share will be used. My legislation would require states to use half of the amount of money they receive from the tobacco industry each year (the federal share) to protect children and improve public health. At least thirty- five percent of the federal share would be spent on programs to deter youth smoking and to help smokers overcome their addiction. This would include a broad range of tobacco control initiatives, including school and community based tobacco use prevention programs, counter- advertising to discourage smoking, cessation programs, and enforcement of the ban on sale to minors. Three thousand children start smoking every day, and one thousand of them will die prematurely as a result of tobacco-induced disease. Prevention of youth smoking should be, without question, our highest priority for the use of these funds. The state settlements provide the resources to dissuade millions of teenagers from smoking, to break the cycle of addiction and early death. We must seize that opportunity. The remainder of the federal share would be available for states to use to fund health care and early learning initiatives which they select. States can either use the additional resources to supplement existing programs in these areas, or to fund creative new state initiatives to improve public health and promote child development. Smoking has long been America's foremost preventable cause of disease and early death. It has consumed an enormous amount of the nation's health care resources. Finally, resources taken from the tobacco companies would be used to improve the nation's health. A state could, for example, use a portion of this money to help senior citizens pay for prescription drugs, or to provide expanded health care services to the uninsured. Funds could be used to support community health centers, to reduce public health risks, or to make health insurance more affordable. For years, the tobacco companies callously targeted children as future smokers. The financial success of the entire industry was based upon addicting kids when they were too young to appreciate the health risks of smoking. It is particularly appropriate that resources taken from this malignant industry be used to give our children a better start in life. States could use a portion of these funds to improve early learning opportunities for young children, or to expand child care services, or for other child development initiatives. Congress has a compelling interest in how the federal share of these dollars is used. They are Medicaid dollars. They should not be used for road repair or building maintenance. They should be used by the states to create a healthier future for all our citizens, and particularly for our children.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is absolutely correct. Perhaps the Senator wants to put in the Record the excellent letter that has been sent to all of us from some 450 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, and leaders of police organizations in strong support of your amendment for the after school program. It reviews what has been happening in local communities to demonstrate their reasons for their strong support. Just as the Senator has mentioned, it has had an important and significant positive impact on reducing juvenile crime. I can tell you in Boston, MA, we went 2\1/2\ years without a youth homicide--virtually unheard of for any major city of this country. And if you talk to Paul Evans, who is our police chief up there, the first thing he will talk to you about are the after school programs. He will talk about other programs in terms of trying to penetrate gangs, and he will talk about working with teachers and social service offices in terms of identifying the real trouble makers, and a variety of different other efforts, but he will lead off his list with the after school programs. It is just as the Senator has stated. This has an important, positive impact in reducing juvenile crime. We are talking about preventing antisocial behavior, whether it is in terms of crime, or more dangerous kinds of activity, namely juvenile violence. This is very important.

Mr. KENNEDY. I say to the Senator, let me respond in this way. I had placed in the Record the statement by our majority leader at the National Governors' Conference just at the end of February where he said: Now when we bring the education issues to the floor . . . there will be some amendments and some disagreements, but-- and the leadership meeting that we had yesterday afternoon, I said, ``That's great. Let's go to the Senate floor, let's take days, let's take a week, let's take two weeks if it's necessary. Let's talk about education.'' Here we had effectively, on Friday afternoon of last week, debate, but because of parliamentary means the opportunity for amending the legislation was closed out. Yesterday--yesterday --as the Senator might have heard, we could not call off quorum calls in order to amend the bill or to bring up an amendment. We were effectively told that unless it was cleared it with the majority, they were not going to permit amendments to be offered. Fortunately, we were at least able to find a way to try and get a vote on the Murray amendment, which we will vote on tomorrow. Then we were, of course, absolutely mystified as to why the leadership included in the Ed-Flex this very complex bank reform legislation that has absolutely nothing to do with education-- absolutely nothing. They added that and refused to permit an orderly process of consideration of amendments on which, as the Senator from California and others have pointed out, we would be willing to enter into a reasonable time limit. The Senator from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman, has an amendment that has been passed with strong Republican support in the past. He indicated he would be willing to have one-half hour of debate, 15 minutes to a side. Other Senators have been willing to do so as well. Senator Murray was willing to do so, so we could move this process along, not that we should not have at least a fair opportunity to permit some of our colleagues to be able to express their own views, both for and against. But the Senator is quite right. We are effectively being told that even though the legislation is technically before the Senate, that we are closed out from having the opportunity to offer amendments and have the Senate dispose of those amendments, and that is obviously troublesome. It works, as the Senator knows, in a strange way. We have had a deadlock for these past days, but there is nothing that is going to preclude Senator Murray from offering her amendment on some other piece of legislation. That is what, evidently, some of our people here must understand--that you just cannot do it at this place in the Senate calendar. You might be able to squeeze it out in the last few days of a session, but you cannot do it at this time. We are going to see these amendments at one time or other, and I imagine earlier rather than later. So it has always seemed to me to make the most sense to do it in a responsible way, and that is in debating this with an underlying amendment on education rather than trying to work the process to have an amendment on a different item.

Mr. KENNEDY. Senator, if I might just raise some conclusions that have been reached by this independent evaluation of title I that is directly relevant to the issue which the Senator wanted to address. This is the final report of ``National Assessment'' of title I. It just came out last week. In the summary, it points out: ``Recent research on effective schools has found that using extended time learning in reading and mathematics''--this is the afterschool model; not all afterschool models, but many of the afterschool models. More so, now, I think, as a result of this excellent report. And it talks about the recent study of schools in Maryland: Researchers found that the most successful schools were seeing constant academic gains as a result of the extended day programs. This is just what the Senator is talking about. This is the ``National Assessment.'' I mentioned before, there is $500 million in requests. We have an important increase in the President's budget paid for. The Senator is just trying to get the authorization so the communities will know this program is alive and well and going to be continued over the period of time. That could be done in a very short order. If there are those here opposed to it, why not express your views and then vote in opposition to it? Effectively, the good Senator is being denied at least any opportunity to be able to advance that--advance it, let the Senate finally vote on it--being denied that in spite of the fact that in this excellent review about what has been successful and what has not been, this is right on point to the Senator's initiative, and that, I think, is one of the reasons we are very frustrated. We take a Banking Committee bill. Here we are on education. The timing was set by the majority leader and the majority. They are the ones who set the agenda. They are the ones who called up this bill. Now we find out they are effectively foreclosing or have foreclosed. We are still hopeful that the Senator would be able to offer the amendment. While the Senator is here, I just mention the kind of support we have on the class size amendment. We will have an opportunity to vote on that cloture tomorrow. Various groups have supported that, including the National Parent Teacher Association, the National School Boards Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the American Association of School Administrators, the Council of Great City Schools, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education. That is interesting, special education; we heard a great deal about the importance of special education. Here is the association that is the primary spokesman for special education, and they are talking about the importance of this, and for very good reason. We have to fund both--that is our position--the IDEA and also this program for having smaller class sizes and having a well-trained teacher in every classroom. When we have the teacher quality, the well-trained teacher, they can identify early in their development the children who are going to have the special needs. If they are spending time with them in reading, they can find out whether that child needs the other kind of attention. Then you can locate and identify these needs much earlier, and we also can find out if they can provide that help and assistance to them, for example, in literacy. It may very well reduce or eliminate the need for special education. There is support from this association in terms of school construction. They find out that the children with disabilities will benefit from buildings with appropriate physical access to buildings, buildings that are well equipped to handle modern technologies which so many with disabilities need to get a good education. And they find out that the afterschool programs, including Children With Disabilities, Stay Off the Street, Out of Trouble, help them get the academic help they need and desire. That is what we are saying. Help all the children. We are also helping those with special needs. We are committed to trying to get additional funding in the area of special needs. I remind our colleagues that under the constitutions of the States, the States have the responsibility for educating every child. We set as a goal that we would pick up 40 percent. I am strongly committed toward doing so. We will have an opportunity before too long to offer amendments to move us in that direction. We hope we will get as much support on that issue when we offer those amendments as we have had in terms of an opposition to trying to do the kind of things that the Senator from California has identified.

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator makes a good point. Not that that is always the best practice, but certainly in this case it is. Secondly, for example, child care programs in the military versus non-military programs, are quantitatively better because, very interestingly, the amendment that we adopted for child care for the military was actually the one that came out of our Labor and Human Resources Committee and had protections and guarantees in terms of quality and training for the personnel who are going to work with those children. When we had it on the floor of the Senate, it was effectively undermined, in terms of those protections, in an attempt to get it passed. Now they will go on out and ask, ``Why are the military ones better?'' It is very plain and simple. You can look at the history of the support of those programs here. At the time they called the roll, 94 to 6 we were prepared to give protections, because it was an add-on for the protection of the military--94 to 6. I remember it very clearly, because I offered the amendment. When Senator Dodd, who is a real leader in these children's programs, battled to develop programs for needy working families on this, it was significantly undermined. The military understands smaller class sizes, as they do child care, and they are moving in that direction because they are able to do so. A final point I will mention to the Senator on the importance of this, because we heard a great deal yesterday about how can we do this and not give attention to IDEA, is included in the Record--I will check the Record and, if not, will include it here--an excellent study that was done by ``School Business Affairs'' on education. In this review, the study shows the benefits of reduced class size. I will read this: Research has shown that some elements of schooling are changed positively by using reasonably sized classes in grades K-3. Table 1 suggests some potentially cost-saving items that can be factored into plans to adjust [to smaller] class sizes. It talks about reduced retention in grade, improved student behavior, reduced remediation so more students are on a grade level and special services may be more clearly targeted to needy students, and, finally, earlier identification of barriers to learning that may be remedied immediately, offering later savings in special education costs. I hope, and maybe it is hoping for too much, that we can avoid pitting children against children, but rather to try to move along together. The central issue that we are focused on is smaller class size. We have additional amendments. The Senator from California has one to deal with afterschool programs. Senator Harkin has one with regard to school construction. Senators Reid and Bingaman have one with regard to dropouts. Senator Dodd also has afterschool programs. There are others--Senator Feinstein and Senator Dorgan have amendments, and my colleague Senator Kerry has one as well. We are, nonetheless, prepared to reduce the number of amendments we offer and enter into a reasonable time limit so that we can at least make some important progress. I think most families who are watching this would say, ``Why aren't they doing business? Why are we watching Senators talk about this. They have, effectively, uncontroverted documentation of support for the initiatives they are talking about. Why aren't they going ahead?'' And our response is that we can't go ahead because these barriers have been placed in our way. That is fundamentally wrong. As the good Senator has pointed out, we are not going to let these barriers stand in our way. I thank the Senator from California for all of her help. Mr. President, I am told that we will have a number of our colleagues coming over to address these issues. We have the next 15 minutes, and then we will come back to address these issues later in the day, starting at 2:15. I wanted to point out in our opening comments and statements this morning the importance, again, of reduction of class size. Let me mention some of the rather interesting results of reduction of class size. The documented research--what parents and teachers have always known intuitively--shows that the smaller classes enhance student achievement. The most effective overall presentation that was made on this was the excellent presentation by Senator Murray who has been a schoolteacher herself, has taught in these classes and can speak eloquently and knowledgeably about what it is like to be in a classroom with 30 children versus a classroom of 17 or 18 children. She has been on a school board for a number of years, dealing with educational policy, and she has the vantage point of bringing both of these experiences to this issue. I have observed Senator Murray now for some 6\1/2\ years. I do not think any of us have seen a more impassioned, knowledgeable, informed person speak on the subject of class size as Senator Murray. I know she will continue to fight for this, and I am absolutely convinced that we will eventually accept the Murray proposal and, by doing so, give the information to the local school districts that the commitments that we made last year for increasing the number of teachers is going to be continued for the next 6 years. The President has put the funding for that program into his budget. All we need now is the authorization, and the reason we need the authorization now, as Senator Murray points out, is because school boards need to know whether they can count on the continued financial support for next year and the year following and on into the future to go out and hire new teachers. The local school boards are wondering whether they ought to take the chance of moving ahead or if it is just going to be a 1-year experience. That is a very reasonable issue, and school boards all across the country are in contact with us asking for clear guidance. For those who come to the floor and say, ``We want to rely on local controls, we want to help and assist those in the local communities,'' this is the way to do it. Let's send a very clear message to those at the local school level that this is a program that is going to continue for the next 6 years. You can be sure that we are behind it. That is what the Murray amendment does, and that is why it is so timely and so important that we put that on the Ed-Flex legislation. Mr. President, let's just look at some of the examples of the studies on smaller classrooms. Let's take this Project STAR that studied 7,000 students in 80 schools in Tennessee. Students in small classes performed better than students in large classes in each grade from kindergarten through third grade. Followup studies showed that the gains lasted through at least eighth grade, and the gains were larger for minority students. In Wisconsin, the Student Guarantee in Education Program is helping to reduce class size in grades K through 3 in low-income communities. The study found students in the smaller classes have significantly greater improvements in reading, math, and language tests than students in larger classes. In Flint, MI, efforts over the last 3 years to reduce class size in grades K through 3 produced a 44-percent increase in reading scores and an 18-percent increase in math scores. Mr. President, this is what is happening out there in school districts. I don't know how much more information we need. School district after school district that has moved towards smaller class size is finding these extraordinary results. We are being denied now the opportunity to say, ``Look, we notice these results. We hear what you are saying. It does make an important difference. We have the resources at this time to move ahead in a national effort to try to get the smaller classrooms.'' That is what this debate is about, and we are denied the opportunity to do so. Listen to this. As I mentioned, in Flint, MI, over the last 3 years the smaller class in K through 3 produced a 44-percent increase in reading scores, and an 18-percent increase in the math scores. Before we get into the expanded reading program we passed at the end of the last year--not that that in and of itself is going to solve all of the problems--what we have done in the last 3 years is encouraged the universities which have Work-Study Programs to ensure that many of the young people who are attending our colleges all across the country are going to move towards working and tutoring students as part of their Work-Study. I am proud that Massachusetts has better than half of its colleges doing so. I urge our colleagues in this body to meet with the presidents of universities in their states and encourage the presidents of the universities to get their universities and their schools involved in that reading program. Massachusetts and California are the two top States. Sixty percent of our colleges are doing it. We are committed to trying to get it up to 100 percent. There is no reason that kind of assistance cannot go to these students with the Work-Study Programs so that reading can be held to a higher standard. But getting back to the subject, that is the importance of grades K through 3, we have extraordinary academic achievements in reading, which is the key to all knowledge, and math, and they are due in large part to a reduction in class size. I have other examples, and I will make sure there is time remaining to speak to the Senate about those. But I can tell you that we have instance after instance after instance where the smaller class size has resulted in dramatic and significant and important academic achievement and academic progress for students. And it is a national tragedy that we are not embarked on a program to help local communities and States to embark on such a program. Some can do it locally, and they are doing it. We commend them. The States are doing it. But we ought to have a partnership to do what we know can make a significant improvement in children's academic performance and success, and we are being closed out of the opportunity to do that here today. We have $11 billion out there which can make a direct difference, and we are being denied the opportunity to do so. That is fundamentally wrong. I yield to the Senator from Illinois what time he might consume. Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield the remaining time to my colleague from Wisconsin.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today we will vote again on whether to end this debate on education--prematurely, I believe--or do our part to help communities meet critical educational needs. After a very limited 2-day debate on education last week, the majority leader filed cloture to end debate on the bill. The next day he filed the same cloture motion to force a second vote on whether to end the debate. The first cloture motion was defeated yesterday; the second cloture motion will be defeated today. I believe we should stop playing procedural games and vote on amendments that are critical to communities across the Nation. Republican intentions are clear. They do not want a debate on education. They do not want a vote on the critical educational issues facing the Nation's communities: reducing class size, recruiting more teachers, expanding afterschool programs, bringing technology into the classroom, reducing dropout rates, modernizing school buildings. And there is a shared responsibility in all of these areas between the local communities, the States, and the Federal government as well. Parents and communities have a central concern about ensuring that their children are going to be adequately trained as they move towards the new century. We have an opportunity to do something about it, and we have, as we have demonstrated over the course of this debate, compelling evidence that each of these particular programs can really make a difference in children's achievement and growth, scholastically, in their local communities. No bill on the Senate calendar right now concerns more important issues than education. These issues are important and timely. We start off this session with a very thin calendar. We have the time and we have the ability, as we have said on a number of different occasions. Under the leadership of Senator Daschle on this side of the aisle, we are prepared to agree to a small number of amendments with strict time limits that could ensure a speedy conclusion to those amendments, even, probably, during the day today. We can all work together to reach a bipartisan consensus on education now, because the Nation's schools and children cannot. Some Republicans insist that they won't agree now to any amendments which affect the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but that position is untenable. The pending Ed-Flex bill directly affects the largest ESEA program, title I. It also affects a number of the other programs included in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--the Education Technology, the Eisenhower Professional Development, and the Safe and Drug Free Schools programs. Yet we are now considering Ed-Flex long before it is ready for action. We should also be able to consider other vital education issues, too. Ed-Flex is a good idea, because it gives States more flexibility in implementing Federal programs. It makes them accountable for how well Federal aid is used to improve the schools. It goes back to the initiative of our good friend from the State of Oregon, Senator Hatfield. I joined him in offering the initial Ed-Flex in 1994. I offered it as an amendment to Goals 2000, to permit another group of States to do so. I know this program. I support this program. We have strong support for the Ed-Flex concept on this side of the aisle as well as the other side of the aisle. We want to make sure, when we provide scarce resources, that the local communities, when they get the scarce resources, are able to show how the changes in the education programs will enhance student achievement. That is what we are interested in. Families are interested, local communities are, States are; we should be as well. We are trying to give the assurance to families across the country that accountability would be a part of Ed-Flex. Ed-Flex, as I mentioned, is a good idea, but flexibility and accountability mean little if we do not give communities the support they need to implement school reform strategies that work. If you take the time to read the General Accounting Office review of Ed-Flex, what springs out at you is what the GAO report stated was the greatest desire for the local communities. What they asked for was additional funding for education programs. That makes sense. Second, they wanted to know if there were other opportunities to enhance academic achievement. Third, they were looking for help and assistance in how to run their schools more efficiently and effectively. Those are pretty reasonable ideas and ones that I think all of us can understand. That is what they were looking for, and we are attempting to try to assist with these other ideas that different Members have talked about over the period of the past few days to try to help the local communities. Last year, with broad bipartisan support, the Congress made a substantial investment in improving the Nation's public schools. We increased funding for IDEA by $500 million. We increased funding for afterschool programs by $160 million. We increased funding for title I by $300 million. And we made a $1.2 billion investment in reducing class size in the early grades. Those were done with bipartisan support, including the commitment to reduce class size, the amendment that Senator Murray has championed in the Senate not only this year but last year as well. Much more remains to be done. Good ideas to improve education deserve our strong support. We need to do more to help communities hire additional teachers and reduce class size. We need to support State efforts to raise academic standards and support communities and teachers who are helping children meet those standards. We need to modernize school buildings and repair crumbling facilities. We had the GAO report which estimated it will cost $120 billion just to bring classrooms across this country up to standards. Many communities in urban and in rural areas just cannot afford to take on that particular challenge themselves. We have ideas about how we can assist local communities, not with a handout, but to help them ease the kinds of financial pressures on that local community in order to bring their school buildings and classrooms up to speed. That is a very important concept, partly because without doing so it is more difficult for the children to learn. We find even in the city of Boston that when the temperature goes down to 15 to 20 degrees, 15 schools close down because their heating systems are not adequate. Automatically, 15 schools close down. There is an effort being made in the local community--the greatest increase in a school budget in terms of education, I think, of any major urban area in the country--but still it is taking time. We can help in this area. It is not only important in terms of the physical facility, it is important in the message we send to the children. Every parent, when they see their child go off in the morning, is talking to that child about paying attention during the course of the day, working hard, doing his or her homework, getting extra help and assistance if it is needed. Every parent is to instill in them the value and the importance of education. But if the child walks into a classroom and it is dilapidated and not functioning or does not have an electronic system to hook up the various new kinds of technology, we are sending a very powerful, very simple message to those children. The parents may be talking about the value and importance of education, but we, as a society, are not prepared to put the resources into it to ensure that those children will go to a first- rate school. That is the message, and that is powerful. That is happening every single day in communities all across this country--certainly in many of the older communities and in many of the poorer rural communities across this country--where we do not have the kind of facilities that all of us would hope we might have for the children of this country. It is a very important message, and we are attempting to do something about it. We are not going to answer the whole problem, but we are going to offer a helping hand for local communities. Trying to provide some help and assistance in terms of school construction makes a good deal of sense. Much more remains to be done. Good ideas to improve education deserve our strong support. We need to do more to help communities hire additional teachers, reduce class size, support State efforts to raise academic standards, and support communities and teachers who are helping children to meet those standards. We talk about content standards. An increasing number of States have adopted content or performance standards. That is very important, so that parents will know what their children are learning and how they are doing. We need to end social promotion, but, when we do that, we are going to make sure there will be the kinds of support facilities out there for children who have not been able to keep up, to keep them from falling further behind. We have different examples of where that is taking place--in Chicago, where children who are falling behind are getting extra assistance during the schoolday, or even after school, or over the course of the weekend, or during vacations, or during the summer--maintaining high standards for children, but also trying to get assistance for those children who need it. It makes sense. That is what we are trying to bring attention to. We need to modernize the buildings, as I mentioned. We need to expand the afterschool programs--for the 7 or 8 million children between the ages of 8 or 9 and 14 who go home in the afternoon to empty houses, who may spend their time watching television, if the parents are fortunate, or otherwise involved in antisocial behavior, if they are not--to try to develop programs that are going to work with the schools or with nonprofits. We have different ways of approaching this, modest amounts of resources in the President's budget to try to do so. We can encourage those children to be involved in afterschool programs, to enhance their academic ability and achievement and perhaps give those children a chance to spend some quality time with their parents. Rather than the parents coming home, finding the child has been watching television, and saying, ``Go up to your room to do your homework,'' parents can provide the kind of climate and atmosphere which is going to be profamily. This is a profamily issue, Mr. President. We have seen the amount of success that it has. Last year, when we had $40 million in afterschool programs, we had $500 million in applications. That is from the local communities. What we are doing now is trying to build that up to cover more than a million children, and that will send a ripple all across this country to develop after school programs. We do not intend to do all that is required in terms of after school, but we can demonstrate, by the success of these programs, how they have impacted children and families to build the kind of local support for the enhanced programs.

Mr. KENNEDY. I will be glad to yield.

Mr. KENNEDY. If that is agreeable to the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. Could I suggest something to the Senator, if the Presiding Officer will yield. We generally close down at 12:30. The Senator from Tennessee has an hour, and if it fits into the Senator's schedule, I would ask that we do not recess; we postpone the recess from 12:30 to 12:45 to permit the Senator to speak.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join my friend, the Senator from Pennsylvania, in welcoming our distinguished guest Chaplain. I thank him very much for his presence and for his inspiring message to all of us. We are very grateful to him for joining us here today. We thank him very much for all the good work that he does and continues to do for his parishioners.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to take just a moment of the Senate's time to share with our family in the Senate a rather sad occasion that has taken place. Last evening, at about 7:15, after we had recessed, I had a call from our friend and colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Murray, the principal proponent of our smaller class size amendment, who told me that her father-in-law had passed away yesterday. She had been on the floor all day. She returned after a very full day here on the floor leading us in this discussion on the question of smaller class size to learn that her father-in-law, Albert Murray, at the age of 80, had passed on. He had been a small business man for many years. He lived in Seattle and was very much involved in the community in a range of different activities to ensure that that community was going to be a better community. The Murray family is a very close-knit family. They are an extended family. I had the opportunity to meet many of them at the time Senator Murray was initially sworn in here to the U.S. Senate. She left last evening to return to the State of Washington to be with members of the family. I know all of us send our thoughts and prayers to Senator Murray, her husband Rob, and the entire Murray family. We are thinking about her and are mindful of her loss. Mr. President, I yield myself such time that I might use.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as I understand it, we are going to have 15 minutes a side. Am I correct?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in just half an hour the Senate will vote on the second cloture motion to terminate debate on the Ed-Flex bill, and then tomorrow we will have two more cloture votes. It is our position that these cloture votes are completely unnecessary--what we would like to be doing here this afternoon and in the course of tomorrow is voting on education policy. We were given assurances by the majority leader at the annual National Governors Association Conference that we would have the debate for 1 or 2 weeks. Now the minority leader has proposed limiting our side to just five different amendments, and we would be glad to have a number of amendments on the other side. We are glad to enter into time limits. There is no reason we cannot end the whole education debate tomorrow. We have no assurance--none--from the majority leader, none from the chairman of the Health and Education Committee, that we will have another vehicle before the end of this year to debate education. This may very well be the only opportunity that we have. Why not have a reasonable time to debate and discuss the issues that are before the Senate in education, primarily the issue of class size reduction from grades K to 3, which is enormously important and very successful in terms of enhancing student performance. What about the afterschool programs? What about enhancing the effort to terminate school dropouts? The range of different, important policy issues--all we want to be able to do is debate them. We are being denied that by the majority. That is part of our frustration. We believe the discussion on education is one of the most important debates that we will have. We are here, ready to debate. We were here last week on Friday and were closed out. We were here on Monday and are here Tuesday and continue to be closed out from being able to consider these amendments. That is the wrong policy. Parents do not understand why we cannot debate it. Various organizations representing teachers, parents, school boards, and local communities are all pleading to the U.S. Senate to go ahead and have the debate on these issues. There is widespread approval for continuing Federal support for reducing class size nationwide. This initiative is supported by the National Parent Teacher Association, the National School Boards Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the American Association of School Administrators, the Council of Great City Schools, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, the National Education Association, the International Reading Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Association of School Psychologists. These groups are all saying please, go ahead with this debate. Go ahead and have the votes on these matters. We will abide by whatever the Senate does, but do not close us out. Mr. President, that is what is happening here this afternoon. I hope we will not have the cloture vote to close it out. I am still hopeful somehow at this late hour we will be able to work out a process so we can consider the educational amendments which families all over this country want us to consider. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.