Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, today the Senate will be in a period of morning business with Senators Durbin and Thomas in control of the first 2 hours. For the information of all Senators, it is the intention of the majority leader to begin consideration of the agricultural appropriations bill during Tuesday's session. The leader has announced that the Senate will remain in session notwithstanding the Memorial Day recess in order to complete this important spending bill. Therefore, Senators can expect votes throughout the week and into the weekend if necessary. Mr. President, I observe the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Thomas, again, for allowing the time to be devoted to this important subject which we began discussing last week and hopefully will be able to continue this week, namely, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and specifically the bill the Republican majority in the Senate has put forth called the Educational Opportunities Act, S. 2. It is my hope that by the end of this week we will have an opportunity to vote on this legislation, to finally conclude our work and move this bill forward so we can present it to the President for his signature and actually achieve a historic reform opportunity this year. As I said, I hope we will have that result. The reason, however, I have some doubt is that we have seen what I fear is a trend, on the part of the Democratic minority, to continue to talk about education but in the end not allow the Senate to vote on any meaningful piece of legislation. I think the debate so far has vividly portrayed two very different views of how the Federal Government should proceed with educational reform in our country. On the one hand, you have the majority arguing for flexibility combined with accountability: Flexibility, so the local entities, the school districts, the States, the schools, and the parents can have the ability to direct the dollars from the Federal Government to do those things they know work best in their particular area, and to have some accountability for that by ensuring that at the end of the year they demonstrate what they have done with this money has actually produced results. We are talking here about academic achievement, we are talking about meaningful results, not simply more students in a particular program or more teachers hired or more school buildings built. We are talking about some tangible results of those particular actions. So it is flexibility with accountability. Part of the way we achieve that is through greater competition, which is driven by more parental choice, parents having the ability to decide what is best for their kids; after all, they are the ones we presume care the most about them, know the most about their needs, and understand how best, therefore, to deal with those kids' needs. On the other hand, you have the minority that has been arguing for the same system of Federal mandates and regulations that, frankly, after 35 years have proven to be a failure. It is the same system with a new layer of mandates and poll-tested, Washington-run spending programs added onto what we have right now. One of our colleagues from the other side put it this way. He said: The Senate has a choice. Will it pass the Republican Educational Opportunities Act or, on the other hand, are we going to follow the tried and tested programs that have demonstrated results for children at the local level? They vote for the tried and tested programs that have demonstrated results. They have demonstrated results, all right. The problem is, not many people I know are very happy about those results. An old farmer friend of mine once said: If you want to get out of a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. We just want to keep digging the hole deeper and deeper, it appears some of our colleagues are saying. That is not producing the right kind of results, good results: Enhanced achievement on test scores, enhanced ability to compete, and a real achievement-based accountability, which is what the Republican plan is asking for. I have to say I am disappointed by this debate. I am disappointed with the direction in which the legislation itself appears to be heading because the American people have told us they want results. They would like to see reform now. Every poll says this is the No. 1 issue of concern of the American people--to improve our educational system. As our colleague on the other side said, yes, the current system has produced tried and tested results. But over 80 percent of the American people do not like those results. They are not happy with those results. They think we can do better. We can do better. We are spending an awful lot of money, and we ought to get something for that money. But more important than that, more important than the accountability to the taxpayers, is the accountability to our children, our future. These kids have one opportunity to get their education--right now. We are not talking about 20 years from now. We are talking about the children who are in our educational system today. Each year we delay is another year our children are involved in a school system that is less than adequate by most standards. The American people who are demanding accountability are going to be very disappointed if we conclude this debate with yet another year failing to enact fundamental reforms. That is what has me concerned because there seems to be a rather cynical strategy developing on the other side to talk this thing to death, to set up a whole lot of amendments on which we have to vote, some of which have nothing to do with education, and then, in effect, put the blame on the Republican majority until, finally, when we have to move on to other business, the majority leader has to say: If you are not going to let us get to a final conclusion on this, if we cannot vote for these reforms, we have to move on. However, the blame would not be on the majority but on the minority for its refusal to let us move on and get this legislation passed. I do not think it is too late to put politics aside and put our children first, but time is running out. I call upon my colleagues: Let's keep talking about education. Let's put the political gamesmanship aside for just a few hours. Is it just possible, for example, that we can conclude debate on one bill without getting bogged down on gun control? Yet I predict, before this week is out, we will have colleagues from the other side say: We cannot really deal with S. 2 unless we deal with issues relating to gun control. Let's talk about what is in this education bill, what is in our proposal. It may be that some of our colleagues on the other side are actually uncomfortable focusing the debate on education because of this notion that the current system is working just fine. I think they are reluctant to talk about reform, but the American people want reform. As I said, they know we can do better. We heard last week from members of the minority that we cannot trust parents to do what is right for children. One of our colleagues said: Where are the guarantees that the parents will make the right decisions? There are no guarantees that parents will make the right decisions, but I suppose one can ask: Who is more likely to make right decisions for their children, the parents or some bureaucrat in Washington, DC, or some Senator in Washington, DC? My heart is in the right place when it comes to taking care of the schoolkids in this country, but I certainly would not presume to set all the policies in Washington that would fit the needs of every single schoolchild in this country. We in Washington just do not have that capability. There are no guarantees that every parent will make every decision correctly, but it is a lot more likely that parents making the decisions will result in good decisions for the most number of kids than if those decisions are relegated to Washington, DC. Another thing we heard was that the leaders in our States and communities cannot be trusted to do what is right for America's young people; again, we need guarantees. By guarantees they mean Federal enforcement that these local officials will do the right thing and, of course, the right thing is defined by the bureaucrats in Washington, DC: You have to do it the way Washington wants to do it or you are not going to get the money. One of the things we heard was that it would be a better approach to the Republican reform ideas to simply fine-tune the Federal regulations that impose 50 percent of the paperwork requirements on the local schools, and that is in exchange for only 7 percent of their funding. In other words, the 7 percent of funding that primary and secondary education receives from the Federal Government accounts for 50 percent of the paperwork. It is a pretty expensive proposition, in other words, to get the Federal funding. Schools go after that Federal funding even though it is a very inefficient way for them to fund the education of the children. The point is this: How can you expect to get different results if you keep doing things the same way? The answer is, of course, you cannot. That is where the reforms in S. 2 come into play. One of the things which exemplifies this debate is the issue of class size or class size reduction. Members of the minority have said we have to use this money for the purpose of hiring more teachers so we can achieve a class size reduction. The majority has said we need to let the local schools decide if that is their top priority. If it is, then they have the ability to use the funds for that purpose. If they have a higher priority, who should make that judgment of how to spend the money? Should it be those of us in Washington or should it be the people who understand what their priorities are? Almost everyone would like to see smaller class sizes. We intuitively believe that would be better for education, but with every other area of this debate, we do have to look at the track record. The fact is that class sizes have fallen over the period that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has been in existence, but performance has not tracked. George Will, with his wonderful characteristic dry wit, looked at the data, and this is what he said: Pupil-teacher ratios have been shrinking for a century. In 1955 pupil-teacher ratios in the public elementary and secondary schools were 30.2-to-one and 20.9-to-one respectively. In 1998 they were 18.9-to-one and 14.7-to-one. We now know it is possible to have, simultaneously, declining pupil-teacher ratios and declining scores on tests measuring schools' cognitive results. The truth is, we have declining class sizes and with it declining test scores. We still think it would be a good idea to reduce the size of classes; that there are other reasons why those test scores have not improved. But under the proposal from the President, they have to spend the money strictly on hiring teachers. They cannot use it for anything else, as I will get to in a moment. One of the things this money can be used for is to create more charter schools, something that has improved the education in my own State of Arizona. Our State superintendent of education, Lisa Graham Keegan, has pointed out under the President's proposal, the $17 million Arizona would receive to hire new teachers could actually start 425 new charter schools across the State, more than enough schools to keep class sizes relatively small, but they would not have that flexibility under the President's plan, under the Democrats' plan. No, they have to do it their way or no way. The only way they get the money is if they follow precisely their guidelines. That is the way it has been all these years. We can see the results. Again, the American people are asking for something different. One of the ideas embodied in our legislation is something we call the Straight A's approach. The idea behind it is to actually look at where the Federal Government has been successful in making major reforms and applying that same technique to education. There are few successes more dramatic than our success in welfare reform. It cannot be done, we were told, but we did it, and the results have been dramatic. The idea was pretty simple. The Federal Government said: We will repeal the regulations that have historically defined this program, and we will give unprecedented flexibility to the reformers in State government, as well as unprecedented accountability for them. Go out and pursue reforms, we said, and if you are successful, you will be rewarded. If you fail, then you will lose some of your latitude. As with welfare reform, we need to put aside the certainty that Washington knows best and all wisdom that is formulated comes from Washington. I know there is no such monopoly because I have the good fortune of coming from a State where education policy is made by people who really have been innovative, people such as our State superintendent of education, Lisa Graham Keegan. I want to present some of the things she has had to say. When we consider how to provide this flexibility to education just as we did with welfare reform, I think we will see the same results. This is some of what Ms. Keegan had to say: Federal programs have tied dollars to bureaucracies and institutions, not to students. What that illustrates is the disorientation from Washington. We believe if you send the money to the institution, to the organization, automatically good things will happen. The fact is, we ought to be focused on what some call child-centered education. We ought to figure out how to get the money we want to educate these children as close to those children as possible because the sad fact is, when we send it to an institution or a bureaucracy, a significant amount of that money gets stuck at that bureaucracy. As with many Federal programs, it costs a lot of money to administer the program, to comply with all of the Federal redtape and paperwork. That is why we say that, while the Federal Government only supplies 7 percent of the primary and secondary education dollars the States spend, the States have to spend 50 percent of their administration costs just administering that 7 percent at the Federal level. That is why if we can get over this business of tying dollars to the bureaucracies and the institutions and tie it more to the students, it will be a much more efficient expenditure of the money. Ms. Keegan also says: But before we ask Washington to get involved with the education of our children, we need to think about exactly what we're asking for. Sometimes, when we ask Washington for help, we run a very real risk of getting it. . . . More often than not, the government's preferred method for alleviating a perceived problem is to create a federally funded program with federally authored strings and federally enforced regulations. This approach may work fine when it comes to matters that have clearly defined federal responsibilities, such as highways or post offices. When it comes to education, which has always been largely a state and local matter with no clear federal role, such an approach tends not to work so well. . . . . . . we still let Washington drive state and local decision making through the lure of federal dollars tied to programs with hazily-defined goals and well-defined regulations. Then here is how she concludes this point: The problem with this approach is that the federal government has tied its dollar to a program rather than to a student. An at-risk student who succeeds will, more often than not, find him or herself ineligible for more at-risk services. When the student moves on, the federal dollar dries up--and it won't come back until that child again slips into the at-risk group and becomes eligible for the federal program once more. These kinds of programs thrive on student stagnation, even failure. We had that same situation with the welfare program. We tended to measure the success of the welfare program by how many people we had on the welfare rolls, by how much money we were spending on that. Then one day it dawned on someone that we ought to be measuring the success of the welfare program by how few people were on the welfare rolls and by how little we had to spend. As a result, by giving flexibility to the local governments with regard to welfare, we have cut the welfare rolls in half. We are not spending near as much money on welfare. We have only half as many people involved in the welfare program. Is that failure? No. It is a success. And so it is with education. If we are going to devote Federal dollars to the education of the students, then we ought to provide those dollars to the students so that wherever they think they can get their best education, whatever their needs are in terms of priorities, the money will be spent for that, not because the Federal Government makes a judgment that a particular expenditure is necessarily the right thing. I think it is important to reiterate our responsibility to those who will pay the highest price if we fail to take advantage of the opportunities that are here presented. As I said, it is not necessarily the American taxpayer, even though we have, as stewards of those taxpayer dollars, an obligation to see that they are efficiently spent. No. Those that will pay the highest price, if we fail, are the schoolchildren, the children who, this year, will not receive an improved education because, perhaps, we will not get these reforms passed this year. They will have to go yet one more year stuck with the kind of bureaucratic redtape and regulations that have failed them thus far in their careers. Last week, we also learned that there are those on the other side who do not agree that choice should be available to children in failing or unsafe schools. I always find this interesting because very frequently people who make this argument have sent their kids to private schools. I am a product of the public schools. That is where I received my education, including my college and law school education. It was from the public schools. Both of my parents were public school graduates and public school teachers. And others in my family are or have been teachers in public schools. So I fully appreciate the need to improve our public schools. I think one does that by enabling some competition between these schools, and also with the private schools. What we find is that when that competition is allowed to work, everyone benefits. To use a crude example, it is similar to the automobile manufacturers. If one of them finds a new way to improve the way a car operates, it isn't long before the others find a way to incorporate that same technique or technology into their cars. If they do not, they are going to lose sales. By the same token, when a school finds that something really works well--if we give parents a choice to send their kids to that school-- the other schools are soon going to find that they will want to incorporate that same kind of technique to keep the kids there. That is especially the case because so much of our Federal and State funding goes to the institutions, as we have said. If they want to continue to get that funding, under the Republican proposal, they would have to be able to continue to attract the kids. In my State of Arizona, we have, in effect, open enrollment so there can be some degree of competition among the public schools. We also have more charter schools--almost 350 at last count--than any other State. I think it is a third of the charter schools in the country. These charter schools promote a lot of competition. A lot of them have learned to attract students by doing things a little differently. Some of the larger public schools have picked up on these techniques and have incorporated them into their curricula, into their procedures. As a result, they can be quite competitive with those charter schools. It does not hurt one at the expense of another. It is not a zero sum game. Competition is like invention. What it does is lift all of the boats. When one begins to do something better, the others soon follow behind and copy it in order to keep up with the first one. When you have that kind of competition, therefore you can have innovation. If you have flexibility, you have the ability to experiment, and the net result is a better opportunity for more kids. That is what we want to promote in this Federal legislation. As I say, in my own State of Arizona we already have a significant element of this in our public schools. But what we found last week from those on the other side of the debate was that there is a real desire to keep students and parents from having this additional flexibility, this additional choice. It seems to me there is a fear of it. There is a fear that not everyone will be able to do as well as those who do the innovation, and somebody might actually fail or fall behind, which would be bad. Who is the somebody they are talking about? They are not focused on the student. They are talking about the school, that it would not be fair if a particular school failed. Why wouldn't it be fair if a particular school failed if the students all had the opportunity to go to the successful school? What is not fair is that failing schools keep ahold of failing students. We are failing in the education of these kids, and they will never be able to go back and get it. Yes, we have some remedial education. But that is a very hard way to reeducate people in our society. So it is not the schools that we ought to be concerned about; it is the students in those schools. I remain convinced that no American child should be trapped in a school that cannot guarantee a good education. We have an obligation to those students. So whatever happens with this bill, I believe we will continue to pursue this idea of choice, of competition, of flexibility, because it will work. Sooner or later, this approach will provide the basis for reform that will characterize the Federal program that provides the Federal funding to primary and secondary education. I still believe we can make a difference in this area. So while it may become a disappointment that we are not able to conclude work this year on this important bill, that we may not be able to pass a bill that we can send to the President for his signature, I think, in the end, the power of this idea of flexibility and accountability and more choice--the power of that idea--will end up defining the Federal program. It would be better if we could do it this year because that would mean we would not allow another year to pass with the same devastating results for the kids who are in school right now where far too many of them are failing. That is my hope. I urge my colleagues this week to take this debate seriously, to try to move on beyond extraneous issues, and in the end, to bring it to a close so we can actually have a vote on S. 2 and get this important reform measure to the American people where it can begin to work.

Mr. KYL

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

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. On behalf of the leader, let me announce that today the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 3 p.m. with Senators Thomas and Durbin in control of the time. Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of the elementary and secondary education bill. The Senate will then begin consideration of the Lott-Gregg amendment regarding teacher quality. By previous consent, Senator Lieberman will offer his alternative to S. 2 on Tuesday morning. On Thursday, the Senate received the African Trade CBI conference report. It is expected that the Senate will consider that important legislation during this week's session of the Senate. I thank my colleagues for their attention. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

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

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, later today the Senate will officially begin the debate on S. 2, the Educational Opportunities Act. I am pleased we will finally have the opportunity to discuss our ideas for improving elementary and secondary education. Of course, one of the reasons we are discussing elementary and secondary education this year is that the ESEA, the statute authorizing most of the Federal Government's education programs in this area, is expiring. I should assure everyone that even though there is no reauthorization bill, it is possible to continue the ESEA programs through the annual appropriations process. The time has come to act. The American people have been sending us a message to do something to improve America's schools. I agree with the American people about the importance of this issue. If we can get education right in this country, almost everything else should follow. A better educated citizenry will give us an advantage in technology and national defense, better trade and economic opportunities, better citizenship and stronger values, a reduction in crime, and, of course, more personal fulfillment for our citizens. This is an important debate, one of great significance for our Nation. The bad news is that in the coming days there will be so much politics and partisan acrimony emanating from the floor and that many people who watch us might wonder whether it is worth the trouble. The good news is that if concerned Americans listen closely to this debate and have the patience to endure the political sound and furry, I believe they will see their concerns are taken seriously by the majority. It is important to keep in mind that the Federal Government's share of America's total education expenditures is quite small, about 7 percent. As a result, Federal attention has been focused on a few specific objectives: First, providing a quality education that can help offset the effects of poverty and social distress that many of our students experience. It is wrong to expect less of minority and poor students. They can do very well. Second, improving teacher quality and accountability is critical-- teaching the English language to students who do not know it well, particularly in my State and other States in which we have had a real upswing in immigration with students coming to this country who are not as fluent in English as the others. Third, promoting familiarity with technology, which is the future. And, of course, providing a safe school environment. These are the things on which we will focus. Unfortunately, after some 35 years, the record of progress toward these objectives at the Federal level is not impressive. I believe this record of failure stands as an indictment of the traditional ESEA strategy, which is to establish a new division of the Federal Government in Washington, DC, and put a small army of people to work writing regulations and processing paperwork from the States. A promising alternative approach has emerged, and this new alternative is known as Straight A's. The idea behind the Straight A's phrase is very similar to the idea that led to our success with welfare reform. It is a concept of a Federal-State performance partnership as in welfare. We do not measure the success in welfare by how many people we have on welfare or how much money we spend on welfare. We decided to begin measuring success on how few people we had to have on welfare and how little we had to spend. We have to get to the same kind of performance-based criteria with respect to education, not how many kids we have in some remedial program but how few we have in those kinds of programs because our education system is working to educate our young people. This is the concept of accountability at the State and local level. When Congress took on welfare in 1995 and 1996, the prerequisite for our success in passing significant reforms was a recognition that very promising ideas were being developed by leaders at the State and local government level. We rejected the old premise that ``Washington knows best,'' and we allowed these innovators outside of what we call the Washington beltway to actually pursue some bold, innovative ideas without a lot of strings attached from Washington. We have all seen what the result can be. We all understand how welfare reform has been working now to get people off welfare and into a productive capacity in our society. It is time to consider the same possibilities with respect to education. The HELP Committee's bill permits as many as 15 States to enter into Straight A's performance contracts if they choose to. These contracts will allow significant flexibility for innovation by these States. My guess is, as we saw with education flexibility, the bill we passed earlier--the Ed-Flex bill--the other States will want to participate in this, so it will quickly move from a 15-State demonstration project to one in which all 50 States want the right to participate. I am sure we will hear objections from the same folks who posited objections to welfare reform. They will say it is a risky scheme: you cannot trust the States and local leaders to do this; Washington knows best. Given the Federal Government's record over the last 35 years, this reactionary posture is impossible to sustain. We cannot keep doing things the same old way and expect different results. I expect, just as with welfare reform, the American people will come to agree with the majority and at least some members of the minority who have now concluded that flexibility, combined with accountability, can bring needed change to education, where control by the bureaucrats in Washington has failed. I also look forward to debating proposals aimed at enhancing parents' influence over the decisions affecting their children, especially when a student must overcome poverty or a language barrier. The stakes are very high, and we should not tolerate a system that ignores the views of the people with the keenest appreciation of that fact--parents. The committee-passed bill recognizes that choice must be available to children in failing or unsafe schools, and I welcome this recognition and urge the greatest possible expansion of choice and competition. In fact, I am proud that my own State of Arizona has provided leadership in this area by establishing an open enrollment policy that allows parents to enroll a child in any public school of their choice, undeterred by artificial geographic boundaries, and that this latitude has led to the creation of hundreds of new charter schools in Arizona. That has, in turn, improved the traditional public schools with which these charter schools compete. In fact, I was buoyed to see in the big newspaper at home in August a couple of years ago one of our better public school districts put a full-page ad in the newspaper saying to the parents: We are having to compete with these charter schools. We were losing enrollment to these schools. We figured out what we were doing wrong, and we have improved. Come back to our public school system and see what a great program we have. That kind of competition and innovation has caused improvement, and we have seen it in our own State of Arizona. As the author of the Dollars Follow the Students Act, which is the first piece of Federal legislation to advance this idea of making these aid dollars portable, I am heartened the bill we are going to consider will provide unprecedented portability for students aided by title I, which is our largest Federal education program. There are those who will resist the idea of choice and competition in education. But I am looking forward to this debate. No American child should be trapped in a school that cannot guarantee a quality education and a safe education. We have an obligation to provide a lifeline for families whose schools are failing, particularly those families who live in our country's most disadvantaged areas. So once again, I urge the American people to follow this debate closely. If they do, I think they will find that we have been listening to their calls for change and for real reform. That is what the legislation we will be bringing to the floor today will provide. I am looking forward to this debate. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, since we have a few more minutes before we have to end this morning's session, I will take a moment to comment on a few things the Presiding Officer said a little while ago. There are two points I will make. The first has to do with the percentage of funds the Federal Government spends on primary and secondary education. The second is more general. The Senator from Wyoming made the point that about 7 percent of the money spent in local schools comes from the Federal Government. It is also true that the average proportion of paperwork imposed on State and local schools by Federal mandates is about 50 percent. In my State of Arizona, it is about 45 percent. Why is that and what is the effect of that? That goes to the heart of what we are proposing to change. We understand it is not a good economic bargain to give the States $7 for education and to make them spend $3.50 of that on administration. Yet that is exactly what is happening. Why is this so? States and school districts see pots of Federal money. There are over 100 different Federal programs for which States and local school districts can qualify. Sometimes they have to have matching funds. In most cases, they have to submit a lot of paperwork in order to get this money from the Federal Government. So even if it is only $20,000 or $30,000, a school district will hire an administrator to apply for the money, to fill out the forms, to provide the follow-up information, and then to administer that money when it finally comes. The net result is that about half of the money in administration is spent to get this 7 percent. There is no surprise, therefore, that so many of the people the school districts hire are not teachers. That has an impact on education. It is one of the reasons why over the last many years, as the Federal Government has dangled these relatively small chunks of funding out to the schools, the schools, in order to get that funding, have jumped through more and more hoops, have spent more and more time and effort and more and more dollars chasing after that relatively small amount of Federal money. This is inefficient. It is uneconomical. That is not to say the original ideas for the Federal programs were bad ideas. We are smart people in Washington. We come up with all kinds of great ideas. Therefore, we provide funding to implement those ideas. We say: If you will only jump through these various hoops, you can get some Federal funding for this particular great idea. The problem is, that is a very inefficient way to use taxpayer dollars. It makes a lot more sense to say to the States: We have about 7 percent of the funding for your schools. If you will figure out how you can best spend that money on your own, let us know, set your own goals and make sure you meet those goals at the end of the year--in other words, there still has to be accountability--we will send the money to you without having to have these armies of bureaucrats filling out the forms and administering the Federal programs based upon the ideas we think are great. It will probably turn out that a lot of those great ideas are implemented by the local schools but they won't always be implemented in every place. As the Presiding Officer noted, one school may need that money to decrease class sizes, to hire more teachers. Another may need that money to hook everybody up to the Internet. Another may want to focus on some kinds of remedial programs in math or reading, for example, tutorial kinds of programs. There are all different kinds of specific needs in specific school districts. We, in Washington, should not suppose we know best what each school needs, nor should we assume that if we just throw money at the problems, we will get better education. It turns out that the States that spend the least amount on education are among those with best test scores. There are a lot of different reasons for that. It is also true that where we spend the most money, we have the worst test scores--right here in Washington, DC. So there is no direct correlation between the expenditure of money and a good education. It is where you put your funds, how you make use of those funds, how you prioritize. That is what we want to address with this change in policy. No longer will everybody have to apply for these little grants and go through all of the hoops that it takes, fill out all of the paperwork, and then follow that paperwork throughout the years. Rather, we are hoping, at least for some States, we are going to create a contract whereby they can apply for the funds at the beginning on the basis of a very general set of goals that they establish, without all of the paperwork required to meet the Federal goals. They can set their own goals and, at the end of the year, demonstrate to us by a good accountability of how they have done whether or not the expenditure of those funds has worked to achieve their goals. If it has, then they can continue to apply for these funds in the future. If not, then they have to be relegated to the same old program they are under today, where they have to continue to apply for each individual program, spend all of the money to do that, and be relegated to this very inefficient way of getting the Federal dollars to them. That is the essence of what we are trying to do--free up those dollars so people at the local level who know best what to do with them can put the money toward the goals they establish and not have to spend half of the money on administering the programs so that none of that money gets down to the kids we are trying to teach. The second point is--I mentioned this earlier--if we get education right in our country, almost everything else will follow. Let me illustrate. First of all, we will have an advantage in national defense. Why did I mention that first? We are the only superpower in the world right now, and we have the technology in our defense to beat anybody in the world should they challenge us. That technology is not static. It is dynamic. If we don't train the young people to continue to innovate, to continue to invent new things which will enable us not only to progress as a civilian society but also to have the capability to defend ourselves with new types of defense technology, we will not stay on top. The history of the world is littered with countries that at one time were on top but did not maintain their edge. I was talking to some astronauts one day. I said: ``What is the difference between you and your Russian counterparts who go up in space with you?'' They said: ``There isn't any difference; they are just like we are.'' I said: ``Well, surely there has to be something.'' One of them said: ``Well, I can tell you a story. When something goes wrong up there, we immediately get on our computers and try to figure out how to fix it.'' ``Our Russian friends get out their tablet of paper and pencil and they start doing the math, the algorithms, long division, calculus, whatever it takes, to figure out what to do.'' I think there are two lessons in that. First of all, it is wonderful that, as a society, we are all trained in the use of computers, and we have everything so computer-literate that we can quickly figure out the answer. But the second lesson is that we also have to have people who understand what the Russian scientists do--the long math, the calculus--to be able to figure all of this out, because it is only by knowing that that you can program the computers to do the things we can do with computers. Somebody has to understand the fundamental science. People in other countries are still being educated the old-fashioned way, using the fundamentals. We have to have enough people in this country who are educated in the fundamentals to maintain our technological superiority, while at the same time making the calculations from computers available to all of society to enable us to rapidly advance in all the different areas in which we have advanced. But if we lose this technological edge because we are no longer educating our citizenry--at least the best and brightest--in the fundamentals of math and science, we will lose this edge. That is why I said we can maintain an edge in defense only if we continue to have the best educated citizenry in the world. Today, we have to import many scientists and computer specialists from other countries, and it demonstrates to us that we are not doing a good enough job of educating our own citizenry. The same thing applies to better trade and economic opportunities. If we continue to be the inventors of the world and to take those inventions and create applications that make our lives better, we will continue to have the best products in the world that others want to buy, and we will maintain our general superiority in trade. But if we don't provide the education to our students to be able to continue to put out these kinds of products, if we become mostly a service-oriented society, other societies will take up the slack and will gain the advantage in trade and economic opportunities. As I said, we would have a better citizenry. We have to continue not only to train people in science and math, but also in history, in learning the lessons of life from other subjects that enable us to work better as a society as we become more and more diverse, and to remember the key lessons of our Founding Fathers who understood that our democratic-republican form of government could not continue in perpetuity without a well-educated citizenry--a citizenry understanding the issues of the day because they had to make the decisions. This is a do-it-yourself government, America. Our people vote on things; they have to be well enough informed to elect good representatives to represent them in the places of our representative government--the legislative branches of government, for example. If they are not engaged enough in the issues of the day to make intelligent decisions, then obviously the people they send here will likewise not be so educated. The quality of decisionmaking and public policy will falter. Moreover, the understanding of their role in our government will gradually diminish. Abraham Lincoln was very concerned about this. He said often that one of his big fears was that, little by little, each generation would lose some understanding of the ideas of the Founding Fathers and why the perpetuation of those ideas was so critical to the continuation of our democratic-republican form of government--the notion of citizen participation, the understanding of the checks and balances of our government, why we set the government up the way we did. Frankly, I was distressed during the time of the impeachment trial of the President--whatever you think of the outcome of that trial--about the lack of understanding of a lot of my fellow citizens about what that was all about, why we had such a procedure, why it was important to maintain the rule of law, and so on. These are subjects that our great-great-grandparents were well versed in from their education. They studied them long and hard. I am distressed that today our kids and grandkids don't take the humanities courses in college that we took, which brought us a real knowledge of the underpinnings of the philosophy of our government, our society, our civilization. Our students today are caught up in all kinds of studies of minorities of one kind or another and in other fads of the day. They are not as well educated about the traditional concepts. In fact, some even assault these concepts as inapplicable to today's world, when in point of fact, the lessons of the great philosophers are totally applicable. You will find philosophers on every side of every issue. If you study them well, you will appreciate and understand the problems of today, the kinds of choices we should be making in our society today. History is relevant and, as has been noted many times, those who ignore history are bound to repeat it. That was said in the context of the bad times of history--primarily the wars that have to be fought-- because we don't understand that history. So a better education provides better citizenship. It can provide stronger values because we study the great books and the philosophers who wrestled with the questions of what is the meaning of life and how we should conduct ourselves. There is a difference between right and wrong. There are truths and there are values. Young people today are not reminded that in the Declaration of Independence, our founders said there are ``inalienable rights,'' and ``we hold these truths to be self-evident.'' There were some things that are so true and we understand that. They were self-evident. But today, relativism has begun to teach our kids that there is no real truth, there is no definite right and wrong; there are only shades of gray. If society comes to believe that and bases decisions upon that misunderstanding, then we cannot long survive as a free society, as a society founded on the principle that there are certain truths, and that part of those truths are that there are inalienable rights that are given to us by our Creator--not by some government. We then begin to rely upon government to do things because it is the benevolence of government that is the basis for our rights. Wrong. Government doesn't give us any rights. The best we can expect from government is the protection of our God-given rights. But if generations are not taught that, then we won't be able to make public decisions on the same foundation that our Founding Fathers understood were so important to future generations. A reduction in crime. If we have a well-educated citizenry, we are going to have less crime. I think it is absolutely wrong to believe that people from disadvantaged backgrounds have to be relegated to a life of crime, that they somehow aren't as capable as everybody else at learning and improving their lives and staying free from a life of crime. It is so at odds with the fundamental precepts of our country that I can't believe people would still expect less of students in these kinds of communities. Our proposal, as the Presiding Officer noted, is to recognize that everybody is entitled to an equal opportunity for education, and we cannot expect less of those in our most distressed areas. But if we don't give them the same opportunity to go to areas where they can get a good education and have safe schools that provide a quality education, then we are, in effect, saying: You are second class, you just can't make it, and we are not going to bother to give you the tools to make it. That is fundamentally wrong and un-American. Finally, a good education--if we get it right--will allow for more personal fulfillment. We all want to make the very best of our God- given talents, to do the very best we can in life, because most of us, toward the end of our lives, begin reflecting on why we are here and what was so important about our life and what we want to leave behind. We speak in terms of legacies. The reality is that most of us begin saying, well, did we make the most of what we had? We all have wonderful talents given to us, and we feel very good about ourselves and our lives if we have been able to take advantage of those talents, if we have fulfilled our expectations. Yet we know today we are not challenging our young students as much as we could be. It is a crime to me that we don't challenge them to the ultimate, the maximum, so they can make the most of what God has given them. We fail them if we don't do that. If we are so lazy and so wrong about the way we provide an educational opportunity that we don't challenge them to be the very best they can be, that is the worst thing we can do for our young people today. That is why I said if we get education right, everything else will follow in our society, and that is why I think it is the most important thing we can do. I was asked by a journalist: If you could do one thing in public policy as a member of the Federal Government, what would it be? I said: Well, other than ensuring our national security, which we have to put that first because that is the difference between life and death for all of our people, I would allow real choice in education so that people would be able to go to the place where they thought they could get the best education for their kids wherever that might be, and that the Federal Government not stand in the way of the exercise of that choice. And the very exercise of that choice would ensure a quality education and a safe education because the people who provide the education would have to rise to the challenge. They would have to understand that they would no longer be in business if people didn't come to them. If students didn't come, they wouldn't be able to educate. But if they did a good job, the students would come. It can be done. I visited a school district in Arizona not long ago--the Alhambra School District--not a wealthy school district. There are a lot of minorities there. Carol Peck is the superintendent. She told me there are 39 different languages and dialects spoken at that school. Yet they have achievement at that school because they have innovative administrators and teachers and the kids learn. We can learn lessons from that if we will allow innovation at the local level--if we will not bind them by all of these Federal rules and regulations. If we will lay those aside and at least let the small amount of Federal money that goes to local schools be used in an innovative way, we will begin to remove the barriers to innovation, and we will provide quality education for our kids. As I said in the beginning, just like welfare reform, we can succeed if we will just throw off the old ideas and allow innovation to prosper at the local level and at the parental level--and among our teachers, who, after all, are on the front lines of this wonderful opportunity we have. I appreciate the indulgence of the Chair. I thought since we had a little extra time I would embellish a little bit on the remarks I made. I thank the Presiding Officer for setting aside this time for us to focus on this particular subject, and for the great job he has done over the many months in which he has been in charge in the effort to take some morning business time like this so we can all express ourselves on subjects that we are about to debate. I think the upcoming education debate is the most important debate we can engage in as a Senate.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate stand in recess until 1 p.m. today.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation and Recreation of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 27 at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing. The subcommittee will receive testimony on S. 1438, a bill to establish the National Law Enforcement Museum on Federal land in the District of Columbia; S. 1921, a bill to authorize the placement within the site of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial of a plaque to honor Vietnam veterans who died after their service in the Vietnam war, but as a direct result of their service; S. 2231 and H.R. 2879, bills to provide for the placement at the Lincoln Memorial of a plaque commemorating the speech of Martin Luther King, Jr., known as the ``I Have a Dream'' speech; S. 2343, a bill to amend the National Historic Preservation Act for purposes of establishing a national lighthouse preservation program; S. 2352, a bill to designate portions of the Wekiva River and associated tributaries as a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System; H.R. 1749, a bill to designate Wilson Creek in Avery and Caldwell Counties, North Carolina, as a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System; and H.R. 3201, a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the Carter G. Woodson Home in the District of Columbia as a National Historic Site, and for other purposes.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, Narcotics and Terrorism be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 27, 2000, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 27, 2000, to conduct a hearing on ``The International Monetary Fund and International Financial Institutions.''

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, April 27, 2000 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed mark-up on the FY01 Intelligence Authorization Bill.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Thursday, April 27, 2000, at 2 p.m., in SD226.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup on Thursday, April 27, 2000, at 10:00 a.m. The markup will take place in Dirksen Room 226.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the Senator from California may have time yielded to her from someone else in her party to advance the rest of her argument. She might find out how much time there is. I inquire of the Chair. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I am going to make some concluding remarks about why we believe so strongly in this amendment, how we intend to pursue the amendment, and why supporters of this amendment should take heart about how far we have come in this process and not at all be dispirited by the fact that there will not be a final vote on the amendment at this time. I will make those comments after Senator Feinstein has had an opportunity to make some comments that I know she strongly wishes to make.

Mr. KYL. I am happy to yield.

Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair. We are in the process of determining just how much time speakers are going to need in order to conclude debate on the motion to proceed. Senator Feinstein and I both have some preliminary remarks we would like to make in connection with that debate as the two chief proponents of the resolution. We understand Senator Leahy and Senator Byrd wish to take some time, and Senator Biden as well a little later on. As soon as we can confirm the amount of time people will need, we will probably propound a unanimous consent request in that regard.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, we are in the process of attempting to work out an arrangement of time for the debate on the pending motion. I ask for all concerned if the Chair will describe the pending business of the Senate.

Mr. KYL. I shall not take nearly that much time. It is my understanding that I can't yield any of that time to Senator Feinstein.

Mr. KYL. I ask unanimous consent to yield 1 hour of my time to Senator Feinstein.

Mr. KYL. I appreciate it. I thank the Chair.