George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price). (Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman for his comments, and I look forward to working with him and others in the conference committee to help these families advance their children's academic performance, especially by encouraging a range of solutions to stabilize their residential situation during the early years of learning for their children.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time otherwise reserved for the opposition.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the chairman, has quite properly explained his amendment, and we have no opposition to it. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time otherwise reserved for the opposition.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, we have no problem with sense of the Congress amendment on this matter offered by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves). This has obviously been a matter that has been of growing concern in the Congress to make sure that we, in fact, have the ability to drive every dollar possible to the classroom, to the local level, where the decision-making that is on a day-to-day basis for the well being of our children is made and that they have the opportunity to use those resources that we have dedicated for that purpose. I would say, however, that I find this somewhat in conflict with those who will support the Straight A's proposal because, in fact, the Straight A's proposal allows 8 percent of the title I money to be held at the State level and 10 percent of the money on everything else to be held at the State level. This is money that a State would hold onto itself, and in many instances we know that that is really about the bureaucracy funding itself, a State bureaucracy funding itself, with Federal dollars. Whether that in some cases is legal or not, the fact of the matter is that is what happens. So we support this resolution because we strongly believe that we should be driving these dollars to the classroom. We also strongly believe that we should increase the flexibility at the local level, and we have done that in this legislation. That is why later on we will be opposing the proposal on the Straight A's.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for his comments. I think clearly this amendment is consistent with what we said we want to do in this legislation, and we have no opposition. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), a member of the committee.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, what this legislation says is that we shall annually measure the proficiency of students in the academic subjects in which States have adopted challenging academic content and student performance and standards. We shall try and make a determination of how the students are doing in meeting that academic standard and content. We are kind of down to the point where we can make a choice. We can do business as usual, hold onto the status quo and we can just continue to see a system that has passed children from grade to grade, not knowing whether or not those children can read, not knowing whether they can compute, not knowing whether those children can reason or whether they have mastered the language arts. Social promotion. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), a former coach, talked about it in his remarks. He found as he looked at his new recruits, even though they had a diploma and grades, they could not master the work in college. We know it from our own school districts. We know it from parents that have talked to us. I teach in a continuation high school, and I see children which have been passed through from grade to grade. We want to stop that. We owe it to those children and parents to stop that. We owe it to the taxpayers of this Nation to stop that. As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) said, $120 billion later, we have not gotten the results that we believe that these children and their families are entitled to, and we have not gotten the results that the taxpayers are entitled to, so we have asked for a system of accountability. We have asked for a system of accountability to determine how our children are doing so then local districts will have the ability to target the resources, target the resources of summer school, target the resources of after-school tutoring and mentoring, to target the resources of Saturday school so that these children will be able to get the help that they need. Mr. Chairman, one of my colleagues said we do not fatten a pig by weighing them. Yes, one does. One wants to make a determination whether the pig is being fed the right thing, because pigs are sold by the pound. If the pig is sick, one wants to know that. That is why that assessment is made. People say we test in 8th and 10th grade. In our poor school districts, if a student falls behind in second or third grade, in all likelihood they will drown before they can be helped because the resources are not there. Mr. Chairman, we want to make an assessment of how these children are doing. Are they performing at age-appropriate levels and grade- appropriate levels, are they mastering the subject matter; and we want to provide the resources to those schools to improve those schools, to keep them from failing, to turn them around. But we need to have that assessment. This is the heart of accountability. One cannot just say they are for accountability. Someday my colleagues have to step up to the plate and make that determination. Let me say in closing, Motorola requires a high school education before an individual can make application to their corporation. And I think they turn away about 50 percent of their applicants because they cannot read or perform at 12th grade levels. We owe better to our students; and we certainly owe better to the poorest of our students.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I know of no real opposition to this amendment. There are some who obviously think that this is a decision school boards ought to be making. They are elected by the people in the community; if that is the view of the people in the communities, then maybe they ought to reflect that. But I know of no real opposition here. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I think basically the core problem with this amendment is that, in fact, the block grant, the manner in which it is constructed and the school districts that would, in fact, qualify for it really stands accountability on its head. In fact, you have the ability of a school district to be failing, if you will, essentially almost 4 years out of 5 years, and at the same time receive the ability to do this. Mr. Chairman, I realize that the amendment suggests if you make inadequate yearly progress, you can then have the block grant approach. But the fact of the matter is, you can fail to meet adequately yearly progress for 2 years, you could meet it a 3rd year or you could be back again in 2 years and you continue to get the block grant approach. I think that that takes away much of the accountability that we have sought to have in this legislation. I think allowing the school districts to use these grants eliminates the very purpose of which we establish these priorities. Why would we want to have a district eliminating spending on teacher quality when we continue to have large numbers of uncertified and unqualified teachers? Clearly in the legislation before us, we allow for greater flexibility. We also recognize that there is a purpose and a reason for these priorities. That is why we do not go to a block grant. We try to provide that flexibility, but we also try to make sure that the purposes for which that money was sent is maintained by allowing school districts to move some of that money back and forth across those lines, but not too to engage in the block grant approach. So for those reasons, Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment and would ask my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I think that the arrangement that we have arrived at within the current legislation that is before us, that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) and others worked on to provide a substantially greater level of flexibility for districts, is a better answer than to provide these block grants. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer). (Mr. ROEMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Mrs. Mink).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to begin my remarks on this legislation by thanking the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the chairman of my committee, for all of his cooperation and for the honorable manner in which he dealt with every member of our committee, especially those members on our side. We recognize we are in the minority. It makes it very difficult from time to time, but the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) was very candid with us, very forthcoming, and I think created an atmosphere in which we could arrive at this work product with this bipartisan conclusion. I would also say that, as I watched him work, as he assumed the chairmanship of this committee, and as I watched him work with individual members of the committee and to deal with all of the issues that were thrown at us during the months of discussion of this legislation, and during our markup, I saw a legislator at work, and he should be very proud. I also want to thank those who worked so very hard, the members of our committee as members of the working group: the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Mrs. Mink), the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson). These Members and their staff spent an awful lot of time in sessions trying to iron out the differences between us to see whether or not we could come to agreement. In some cases, we were able to. In other cases, we were not, but we moved on to the other topics and finally arrived in the negotiations that led to this legislation. I think we feel that, in fact, this legislation truly represents both, what both Members on both sides of the aisle have been saying they want with respect to the Federal role in education and to what the President has said that he wants in this legislation. I believe that we have an opportunity with this legislation to pass a sound, bipartisan education reform bill that will benefit children. We will have an opportunity to pass a bill that achieves a consensus, a consensus, as I have said, between the education proposals and reform proposals offered by Members of Congress, both parties, and by the President. Here are the reforms that we want and the overwhelming majority of parents and taxpayers tell us that they want and that we are attempting to achieve in this bill. We are attempting to achieve real accountability for real results; a specific plan to finally, once and for all, close the achievement gap between rich and poor and between minority and nonminority students. It is very important because this is the intent of the Federal role in education, to equalize the effort and to close the gap between these students with respect to the results and the educational experience. To provide for quality teachers through professional development, training and resources available to the teachers to do their jobs; significant new investments in our public school system; doubling Title I funding; increase support, respect and training for teachers; new resources to help schools that are failing; better targeting of funds to schools with high concentrations of children in poverty and to children with limited English proficiency; unprecedented flexibility at the local level to tailor education reforms to achieve the ambitious goals that we have set out in this legislation. Today we have an opportunity to step forward, to make these changes on behalf of our Nation's school children. This bill is not perfect. There is much more I would like to do to improve education in this country. I know there are many of my colleagues who would like to do some things in this bill differently, but I think this bill in its current form represents a major step forward. I think it would be a mistake for us to miss the opportunity to do the things we are capable of doing now because we cannot do everything right away. The fact is that, in far too many communities in this country, particularly in our poorest communities, we have what amounts to gross educational malpractice, and that cannot stand. For too long, the educational system in this country has operated under a policy of acceptable losses. Too many children had been written off, and that cannot stand. Hundreds of thousands of students leave school every year, in many cases with a diploma, only to find out that they have not received a quality education they need and that they ought to be entitled to. That cannot stand. We know we can do better. Schools all over this country have succeeded in educating students from every background: poor students, black students, Hispanic students, students with limited English proficiency, students that represent American society in so many settings at so many different parts of the country, under so many different circumstances. In fact, they have been given an excellent education with excellent results. All of America's children deserve that. In virtually every case, they have achieved these successes by doing the very things that we set out to do in this bill, setting high standards, establishing clear goals, and targeting the investments in better teaching and instructional materials. We are saying today, on the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, that this is what we as a Nation want for every child in every school in every State. We want this for the children from Pittsburgh, California to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; for children from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. I hope we can work together to fulfill that promise. We have some important work ahead of us. The voucher provisions to be offered later in this debate in this bill would kill any chance of bipartisanship. In fact, they would likely result in bipartisan opposition to this entire bill. I know there are differences of opinion, but we believe that vouchers in any form fundamentally undermine what we are trying to accomplish to achieve real education reform throughout this country for all of our students. We will vigorously oppose those amendments. The other significant amendments that would draw strong Democratic opposition would establish a large block grant with Federal education dollars to the States, known as Straight A's. We will talk at great length later about what we, and almost every credible group representing local educators, students and parents, think is wrong with that Straight A's proposal. I would assert here, however, that what we have in H.R. 1 is a better alternative to Straight A's, the provision we call transferability at the local level. In fact, I think the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) and I agree. When it comes to the Straight A's proposal, we have a better deal in H.R. 1. It was not a deal that I came to these negotiations with. It is not a deal that the chairman brought to these negotiations. We both had very different views about how this could be carried out to provide for the flexibility that so many of us have heard in our districts, school districts and administrators have asked for as they deal with the education of the children that they know best. But out of these negotiations, with great help from the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) and others, a solution came forward to provide that kind of flexibility to the local level of school decision- making in each and every one of our States. We have the opportunity in this legislation, as I have said, to pass a sound bipartisan education reform bill that I believe will benefit all of the children of this Nation, and I look forward over the next few days to work with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and Members on the other side of the aisle, with the members of our committee, and with the Members in the House generally to consider each and every amendment, to give it a fair hearing, and to give it our support or our opposition based on the merits and the differences that some of us have about the direction of the American education system. As the chairman said when he started his remarks in this debate, as he did when we started our discussions in the committee, this is a debate on the merits of the education system in this country and about those proposals being put forth to reform that system, to hold that system accountable, and to get the results all of us want for all of our children. This is not about a personal political debate; this is not about attacking the motives or the integrity of any Member of Congress. Where we differ, it is on the merits. To his credit, he kept the debate on that level in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and for that reason we had overwhelming bipartisan support for this legislation, again, that represents the ideas on both sides of the aisle; and I would hope that this is the legislation that would emerge after we go through the markup here in the Committee of the Whole. I look forward to the continuation of the debate next week.