George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a member of the committee.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare), a member of the committee.

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

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume and just to thank my colleagues who joined in the general debate and for their support for this legislation and, again, to thank the staffs on both sides of the aisle of both the subcommittee and the full committee without whose work and effort and knowledge this legislation would not be in the kind of shape it is today, with the support that it has from both Republicans and Democrats for the Head Start bill.

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

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I rise in strong support of this amendment and urge its adoption. I thank the gentlewoman for offering it.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, Members of the House, we are here today to authorize the Head Start program. What this amendment would do would simply end Head Start in those eight States as we know it. There would be no requirement that those States would take the money that we have set aside, that we have worked hard to provide within the budget for the Head Start program and use it to implement a program that is anything like Head Start, because there would simply be no requirements on that money to provide the kind of comprehensive programs that are now required under the Head Start program that have demonstrated the success that we just spent an hour with speakers from both sides of the aisle attesting to in their own districts or on a national basis as members of the committee have talked about what we are doing in this reauthorization. These States would be eligible for these funds without demonstrating any expertise or commitment to the high quality of this proven preschool program. Essentially that's the end of it in those eight States. Now, maybe one of those States will have a strong commitment to Head Start and all the rest of it. That's what Head Start is. That's what Head Start is. Why are we running this money through another filter system to recreate the Head Start program? We already require, and we went through a series of hearings about coordination with the States to make sure that Head Start coordinates with other State programs and State agencies. But we also know that because of what we have done with Head Start over the years, where we have provided reauthorization after reauthorization, the continuous improvement of the programs that are integral to the success of Head Start and to the success of the children, where we have used scientific-based educational and performance standards, where we have provided for accountability and oversight and evaluation of the program, where we have provided for the parent policy councils, all of these things that have been integral to this program over this time to bring it to a point now where we can see that it demonstrates a marked impact on these young children in closing the achievement gap for these children and getting them ready and the skills that they will need for early reading, for early math, for early writing, that is what this program does. There are not many States that do any of that. They have a lot of early childhood programs. They have a lot of child care programs, they have a lot of it. But they don't have this comprehensive program. That's why this is considered the premier program in the Nation for the education and the development of these young children. That is why we should not support this block grant amendment. I daresay that we have watched over the last decades effort after effort be made to block grant programs. Generally, where they have been successful, they have been the first step to the budget cuts, to the loss of quality. That's what's involved here. Again, when we structured this legislation, and in consideration of the budget and the increases in the money, we are putting 60 percent of the money into quality, into teacher and professional development, into salaries, because we recognize that we have to have that continuous update and that improvement of the Head Start program. Voting for this amendment is not to vote for Head Start; it's to vote for something, but it's not to vote for Head Start. It's, in fact, detrimental because that money, then, is out of the Head Start system to be used for whatever purposes. In fact, you can take this Federal money and then withdraw the local money. There is no requirement in this amendment that there be a maintenance of effort by a State to do this. What have you really done? You have taken money for the Federal taxpayers that paid into this program that we have decided on a bipartisan basis should go for the Head Start program. You said, oh, you can give it to a State, and they can draw their money out the bottom. So we put the taxpayers' money in at the top, and the State takes the money out of the bottom. That is not going to improve quality. That is not going to improve access. Now, you can argue that maybe you can add a lot of children to a program, a program, not the Head Start program, because the Head Start program is expensive because we do it the way we should be doing, the way it has been scientifically analyzed and supported by the data. You can put a lot of kids in low-quality programs, but that is not what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to achieve high quality so we get the results that Head Start gets and most other States don't get. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I would just say that is exactly the point. Yes, it offers all services, but it doesn't require the same high-quality service we have now. You can do all of these things, but you end up doing these things on the cheap because the demand is for slots. We have seen that tension here all the time. There are no requirements here that you have anything comparable to the quality and the requirements in the Head Start program, and yet you are you are taking money out of the program to give it for these other purposes. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

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

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank her very much for introducing this amendment, and we rise in support of this amendment. We think it improves the legislation, and thank her for her consideration.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman and Members of the House, I rise in opposition to this amendment, simply for the simple fact that we are trying to balance, in this legislation, the best we can do to increase the number of teachers with a B.A. degree in child education, child development and at the same time meet the other needs of the program. And to accelerate that effort on behalf of more teachers with an M.A. upsets that balance. It's not like, with all due respect to my friend on the other side, and he shares my concern for teacher quality, it's what I've spent my public life trying to do. The fact of the matter is this is a program that essentially has received less than the COLA, last year got a 1 percent cut. And the fact of the matter is we're trying to patch it back up, trying to bring it back to the level where it was around 2002, and recognizing that we want to increase the access to a number of children, so money has to go for slots, money has to go for professional development, money has to go for quality, and money has to go for the salaries, and that's the balance that we have put in this program. The date that you have was the date that you had at the beginning of 2005 when we started considering this legislation. That legislation didn't get through. We're now 2 years later, so we moved it back 2 years so that the programs can balance, can rebuild the quality, can add additional slots for the million children who are now waiting, and that's the balance that we arrived at on both sides of the aisle. You could offer an amendment and say, well, there's a million children waiting. Let's put all the money into slots. Then you just reduce the quality and the availability to pay teachers to have them to stay. So this isn't a game where you can just pick out one part of the program and say, let's put the money there, and that's the reason why we did what we did. And I don't think that this amendment is helpful in terms of our ability to hold on to current staff that have B.A.'s, and that's the staff we're trying to build, and then to attract additional ones to be able to put some money into that pay quality, and the additional slots. And I would hope that we would oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. This is what agencies have to do when the funding isn't sufficient and they are trying to hold on to the number of children, the hours of availability of the program and the quality of the teachers that are there. In the past when we had the cut, I believe the agency, HHS, allowed some local programs to do this. I would hope that this will not be a necessity. We are adding an additional $400 million to this program. I hope that the Appropriations Committee will be able to follow through. The amendment is a good amendment. I hope we don't have to use it, but it's a good amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman, and I rise in support of his amendment. I think his explanation is correct, that this will provide not only perhaps more uniformity in terms of the assessments, but also communications between programs as to which assessments are really working and which assessments are appropriate for this purpose. I think it is a good amendment, and I would hope that we would accept it. I thank the gentleman for offering it.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for offering this amendment. It is interesting that the other side would now oppose this amendment, but all day long they have been citing us the executive order with the exact same language in it as the basis for the right of faith-based organizations to participate in this program, a right that they have exercised now for more than 40 years. What your amendment does is to take it from the regulations and put it into the statute to guarantee them that right in the law, not just in the executive order and in the regulations. In my own district, the First Baptist organization runs the Head Start program. They do a marvelous job. The reason they are kicking up the smokescreen around Mr. Shuler's amendment is that they want to protect themselves, because they are going to come here with an amendment that is going to try to give people the right to discriminate against people based upon their religion, the right to discriminate with Federal dollars on religion. What Mr. Shuler's amendment does is to make sure that we do not weaken the ability of faith-based organizations to participate, as they have over their proud history. That is why the broadest array of religious organizations will oppose what is going to be offered in the motion to recommit, but strongly support, strongly support, the Shuler amendment to add this language to the statute to provide this protection and to provide this recognition of the historical service and the ongoing service that these faith communities have provided to the children that are eligible for Head Start to provide that quality education year after year after year after year. That is what this amendment does. We should welcome it. We should adopt it overwhelmingly in this House and get on with the debate. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman and his cosponsors for offering this amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for offering this amendment and for bringing this perspective to this legislation, along with Mr. Hare and Mr. Altmire and Mr. Welch, and for representing the rural communities and raising these issues during this debate and during the consideration of this legislation. Sometimes issues get overlooked in the rush to reauthorize the bill and to reauthorize it from a single perspective, so I appreciate this information that they have brought to us. I think the direction to the Secretary to review and to look at these barriers and to see what we can do to remove them so that we can assure both the participation of the children in the program and of their families and their parents as is designed by the law is important. Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of the amendment.