Patty Murray

Mrs. MURRAY

Mrs. MURRAY. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mrs. MURRAY. Yes. The Senator from Nevada is absolutely correct. We want to be able to offer an amendment and have every Senator vote, up or down, whether or not they are going to continue to allow these teachers to be employed, to be working in our classrooms, or whether they are going to say: No, sorry; not on our watch.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, in response to the Senator from Nevada, this issue is so important to me, it is so important to the children in our classrooms and the families of this country, that I will continue to offer this amendment every single hour until the Senate is out of session in November.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Nevada is correct. To our colleagues who are wondering why we are debating and not offering the amendment, if I offer the amendment, it will be second-degreed and our colleagues will never have an opportunity to vote or make a statement whether or not they want to continue the funds to reduce class sizes. We are here to continue to talk about the bill. I am happy to do that. I have a lot to say. I know a number of my colleagues do as well.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Nevada is correct. I have been a preschool teacher. I have been a school board member. I have served in my State legislature, been on the education committee there, and I now serve on the Education Committee in the Senate. I have seen all sides of education. Probably most important, I have been a parent of two students in our public education system and participated in everything from PTA to all the activities that go along with being a parent.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Nevada is correct.

Mrs. MURRAY. I yield for a question.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Massachusetts is absolutely correct. Every parent knows smaller class size is important. It is the question they ask their children when they come home on the first day of school: How many kids are in your classroom? They ask that question because every parent knows the smaller the class, the better chance at learning. But the fact is, we want our Federal dollars spent in areas that will really work. We have, as a Senate, looked at studies--the STARS study the Senator from Massachusetts just mentioned--and the fact is, when we spend Federal dollars and we are partners with our local districts in reducing class size, it makes a difference for our students. As the Senator from Massachusetts said, students in smaller classes have significantly higher grades, as found in a STARS study that followed these kids from the early grades all the way through senior year in high school. In fact, in English, smaller classes had a 76.1- percent average--higher than these. In math it was higher, and in science it was higher. This is real. These dollars make a difference. It means students will learn the skills every one of us wants them to learn, and studies back them up. This money makes a difference.

Mrs. MURRAY. It was $1.2 billion.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Massachusetts is absolutely correct. I remember the negotiations. I remember everyone coming out in a bipartisan manner, in fact struggling to get their press conferences before their counterparts in the other party, in order to take credit for the class size reduction. Senator Gorton here in the Senate was part of those negotiations. As the Senator mentioned, the House chairman, a Republican, as well as Dick Armey, came out and said: We have made progress. We have done something that is important. We are behind the class size reduction. This is a commitment we are going to make. So it is very surprising to me that the House has zeroed out money now and said it is no longer a priority, and here in the Senate bill we are doing the same thing.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Massachusetts is correct.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is absolutely correct. What we did with these dollars is, we focused them directly in an area where we know it makes a difference in the learning of children. In addition, unlike many other Federal programs, we made sure it was not spent on bureaucrats or paperwork or administration. These dollars are targeted directly to the classroom. That is why it has been so effective. That is why it is so well loved by so many districts.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Massachusetts is correct. I have not seen the editorial. It does not surprise me. I have seen similar editorials, like in Longview, WA, a very small rural community that understands the need to educate their kids because they can no longer rely on the timber jobs that were there maybe even a decade or two decades ago, and they know their kids need to know math and science so they can attract some of the high-tech industries that are coming in and seeing that those kids get the education they need. I have heard from schools in Yakima, WA, a farming community, Everett, a suburban district, right in the heartland of Seattle, Garfield High School, where teachers have said to me: This money is critical, it is targeted, it is used for what we need to do, you can be held accountable for it; don't renege on a promise.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Massachusetts brings up another extremely important point. I do not think there is a parent in America whose heart does not stop when they see another television show about another shooting and they worry about their own child. The fact is, when kids are in smaller class sizes in the first, second, and third grades, their tendency toward discipline problems is reduced dramatically. It does make a difference. More important is what a policeman told me not long ago. He said: I watch these families today, and a lot of kids are home alone essentially in the evening. The parents may even be there, but they are essentially home alone. They walk to school in the morning in a neighborhood where the blinds are closed and the doors are closed and not one adult looks out to see if they are OK. They walk to school without anyone paying attention. They get to school, where it is overcrowded, where the only adult in that classroom never has time to look them in the eye or see that they are OK. This policeman said to me: These kids feel anonymous in today's world. It is no surprise they act out violently in order for someone to notice them.

Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. I remind my colleagues that we are here today because we believe this issue is extremely important; that firing nearly 30,000 teachers, that reneging on our promise to reduce class size is the wrong way to go. We want this Senate to be on record, we want an up-or-down vote on this amendment, and we want this country to know we stand behind the commitment we made 1 year ago.

Mrs. MURRAY. I will be happy to yield for a question.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from North Dakota is correct. If my amendment is not adopted, the result will be nearly 30,000 teachers nationwide will lose their jobs at the end of this year.

Mrs. MURRAY. Without losing my right to the floor.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is correct. Unless we dedicate this money to the class size reduction bill we passed last year--that we continue it--those classroom teachers will be fired at the end of this year.

Mrs. MURRAY. I will yield for a question.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is correct.

Mrs. MURRAY. I yield the Senator 5 minutes.

Mrs. MURRAY. I recall the same effort; correct.

Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from Illinois is correct. I continue to add, what we have seen is what we call block grants proposed under the guise of: Well, we are letting the local people decide where the money is going to go. All of us want that to happen. All of us want local people involved in the decisionmaking. But what I have seen in the almost 8 years I have been here is that block grants are reduced dramatically. In fact, the title I funds, under the current bill--when we look in the block grants--are being reduced. So it is pretty easy to reduce a block grant. It is a lot harder to fire 29,000 teachers.

Mrs. MURRAY. I say to the Senator from Illinois, my experience not only as a teacher but as a parent and school board member and a State legislator working on education is that this initiative has made more of a difference in classrooms than anything I have seen in a number of years. Reality: New teachers hired; smaller class sizes; kids getting the attention they deserve. The reality is that our tax dollars--the moneys allocated under this program--are making a difference. They are making a difference for 1.7 million children right now.