Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. In terms of the overall education budget, it is small in cost. But for those schools impacted, it is a very big deal for them. I thank the Senator for his leadership. I think this is an important issue.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I am excited and pleased about the direction this Senate is attempting to go in reforming Federal involvement and participation in education today. I have been traveling my State since January. I have been in 15 different schools. I have been impressed with what the teachers and principals are trying to do. There are a lot of good things happening in a lot of schools all over America. But I hear more and more frustration from those people who are dealing with our children in our classrooms, who know our children's names, who are answerable to our people in our communities to run education. They are very frustrated that what we are doing in Washington complicates their lives, makes them more difficult, and frustrates their ability to actually teach children. I know some of my friends on the other side of the aisle so frequently use the word ``accountability.'' They say ``we need accountability--accountability.'' I have been listening to that. Not too long ago it finally dawned on me--I have been in this body for just over 3 years, on the Education Committee just over 1 year--what they define as accountability. They define accountability as a Federal program that mandates precisely how the money is spent. That is not accountability. Accountability is, when money is coming from the Federal Government, the State government, the city government, and the county government: Is learning occurring? Are children learning? We need to determine in America if children are learning. In some schools they are and in other schools they are not, or there is so little learning as to be, in effect, a waste of our money. To pour more money, even with targeted rules from the Federal Government, into a school system in Alabama, Texas, Pennsylvania, or New York is not the way to improve learning. That is not accountability. We need to ask ourselves, after 35 years of this basic Elementary and Secondary Education Act--and it is a primary Federal act; there are some 700 programs for education. ESEA is the biggest. We have been growing it for 35 years. It is now up to 1,000 pages of rules and regulations and paperwork that fall on our teachers and principals. I have been talking intensely to those people. They do not believe it is necessary. They believe many of the things we are doing complicate their lives, make it more difficult for them to teach, and frustrate them. In fact, we are, as many people know, losing a lot of good teachers. Discipline problems, paperwork problems, lack of appreciation for the work they are doing, no difference between a great teacher who works at night, does his homework, meets with students after school, prepares carefully written tests--there is no difference in what they get paid from a teacher who has no interest in their work, just comes to class, presides over it, does not do a lesson plan, gives weak or almost insignificant tests, and does not worry about whether the children are learning or not. I was in Selma, AL, last Friday, visiting the Selma City School System. Selma has 45,000 people. They created a sixth grade school. They call it the Discovery School. The teachers and principals got together and developed a program on how to improve learning for the city of Selma. All the sixth grades were there. Every student has to be involved in an artistic endeavor. I saw their ballet performance. I saw their tap dance performance. They have music, art, and other forms of artistic endeavor. They believe, as national statistics show, that music and art can enhance learning in other courses. That is their decision, and they have teachers who are committed to it and excited about it. They were very proud of the performance of those kids. I went into a class called sports math. Sports is big in Alabama and in a lot of States. Kids are interested in sports. When one talks about batting average, that includes people's weight, height--all these factors. This is a good way to take children's natural interest in an event such as sports and convert that to a learning process of math. It is an extra class they can do. I met a teacher who had gone to Russia with our NASA program. She taught a special class on space, and they were excited about that. They had some great teachers there. I met the mother of Doc Robinson. Doc Robinson--of course, sports fans might know him--is the senior graduating guard from Auburn University, one of the top teams in the country this year. He will probably go in the first, second, or third round of the NBA draft. His mother teaches in Selma. She is a wonderful lady and excited about education in that school. What is it that makes us think we can develop some plan for teaching sixth graders in Selma, AL, better than those people? That is a question we need to ask ourselves. What is it that makes us think we can mandate more effectively than they can? They care about their children. They are their own children. Doc Robinson graduated from that Selma school system, just as other children did. That is an important factor for us to consider. I know there has been a lot of thought about how we are going to handle other issues people think are important. One of the issues that has been talked about a lot is class size. They say class size is the most important thing. Numbers do not show that to be the most important thing. They do not show that. There is a lot of debate about that. Maybe it is extremely important under certain circumstances. It may not be so important in other circumstances. Maybe the Selma school system would rather create this new Discovery School and work on funding it for the next 2 or 3 years, get it straightened out, and then add a new teacher to reduce class size the third year down the road. I am not prepared to say what it is. Why do we not think we ought to trust the people who elected us to run the school system? They elected the school system. There is a lot that has been said about this. There has been a study by Michigan Professor Linda Lim who did comparative studies of U.S. and Asian schools and found that class sizes of 50--and we are down around 20 or fewer now--50 plus in places such as Taiwan have not kept those schools from performing better than ours. The basics of Professor Lim's findings are that nothing--not spending per student, not class size, not computer access--makes the critical difference in the end. Rather, motivation is what matters. We need parental involvement, plus teachers who want to teach and are skilled and children who are prepared to learn. They must all work together to achieve results. We talk a lot in our State about improving textbooks. I think we ought to improve textbooks. I am very concerned about the quality of our textbooks. A year or so ago, Senator Robert Byrd delivered one of the most impressive speeches I ever heard on education. He called the modern textbooks ``touchy-feely twaddle.'' Regardless, what difference does it make if we have a $500 textbook for every child in the classroom and those students will not read it? That is what I ask students when I talk with them. Alabama has a tough graduation exam. If a student does not meet this exam, they will not get their diploma. It is considered to be the toughest exam in America. The children are worried about it. A substantial number may not pass. When I talked with these students, they expressed their concerns to me, to which I enjoyed listening. I asked them: Do you come to school in the morning, and do you get a good night's rest? Do you pay attention in class? Do you do the homework your teacher assigns? Do you read your lesson at night? Oh, you don't? Do you know students who do not do that? And they all agreed that they do. I said: Why do you think you should get a diploma from high school if you do not at least put in your part? What we are finding, and what a lot of experts believe, is that a teacher who can motivate a child is more important than whether he is teaching 18 people or 25 people. That is a key factor. There is a study by the University of Rochester economist Eric Hanushek. He studied 277 separate published studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement. We ought to get a pretty good result from this. They published this all over America. He found this: That only 15 percent of those studies suggested there is a statistically significant improvement in achievement as a result of smaller classes; 72 percent of the studies found no effect at all. That is surprising to me. I would not have thought that. But that is what he found. And he found that 13 percent found reducing class size had a negative impact on achieving. That was reported in the Education Week, a journal of professional educators. The Department of Education, under President Clinton, reports that although American students lag behind other students in international testing, American classrooms have an average size of 23 students. That is very few students compared with the averages of 49 in South Korea, 44 in Taiwan, and 36 in Japan. I am not saying we ought to increase our class sizes. I think having a small class size is fine. But for this Congress to mandate to professional educators, Governors, State superintendents, county superintendents, and principals all over America that we are going to give you money only for reducing class size is not wise. I am telling you, America, that is not a good thing for us to require, to mandate. In a particular community, that may not be the most important thing. There are some real numbers that question that policy. Washington, DC, this city of which we are a part, has an average class size below the national average. Yet it ranks near the bottom in academic achievement. Furthermore, we should not forget that class size in American schools dropped from 30 in 1961 to 23 in 1998 without any improvement in standardized test scores. So I would suggest maybe having superior teachers and motivating schools are the things we need to be looking for. That is not going to come from some Senator in Washington or the President of the United States but from actual teachers in classrooms who know our children's names, who care about them as human beings. Indeed, in 1988, the U.S. Department of Education concluded that reducing class size would be expensive and probably ``a waste of money and effort.'' I do not know if it is a waste of effort. I just say this. It may not be the most important part of our budget dollar. We are trying to do that in Alabama. We are working hard to reduce class sizes. We are actually getting down within this national goal range already. But it does come at great cost. What if you have 18 classrooms in a school, and they are averaging 25 students per classroom, and you want to bring it down to 20 students per class or 18 students per class? How many more classrooms do you have to build? How many more teachers do you have to hire? How much more air-conditioning and structure and upkeep is required? I am just saying, we do not know enough to mandate that. That is all. I know the polling numbers look good. You go out and ask the American people: What would you like to do about schools? You give them a bunch of choices, one being: Reduce class size. They say: Yes, I would like to reduce class size. Before I looked at these numbers, I would have thought there would be a much greater correlation between smaller class size and learning in a classroom than there apparently is shown by all the statistical data. I am just saying, we do not need to be reacting to polling data. We do not need to run a poll and ask what is the No. 1 idea somebody might have to improve education, and then do only that, after looking at the numbers and finding out that might not be the best approach. Of course, teacher quality is something about which Senator Mack and others have been talking. How can we nurture that? I taught 1 year in a sixth grade class in the public schools of Alabama. My wife taught a number of years. Our kids have gone through schools in the State and had a good experience. My two daughters graduated from a major public high school in the city of Mobile. We have been to the PTA meetings at Murphy High School. We named our dog Murphy. We loved our high school and participated in it. My daughters were editors of The Annual. They also attended other schools in the city. We were involved in that. We want to see the quality of education improve, but it is not always what somebody might say in response to a polling question.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, with regard to the quality of teachers, that is where we need to focus. Senator Mack has offered this amendment as a breakthrough to try to have some merit pay. I am telling you, I have taught. My wife has taught. We have been active in schools. Everybody who knows anything about education, who has had children in school, knows that some teachers give so much more and are so much more valuable than others who have maybe lost their enthusiasm or just do not have the capability. That is quite clear. To say to those exceptional teachers, who are being sought by high- tech computer companies and chemical firms, that we cannot pay them any more money, that they have to receive the exact same pay as somebody who does not perform as well, is not good policy, not if we care about learning. But if we care about bureaucracy, if we care about the educational establishment in Washington--if we care about that --if that is who is jerking our chain, then we do not give more pay to people who do better, then we do not give more pay to people who give their heart and soul to it, as I know they do. I have been a member of a supper club in the city of Mobile for a long time, over 25 years. Three of those people are full-time career teachers. I know how hard they work. I know how concerned they are for their children. Some teachers are just not that way. So why is that proposal so threatening? It would not be mandated. It would allow a certain amount of this money to be used for special merit pay. What is wrong with allowing a school system to do that? I think that is an important matter. I am delighted that amendment has been offered. It will be adopted and become law. We need to do that. According to a Fordham Foundation study called ``Better Teachers: Better Schools,'' we know that if students have teachers who have college degrees and have been specifically certified to teach math, those students score significantly higher on standardized tests than if the teacher did not have those credentials. Why shouldn't we pay more? Do you know what we do for the military? We are finding we need pilots, so we give them special bonuses to reenlist. We find we need special skills in certain computer areas, so we are allowing the military to pay more money for that. How are we going to keep math teachers who are in such demand in the private sector today, if they are exceptionally well trained and capable? How can we deny them any additional pay when we need them so desperately in the schools? I think we ought to look at that and improve on that. The Fordham study also points out that approaches focusing on inputs, courses taken, time requirements met, time spent, and activities engaged in, rather than on outputs, student achievement, how they are learning, and what their scores are on tests, are counterproductive. Do you see what that is saying? That is saying we should not put our money just on going through the motions of education. We should not invest our money in that. What we need to do is identify the kind of education in which learning occurs, where students are improving in their knowledge and support that--output, not input, issues. So if our bill were to pass and become Federal law, we would begin to focus on the outputs of academic achievement by poor students because ESEA is primarily focused on the poor, low-income schools and low- income students instead of focusing on inputs. The Teacher Empowerment Act--and Senator Gregg will speak about that-- is so important in that regard. I will mention one more point, and I see the Senator from Oklahoma is prepared to speak. Let me mention this. I have been in, as I said, 15 schools, and I am familiar with public schools in this country. I will tell you, one of the most significant problems we face is the ability of teachers to discipline children. They have been denied that by lawyers--Federal rules and regulations--and it is disrupting the classrooms and making it difficult to teach. I have a stack of probably 40 letters here, some of which would break your heart, from teachers who tell me stories. I intend to read some of them before the debate is over, perhaps a lot of them. I want people to hear what is happening in schools in America today. You may say it is the teacher's fault. What we will find out is that a lot of the reasons they can't maintain discipline in school is because of Federal law, what we do here under the Disability Act. We were supposed to fund 40 percent of the cost of that when the law was mandated; we were supposed to pay 40 percent. The truth is that the Federal Government now is paying 11 percent of the cost. Yet it is a full mandate on our schools in America. Schools have met the challenge. They are doing what we tell them to do, at a great cost. We had the superintendent of a school system in Vermont testify at an education hearing that 20 percent of his school system costs--20 percent at least--was focused on disability students. We have gone beyond what we meant by that. Originally, our goal was to make sure that children who were deaf, blind, or in a wheelchair would be allowed to participate fully, mainstreaming them in the classrooms in America. I certainly support that. What has happened now is under the Federal regulation, children declared disabled are not allowed to be disciplined, and the children are learning this; they know it. It is really a problem, which these letters will show. Unfortunately, it has now been twisted beyond its original intent. Teachers and principals are faced with regulations and laws that must be utilized before a disruptive or even violent child may be removed from a classroom--even for a short period. We should not continue these kinds of rules and regulations that keep schools from dealing with disruptive, aggressive, violent, gun-toting students. I have continually received complaints about the problem in every school I go to. They say it is the No. 1 problem with the Federal Government. My friend, David Whetstone, in Baldwin County--and I have known Dave for a long time from when I was a former U.S. Attorney and State attorney general. He came to Washington personally to talk to me about this story. We discussed a case which received national attention in both Time Magazine and on ``60 Minutes,'' in which a student was described as the ``meanest kid in Alabama.'' My friend, Dave Whetstone, told me of the circumstances in which this violent, disruptive young man was kept in the classroom under these Federal laws. I want to tell you what happened to this young man and see if you don't understand why teachers and principals are concerned about what we do here. The school had to assign an aide to this young man because he was declared emotionally conflicting. That is a disability, apparently. He had to stay with him all day long throughout the school day. The aide would get on the schoolbus with him in the morning, sit with him in class all day, and go home on the schoolbus at the end of the day because of his disruptive behavior. The aide had to be paid by the school board, of course, and the taxpayers of the community. Can you imagine what it was like being a teacher in that situation? The student used curse words in class on a regular basis and to the principal on a regular basis and was continuously disruptive. But our Federal law said, basically, he had to stay in the classroom. Eventually, the young man was going home one afternoon on the schoolbus and reportedly attacked the bus driver. When the aide tried to restrain him, he attacked the aide. My friend, the prosecutor, brought a creative legal action against the student to try to stop it. He was shocked to find out that was a law in the public schools of America. He found that there were at least six other students in that one school system with the same type problems. I have received letters from experienced educators all over the State of Alabama expressing their concern about this Federal regulation. Let me mention a few other experiences. None of these come from the same school. This is a quote from a letter: We have a student who is classified emotionally conflicted, learning disabled, and who has Attention Deficit Disorder. While this student has been enrolled, students, teachers and staff have been verbally threatened with physical harm. Fits of anger, fighting, and outbursts of verbal abuse have been commonplace. Parents and students have expressed concern over the safety of their children due to the behavior of the young man. Teachers have also become extremely apprehensive toward the presence of the student due to his explosive behavior. His misbehavior has escalated to the point that the instructional process of the entire school has been jeopardized. Another one: I have taught for 25 years. I plan to continue teaching, but the problems with discipline are getting out of hand. We are not allowed to discipline certain students. Any student labeled as ``special needs'' must be accommodated, not disciplined. A student recently brought a gun to my school. He made threats to students and teachers, which he claimed were jokes. I was one of the teachers. The teacher was threatened with a gun. This student has been disruptive and belligerent since I first encountered him in the ninth grade. Now he is a senior. After bringing a gun to school, he was given another ``second chance.'' He should have been expelled. What was his handicap? He has had problems with mathematics. While this may be an extreme situation, it is not isolated. Teachers are told to handle discipline in the classroom. The Government has taken most of the teachers' rights away, our hands are tied. Talk to teachers. Many special education teachers have told me that the discipline proceedings are going to drive them out of the profession. I believe it will be a tragedy if we lose proven, dedicated teachers because of shortcomings of a Federal law that is not fulfilling its purpose. That is not the purpose of the Disabilities Act--to keep violent, disruptive kids in the classroom when they are disrupting the teacher's ability to teach and learning isn't occurring. This is not restricted to any State; it is all over the country. That is why in the past, Senators Ashcroft, Frist, Gorton, and others have worked hard to end this problem. We must continue to do so. Mr. President, I know others would like to speak at this time. There is so much that we need to talk about. I would like to, and will, share in a few minutes, perhaps, a letter from a young teacher in an elementary school class who talks about the day she walked out of that classroom, walked through the parking lot, got in her car, never to return--because of this kind of stuff. It is happening. We need to put an end to it, and we can do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to speak after Senator Abraham.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Alaska. I appreciate his leadership on this issue. I see the poster the Senator from Nevada has of a train wreck. But I have heard many others say on this floor that if a train carrying nuclear waste wrecks, the nuclear waste doesn't blow up; it just lies on the ground. There was once a train with chemicals on board wreck about 200 yards from my mother's house. That was a very dangerous train wreck; with explosions and chemicals leaking into the air and on the ground. Had it been nuclear waste, it would have been sealed up and would not have blown up, or have gone into the air, or seeped onto the ground. It would have just sat there--posing little risk to people or the environment. It is just not that dangerous to transport. In fact, as Senator Domenici has noted, ships and submarines with nuclear fuel in them ply the oceans every day. Those ships use the same fuel and create the very same nuclear waste which we are looking to dispose of today. I will note that this debate is a political issue. There was an excellent film on global warming on ``Frontline'' about 2 weeks ago. Basically, they concluded our energy needs could not be met and our environmental needs could not be met without nuclear energy. There was no other conclusion you could reach from watching that, but an activist who opposed nuclear energy said the main reason she opposed it was because we could not get rid of the waste. That is an absolutely bogus argument. We have the ability to solve this problem. But until we do, we have, in effect, shut off our ability to produce a cleaner environment and get on with emission free energy production at a reasonable cost. The President has noted, in the State of the Union, that we have to do something about global warming. He attempted to get us to ratify the Kyoto treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent from the 1990 levels. But this Senate, voted unanimously, 95-0, against the agreement. Our greenhouse gas emissions have gone up 8 percent since 1990. So to meet the Kyoto agreement, we would have to have over a 15-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2012. There is no way that can be done without nuclear power. The Energy Information Agency predicts a 30-percent increase in demand in electricity in this country by the year 2015. 20 percent of our power today comes from nuclear energy. France produces over 60 percent, and Japan, nearly 50 of its electricity from nuclear power sources. Between 1973 and 1997, nuclear power generation avoided the emission of 82.2 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 37 million tons of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. In 1997 alone, emissions of sulfur dioxide would have been about 5 million tons higher and emissions of nitrogen oxide, 2.4 million tons higher, had fossil fuel generation replaced nuclear. Billions of tons of carbon and millions of tons of methane-- believed to be the most significant greenhouse gas--are not emitted because of nuclear power. The building blocks of ozone, a proven irritant and health risk to sensitive children and the elderly, is not emitted at all by nuclear power plants. Ozone precursors are emitted in all other fossil production of power. Sixteen percent of the world's electricity is coming from nuclear power, but we here in the U.S. have a strained situation because we cannot dispose of the waste. This problem drives up the cost of nuclear power which makes this cleanest of all power generation sources almost uneconomical. Certainly, one of the main reasons we are not building any new plants today is because of our inability to solve the waste problem. Even as some in the environmental movement are changing their views on nuclear power, the Vice President is not. In the April 22, edition of the Congressional Quarterly: Vice President Gore stated he does ``not support an increased reliance on nuclear power for electricity production'' but would ``keep open the option of relicensing nuclear power plants.'' I visited the Tennessee Valley Authority's existing plant a few weeks ago in north Alabama. They set a record for safe operation without one shut down in over 500 days. It produces no environmental discharge. One thousand workers are there, quite happy, making excellent wages and providing a steady, 24-hour-a-day supply of clean electricity for the Tennessee Valley Authority. That is good for this country. It means we are not having to burn coal. It means we are not having to import oil to generate our power. But members of the Administration are not unanimous in their position on nuclear power. In 1998, Under Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat remarked: I believe very firmly that nuclear has to be a significant part of our energy future and a large part of the Western world if we're going to meet these emission reduction targets. Those who think we can accomplish these goals without a significant nuclear industry are simply mistaken. Another administration official, Ambassador John Ritch, speaking to the North Atlantic Assembly said: The reality is that, of all energy forms-- This is the President's own appointee-- capable of meeting the world's expanding energy needs, nuclear power yields the least and most easily managed waste. I agree with Senator Domenici. We are almost at the point of lunacy if we cannot choose a place in the desert of this country--where we had hundreds of bombs exploded while developing our nuclear weaponry--to bury nuclear waste deep down a tunnel, under a solid rock mountain and secure it there. What is it that we cannot do? We are storing this waste in hundreds of nuclear powerplants all over America and we cannot put it out in the desert and seal it up, yet we have ships traveling all over the world powered by nuclear energy that have this same spent fuel in them? This is not wise. I call on the people of this country to rethink our position on nuclear power. There are 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored in 71 sites around this country. We have the ability to safely solve this waste problem and move ahead with a viable nuclear program to supply clean, low cost energy to our country. I thank the Chair and the distinguished chairman of this committee for his excellent work. I do hope this veto will not be sustained.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. He served on the Education Committee for a number of years. You can see the passion, the conviction, and the knowledge he brings to bear on this issue, as the Chair himself has done over the years. It is time for some changes. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed as part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in 1965. I have been in schools in Alabama. I have talked to teachers. I have been in 18 schools in Alabama since January 1 of this year. I was in Selma, AL, just Friday afternoon and spent some time with the new and innovative school they have created. All of the sixth grade is in one building. They call it a ``discovery school.'' They emphasize art, music, and special programs that give the kids electives. But the faculty has gotten together and created a system in which those electives are very substantive. One of the classes was sports math for kids who like sports. There is a lot of useful mathematics in sports. They are teaching them batting averages and how to calculate all sorts of factors relating to sports programs. That was their idea. The faculty of that school got together with the principal in the town of Selma to create a better way to educate sixth graders in that community. We are not capable of doing that here. We will have to vote one day on the defense budget. We have never been elected to run education in America. We were not elected to do that. The same people who elect us, as the Senator from Washington many times has eloquently said, elected our school board leaders to run education in our communities. They didn't elect us to run education. They elect them to run education. Education is fundamentally a local State community project. It needs to be done by people who know our children's names, who care about them, who know the school buildings, who know the offices. We are not doing that. We are trying to micromanage education from Washington. We have 700 Federal Government education programs in this country. Imagine that, 700. We talk about empowering schools to develop plans of excellence, and some of our friends from the Democratic side say we don't believe in accountability. It finally dawned on me, their definition of ``accountability'' is a Federal mandate stating precisely how the money has to be spent in their school system. They define that as accountability. That is not accountability. We are pouring millions of dollars into schools in which learning is not occurring. Under all these programs and all the grants and the 700 programs, nobody knows whether or not learning is occurring. That is not exactly so. We are beginning to understand that learning is not occurring in many of the schools. Children are operating far below their grade level. That is no longer acceptable. We need a system of real accountability, a system that tells the American people and parents whether or not learning is occurring. We don't want some national test that will be pushed on every school. In Alabama, we have a very tough new testing system in the 4th, 8th and 12th grade. Students do not get their diploma if they do not take the test and pass. Kids are getting worried. I asked a teacher in Selma the other day did they think kids were actually wising up and were their parents getting more energized and were they aware they were not going to get their diploma unless they met certain minimum standards. The teacher said teachers and parents understand it, children understand it, and they are doing a better job of doing their homework and taking learning more seriously instead of just going through the motions of going to school every day and expecting the diploma to be handed to them when they finish school. I remember somebody talked about textbooks and how good our textbooks ought to be. What good is a $500 textbook, the best words ever written, if the child is not going to read and is not motivated to read it and the parents are not engaged in helping them read it and there is no sense of urgency or motivation in learning? Obviously, that is the key to education in America. We will not mandate from Washington, DC. It has to come from the local communities. That is consistent with what modern management is all about. The Senator from New Hampshire indicated this is old thinking: Run any business from the top down. Every good CEO knows, that all the new management techniques are to empower people at the lowest level who are actually doing the job that is necessary for success. You empower them, motivate them, and encourage them to use their creative power to do that job better every day. That is what we ought to do with an education bill. That is so fundamental to me as to be without dispute. I taught 1 year in the sixth grade in the public school. My wife taught a number of years. It was a great time but challenging. Our teachers are working desperately to try to educate on a daily basis. Sometimes our regulations and paperwork are unnecessarily adding to their daily burdens. They complain to me about it at every school I visit. I always try to visit classrooms, talk to the principal and try to have an hour or so with a teacher just to talk to them about what they think is important. They are complaining to me about Federal paperwork on a regular basis at every school. They say it is much too burdensome and unnecessary, and it keeps them from doing what they would like to do to improve education in their school. I am excited about this legislation. We have, in this Congress, increased funding for education every year. We spent more last year on education than the President asked for. We believe in education. We want children to learn. We are not here to feather the nests of bureaucrats. I know people get scared when we talk about a system that doesn't guarantee this program will continue as it has for 35 years. It scares people. The people who are working in those programs are talented and they will be needed in our school system. People are not going to be fired. But we need changes. Every business, every government agency needs to make some changes. Thirty-five years is enough. After 35 years, it is time we reevaluate what we are doing and make some decisions. We want to see education improve. What does that mean? That means learning is occurring. When children go to class in September and come out in May, they have learned something. The more they have learned during that time, the better we are as a nation. This is critical. We have to figure out how to do that. We will not do it by polling data from Washington setting up 701 Government programs. That is not the way to do it. We have to, with humility, recognize our limits as a Senate and as a Congress. We have to trust the people we have elected in our local communities to run our education systems. We have to encourage parents to be involved in education, both in the schools and in their children's homework and learning. We have to insist local schools have testing programs that actually determine whether or not they are getting better in their mathematics, reading, English, and science. We want them to improve. We don't want to be at the bottom of the world in test scores in science and mathematics. That is not acceptable in the greatest nation the world has ever known. We cannot allow that to continue. But it will not be business as usual. There will have to be some changes. This legislation will give States an option, a chance to say to the Federal Government, let us try, give us the free reign to run. Let us present to you a program of excellence. Our teachers have signed on, our principals have signed on, the community has signed on. We will have the special sixth grade, this discovery school for sixth graders, and they will learn a lot of different things, including, as they did in Selma, dance, ballet, tap, and music as part of their education curriculum. We believe children will learn better. We know these children. We love this community. We love this school. Give us a chance to do some of these things and inculcate that as part of their schooling. I believe we will see progress. I believe that is the only way we will see progress. I am excited that what has been produced by this Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions--and this is my first year serving on that committee. I believe this is a good step in the right direction. We will be sending more Federal dollars than ever before to our classroom. We will be sending it down to the classroom, to the principals and teachers who know our children's names. We will be challenging them to provide programs of excellence in which actual learning occurs. That is what we should do. I thank Chairman Jeffords and the others who have worked on it. I see Senator Hutchinson, who has been such an outstanding champion of these values. We have worked together on a number of issues. He shares our concerns about empowering our teachers and helping them as they teach in the classroom. We can do better, and this bill is a step in that direction. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, Monday morning, it is the intention of the majority leader to begin consideration of S. 1608, the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, the Craig-Wyden bill, hopefully under a time agreement currently being negotiated. Following the disposition of that legislation, at 1 p.m., the Senate will begin consideration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act. This legislation is very important for our children's education, and it is expected that many Senators will desire to speak on general debate. Vigorous debate is anticipated and therefore the bill will consume most of next week.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that the committee amendments be agreed to, the bill be read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 515, S. 1946.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following military nominations reported by the Armed Services Committee today: 484 through 495, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk in the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, any statements relating to the nominations be printed in the Record, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate begin consideration of S. 2, the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act, at 1 p.m. on Monday for debate only.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, last night Senator John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was the recipient of the James Forrestal Memorial Award at a gathering of 900 distinguished leading individuals involved in the industrial and military affairs of this Nation. It was awarded last night in Washington. The Forrestal award has been given since 1954 to distinguished Americans who most effectively applied Secretary Forrestal's ideas of a close working relationship between the Government and the requirements of a strong national defense. Other recipients were George Bush, Sam Nunn, Scoop Jackson, John Tower, Barry Goldwater, John Stennis and, I believe, our Presiding Officer, the distinguished Senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens. The award is given to a citizen of the United States who may be from the military services, government, or industry. Senator Warner was honored last night with the Forrestal award for his distinguished public service relating to national security and national defense in a wide range of responsibilities. All of us in the Senate know that Senator Warner was a former Navy enlisted man in World War II, enlisting as a 17-year-old, then serving again in Korea as a marine officer. I have heard him say he has gone through two basic trainings, both Navy and Marine. Later, during the cold war era, John served his Nation as Secretary of the Navy. His service to the Nation in this body began in 1978, and he has been on the Senate Armed Services Committee ever since, a total of 21 years. I know that John enjoyed being honored by 900 of his friends and companions who provide the equipment our soldiers and sailors, marines and airmen use every day to maintain a strong national defense. John's public thanks to those in industry and in the services is an expression of thanks from all of us in Congress. I associate myself with his remarks that he made so eloquently last evening. There is no one in this body who cares more about the men and women in uniform, our military retirees, and our veterans than John Warner. There is no one more committed to the defense of this Nation. The markup of our committee's bill for defense will be undertaken next week, and the debate on this floor will show, without question, the depth of Senator John Warner's commitment to the Nation. We owe men such as John Warner our gratitude for leading us in times of turmoil. There have been many in history who have provided this kind of essential leadership. We are part of John's team. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I am proud of him, his leadership and his friendship. Congratulations, John, on being the recipient of the year 2000 James Forrestal Memorial Award. I have the honor of serving with Senator Warner on the Armed Services Committee. He is a gentleman's gentleman, a patriot's patriot. He is proud of being able to preside this year over a budget that produced the first real increase in defense spending in 15 years, a 4.8-percent pay raise for our men and women in uniform. It was a real accomplishment. I have been honored to serve with him. I share with this body my pride in his being selected for this prestigious award. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 512, S. Res. 287.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution and preamble be agreed to, en bloc, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, without intervening action.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 299, submitted earlier by Senator McConnell and Senator Dodd.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 10 a.m. on Monday, May 1. I further ask unanimous consent that on Monday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed to have expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate begin a period for morning business with Senators speaking therein for up to 5 minutes each until the hour of 10:30 a.m.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 3 now be withdrawn.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a period for the transaction of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I announce that it will be the majority leader's intention to turn to S. 1608, the Craig-Wyden timber bill, at 10:30 a.m. on Monday. It is the leader's hope that the bill can be concluded in a couple of hours on Monday. However, no votes will occur during Monday's session. Any votes that occur will be postponed to occur on Tuesday.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order following the remarks of the following Members: Senators Feinstein, Lautenberg, Feingold, and Wellstone.