Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments to highlight the importance of a bill we further considered on the floor today, H.R. 1451, the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission Act. This bill originally passed the House by a vote of 411-2 on October 4, 1999. It was amended by the Senate in November and brought back to the House with minor changes to the commission's composition. Let me begin by thanking the bill's sponsor, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. LaHood, and the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) for their willingness to work with me to include representation from the states of Indiana and Kentucky on the Commission to be formed by this bill. Indiana and Kentucky played significant roles in the life and development of Abraham Lincoln, and I very much appreciate my colleagues' recognition of this history and their openness to including citizen members from each of these states on the Commission. I am pleased that the changes made by the Senate to the composition of the commission did not include a fundamental I have been fighting for: the appropriate representation on the commission from each of the states claiming Lincoln as its citizen. While Abe Lincoln is America's 16th president, he rose from humble roots deeply embedded in all three Midwestern states. In my mind, it is only right that the governors of all three states select citizens to sit on the commission established by this bill. The commission will commemorate the bicentennial of President Lincoln's birth in 1809, which took place in Hodgenville, KY. At the age of 7, young Abe Lincoln moved to Southern Indiana, and the family moved to Illinois in 1830. As the National Park Service points out at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, he spent fourteen of the most formative years of his life and grew from youth to manhood in the State of Indiana. His mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, is buried at the site. And even today, what is probably the largest private Lincoln Museum in America is in Fort Wayne, IN, in my district. Thomas Lincoln moved the family to an 80 acre farm in Perry County, Indiana after the crops had failed in Kentucky due to unusually cold weather. He bought the land at what even then was the bargain price of three dollars an acre. Just days before, Indiana had become the 19th state in the union. The land was still wild and untamed. President Lincoln later recalled that he had ``never passed through a harder experience'' than traveling through the woods and brush between the ferry landing on the Ohio river and his Indiana homesite. This observation speaks volumes about the nature of the Hoosier frontier. The family quickly settled into the log cabin with which we are all so familiar from our earliest history lessons. Tom Lincoln worked as a cask maker. Abe Lincoln worked hard during the days clearing the land, working with the crops, and reading over and over from his three books: the Bible, Dilworth's Speller, and Aesop's Fables. He also wrote poems. Shortly after the death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, young Abe attended a new one room schoolhouse. When his father remarried, his new stepmother Sally Bush Johnston brought four new books, including an elocution book. W. Fred Conway pointed out in his book ``Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana'' that the future president after reading the book occasionally ``would disappear into the woods, mount a stump, and practice making speeches to the other children.'' Abraham Lincoln also received his first exposure to politics and the issues that would later dominate his presidency while in Indiana. One of his first jobs was at a general store and meat market, which was owned by William Jones, whose father owned slaves in violation of the Indiana State Constitution. This was Lincoln's first introduction to slavery. In addition, he exchanged news and stories with customers and passersby, with the store eventually become a center of the community due largely to Young Abe's popularity. Once he was asked what he expected to make of himself, and replied that he would ``be President of the United States.'' Mr. Speaker, Indiana takes pride in its contributions to the life of President Lincoln, and we greatly look forward to the work of the Commission in honoring him and reminding Americans of his legacy.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Indiana. It was great to see our friend from Florida. This is such a Midwestern value; it is great to see it is a Southern value as well, along with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh). But this has support from all across America because of the inequity of the Tax Code. I want to congratulate my colleague for his leadership and persistence in pushing this and not going away when people said, no, we want to do other things, and his persistence, along with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller). If this indeed happens and with the President at least paying lip service to part of it, this is the year when this may actually happen, and it will be a great crowning achievement as you go back to lead us in Indiana. Let me mention a couple of things. There are different types of tax cuts. Some types of tax cuts are oriented toward economic growth, where we try to say how can we keep our interest rates down, how can we keep our inflation down, how can we keep this tremendous growth going in the economy. Capital gains, investment tax credits, targeted inheritance tax relief, those things keep our economy going, but some tax relief is necessary because they plain flat out are unfair. In the marriage penalty, one of the problems here is that it just discriminates; it is a lack of equity and it catches and punishes one group of people and benefits another group of people. There are several letters and e-mails here to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh), but I wanted to read a couple of them because sometimes when we hear statements like the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) made, well, people might make decisions on their marriage based on the take liability, one goes, oh, no, come on, you right-wingers, you are just making this kind of stuff up. But here is one from Montana to Dave that says, my husband and I both work. We are 50 and 55 years old. This is a second marriage for both of us. We delayed our marriage for a number of years because of the tax consequences and lived together. It caused a great deal of stress and lots of anguish. My son and his fiance simply have not married also for tax reasons. They would take a large tax hit if they married. Do not say it is some hypothetical, paranoia, conservative thing. There are actually people in America, right or wrong, who are making these decisions because tax policy does have actual consequences on people's behavior because it is a lot of money. They are trying to figure out what can we do to start a home, how can we buy a house, how can we get the best education for our kids, how can we get good health care, and then the government hammers you if you get married. It can cause people at the margin to do that. Here is another letter to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh): My husband and I are both 81 years old. Before we married our lawyers advised us that we would be better off financially to remain single. We listened but did not heed. The full impact of what we were told struck us after our accountant computed our income tax. With approximately the same income, my portion of the tax increased from $4,200 to $10,000. My husband's portion of the tax also increased dramatically. We were shocked, to say the least, and have actually considered an annulment or divorce to avoid a recurrence of this situation. This one is from Florida. I have had people call me on the phone, come up to meetings, tell me they have calculated how much they would have saved if they had each been single. They not only would have gotten tax benefits, they might have been eligible for Pell grants for college as opposed to having to fund their college. There are all sorts of government programs that we have that are really penalties for being married as opposed to being single, but the marriage penalty is the most flagrant. We have it built into our Tax Code. Let me make one other comment here. I find one of the greatest ironies in America is right now is how we deal with the marriage penalty. The President appears to want to cap this to only let some people benefit from it. The irony with this is the primary beneficiary in the marriage penalty relief is going to be working women. Because of the way families are traditionally structured, it is that additional income that is really getting whacked, and they are making decisions of how many hours they work, how much they are in the workforce. The President in the State of the Union address came down here, talked about comparable worth. He talked about how women were not making as much as men in society, talked about glass ceilings. The marriage penalty is a glass ceiling on the income of women in America; and if you cap that, as the President has proposed to do, rather than the type of legislation that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) are proposing to do, what you are doing is saying it is okay for women to make a certain amount of money but after someone adds a second income to their family, or in cases of some families where the woman is the primary and the highest income and the man adds a second income, after a certain point we are going to tax them differently than if they stayed single. This has inadvertently become one of the primary reasons we have a glass ceiling in this country. It is one of the primary reasons why there are earning differentials. The last thing we need to do is change the marriage penalty to make it more progressive, to put a penalty on those who are actually advancing. One does not want to be in an employer situation where they have an outstanding employee and they say, well, would you like to work additional hours, we would like to promote you and that person says, but the marriage penalty is capped. If I go up in a promotion here in this firm, my husband and my income will go over a certain point and all of a sudden we will be taxed differently. If we start capping the marriage penalty as some are proposing to do, while it might sound good the fact is that the bias is being reinforced not only against marriage in this society, but it is also discriminating in the most degree against working women who are advancing to higher income salaries. I thought one of our primary goals was to open up opportunities for women in this country to move up in the corporate ladder, to earn higher incomes. In most cases, not all cases but in most cases, the marriage penalty is a disincentive to women often who have not had the opportunities, who have gone back to school, who have been homemakers, they come back in and all of a sudden get whacked with this additional tax. So the irony is the double standard in the same speech of capping the marriage penalty and also talking about how to open up opportunities for women and all Americans to increase their salary. You cannot talk out of one side of your mouth one way and out of the other side of your mouth the other. So I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh) not only for his leadership in the marriage penalty but for having an elimination of the marriage penalty that is actually responsive to the type of concerns that Americans are having and that would really promote sexual equity in this country and marriage equity in this country rather than the other types of forms of this bill that lead to other unintended consequences.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, first, I would like to associate myself with comments of my friend, the gentleman from Michigan, on the trust fund. I think it is absolutely important, before we go on some sort of spending spree in this House, that we replenish our trust funds, which are somewhat inappropriately named. We have not kept that much in trust. However, what I wanted to address this House for a few minutes on is possibly the most important way to achieve social change in this country to help those who are hurting, those who are in need through creative building up and strengthening of charitable and nonprofit organizations in this country. I was pleased to see that President Clinton in his State of the Union Address has a proposal. I wanted to address a few others. The Give Act, which I introduced in the last Congress and have many sponsors in this House for, would use the existing tax code by giving a 120 percent deduction for charitable contributions. It also allows non- itemizers who give more than a $1,000 to charity to deduct their contributions, and moves the filing deadline on the return to April 15 so people can calculate better how much they could get in an extra tax break by giving to charitable organizations. Along with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), we had an amendment in the Community Service Block Grant in 1998 to allow half of the State funds, which is 5 percent of the Community Services Block Grant, to be used to offset revenue losses associated with State charity tax credits. So we have already passed one bill in this House. We have also, with a number of amendments that I and others have offered, allowed charitable choice in the human services reauthorization. We had it in the juvenile justice reauthorization and numerous other bills to allow charitable organizations to take part in government grant bidding. I also support Governor Bush's efforts to advance this; in the name of compassionate conservatism, to expand the charitable deduction to non- itemizers, to provide a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the first $500 for individuals, up to $1,000 per couple, against State income or other taxes, to give permanent charitable contributions from IRA accounts for persons over the age of 59 without penalty, extend the proposed charitable State tax credit to corporations, raise the cap on corporate charitable donations, because the proposals of Governor Bush are another dynamic way to address this concern of how best to solve the social problems that are overwhelming many of our inner cities, our suburban areas and our rural areas, as well. President Clinton the other night proposed the following initiatives: Allow non-itemizers to deduct 50 percent of contributions over $500 a year when fully phased in, simplify and reduce the excise tax on foundations by eliminating the current two-tiered system, and also to increase the limit on deductions for donations of appreciated assets, such as stock, real estate, and art, to charity from 30 to 50 percent of the adjusted gross income, and to private foundations from 20 to 30 percent. President Clinton's proposals are an important first step. I hope he expands his charitable proposal. I hope that this House, when we move what is most likely to be some sort of a tax package, will look at Governor Bush's proposals, we will look at President Clinton's proposals, we will consider the proposals that the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Talent) have proposed, that we will look at the Give Act that I and over 20 other Members of Congress have proposed, because I do not think there is a single more important thing we can do to help rehabilitate our communities and families in this country than to get additional dollars into the hands of those who are sacrificing, who day-to-day are working in tutoring, in counseling in the schools, in housing rehabilitation, in drug rehab, in all sorts of outreaches to the families and children in this country who are hurting. To the degree that in a tax package we ignore that, it will be on our heads. I really hope that our leadership and the Committee on Ways and Means will carefully consider these charitable tax proposals and include them in any tax package.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 211. I would like to congratulate Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his re-election. More importantly, I wish to salute the citizens of the Republic of India. With a 60 percent voter turnout, the people of the Republic of India have once again stabilized the largest democracy in the world. In relative political turmoil in the region over the past six months, India has successfully completed a round of national elections. I am continually impressed at the level of political activity and involvement of the Indian people. Particularly inspiring is the fact that this involvement spans social and economic classes. While election violence in India has been an issue, the election in October was one of the most peaceful in recent history. The determination of the Indian citizens to be part of the political process and to preserve their parliamentary democracy should serve as an example to democracies around the globe, including the United States. The people of the Republic of India deserve our support and congratulations. Often it seems that our government is more anxious to develop relationships with and provide aid to governments that are not democratic. Sometimes dealing with democracies is more difficult, more complicated. But why wouldn't this be a priority condition to be a valued American friend. I urge members to join me in supporting this resolution.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, as a member of the Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands, and as a representative of historic Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I rise this evening to introduce a bill to create the Northwest Territory of the Great Lakes Heritage Area. I am pleased to be joined by original cosponsors, these Members representing both political parties from not only Indiana but the Old Northwest States of Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin: The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Barcia) the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Ewing), the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Sawyer), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Phelps), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green), the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley). The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English) who represents Erie, Pennsylvania, is also a cosponsor. Though Erie was not part of the Northwest Territory of the Great Lakes, Erie, Pennsylvania, was intimately involved in our history, including being the launching place for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet to victory on Lake Erie and as the final resting place of General Anthony Wayne. Mr. Speaker, many of the sites from the Northwest Territory period are now lost, but throughout the Midwest there are still key buildings and sites that have been preserved. As my colleagues can see on this map of the Northwest Territory, this is the original Northwest Territory of the United States, including all of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. And at that time, Illinois also included the State of Wisconsin and Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. In Ohio, we not only have the Battle of Fallen Timbers Historic Site and the International Peace Memorial to Commodore Perry at Put-in-Bay at South Bass Island in Lake Erie, but other diverse sites as well including the Fort Recovery State Memorial, where General St. Clair was defeated; Fort Meigs at Toledo; and such pioneering sites as the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon which dates from 1803, has played host to 10 Presidents; the 1807 mansion of Thomas Worthington in Adena; in Lancaster, Ohio, is the Square 13 Historic District that includes a number of homes from the 1810s and 1820s, including the 1820 home of William Tecumseh Sherman; and in Marietta, ``Campus Martius: The Museum of the Northwest Territory,'' which includes the Rufus Putnam house, the only structure from the original stockade, and the 1788 plank-and- clapboard Ohio Land Company Office. In Indiana, we have numerous sites related to this period as well: The Lincoln Boyhood Memorial; New Harmony, the first State capital; and Governor William Hendricks home in Corydon; the historic town of Madison; the Connor Prairie Museum; National Historic Sites at Vincennes and Tippecanoe; and the battle sites in Ft. Wayne, including the forts; Little Turtle; and Indian village sites including the Richardville House; and Johnny Appleseed Park and Gravesite. Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan have important sites as well, but they were less settled at that time. Mackinac Island was a trading anchor of the upper Midwest and has many historic buildings in a beautiful location where automobiles are still banned. These wonderful historic sites, however, are somewhat lost without a cohesive story. The Lewis and Clark Trail, in which they charted America's frontier, has numerous informative materials about its history as well as visitor centers along the trail. However, in the Midwest this is not as true. In the legislation that we are introducing this evening, it includes only those sites from the Northwest Territory period of 1785 to 1835. It forms a management authority consisting of appointees by the governor of each Northwest Territory State, including a Native American appointee from each State, as well as representatives of each State's historical society. Duties and powers include the ability to receive funds, disburse funds, make grants, hire staff, develop a management plan, and to ``help ensure the conservation, interpretation, and development of the historical, cultural, natural, and recreational resources related to the region historically referred to as the Northwest Territory of the Great Lakes during the period from 1785 through 1835.'' Madam Speaker, this may include developing an Internet Web site and other marketing programs, erecting signs, recommendations on conservation, funding and management for development of the Heritage area, but only within existing State and local plans and with comments of residents, public agencies, and private organizations within the Heritage Area. The Act specifically forbids taking any action which ``jeopardizes the sovereignty of the United States'' and stipulates that the authority ``shall not infringe upon the private property rights of individuals or other property owners.'' It authorizes appropriations of up to $1 million per year and not more than $10 million for the Heritage Area as a whole. Federal funding cannot exceed 50 percent of the total cost of any assistance. The Midwest has far too long been overlooked. The rivers and Great Lakes were America's first transportation system that opened up the West and nourish breadbasket of the world, not to mention providing the raw materials and distribution system for the industrial heartland of America. Madam Speaker, the Native American nations in the Midwest, because so many of their historic sites and culture were destroyed and because there is less modern documentation, are often forgotten while similar and smaller some less powerful tribes of the West get far more attention. Madam Speaker, it is a great honor and a proud day for Ft. Wayne and all of the Midwest to introduce this bill this evening. It has been a long day in coming. Madam Speaker, I submit a copy of the bill and the following facts about the Northwest Territory for inclusion in the Record.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise as a member of the Armenia Caucus in strong support of this resolution condemning the violence against Armenia's Prime Minister and Speaker and mourning their loss, along with other members of the democratically-elected Armenian government. Armenians have suffered for many years not only from the Turkish genocide, but persecution throughout this world. This sad incident was a setback in what has been an increasingly stable role towards stability in Armenia. My good friend from Fort Wayne, Zorhab Tazian, had just had the opportunity to join the victims in Armenia to discuss the current political situation. Zorhab's clear impression at that meeting was that all the participants shared increasing optimism that the government would continue its successes in expanding the Armenian democracy and developing a healthy economy. It is a tragedy that their leadership was cut short in such an untimely and ugly way. Our best memorial to the victims of the Armenian violence is to help continue their work. We cannot and will not allow acts of political violence to deter us from our support to the course of freedom and the opportunity that has so promisingly begun in Armenia. I commend President Kocharian's strong response to this incident and swift efforts to ensure the stability of Armenia's government. I hope my colleagues will continue to support the causes of democracy, stability, and a free market economy in Armenia. We can do so through supporting economic assistance to promote privatization and tax reform, capital market development, legal reform, and other steps critical to continuing progress on advancing the Armenia economy. We can also continue to help Armenia by supporting it on the issue of Nagorno Karabagh, including our vigilance over providing American aid to Azerbaijan in light of its continued blockades. Although it is a sad and difficult time in Armenia, we should also view it as a time of continued optimism for the great potential that lies in Armenia's future. We should let nothing deter us in our continued progress together towards peace and freedom, and I am confident Armenia's great people will continue to move ahead in building a great nation. There can be no more or better fitting tribute to the fallen Armenian heroes.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, one of the more devastating amendments today that we will be debating is the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) that would strip out the opportunity to have religious and faith-based organizations participate in the fatherhood initiative and the fathers count program and the other initiatives that we have in front of us today. We in the House have now passed this three times, in the Human Services bill, in the Welfare Reform bill, and in the Justice Department bills. It would seem only appropriate in this very critical area that we would allow the faith-based organizations to become involved. We can get into all kind of legal technicalities here about whether we should have types of separate organizations and how it should be structured. But the plain fact of the matter is that at the grass roots level, in urban America and African American and Hispanic communities, the organizations that are by far the most effective are faith-based. They do not run around looking for attorneys as to how to set it up. They are actually trying to help kids in the street. They are trying to help get families reunited like Charles Ballard has in Cleveland. He did not ask about the structure. He went out and tried to go door to door with thousands of families over 15 years to get dads reunited with their families. Eugene Rivers, in Boston, has put together a coalition in the streets of Boston, who, with all the other Government programs that have been wasting, in my opinion, for the large part millions of dollars, he and the other pastors and young people working with the churches of Boston have accomplished more to reduce youth violence than all the rhetoric about all the other programs in Boston. But they do not even have health insurance for their employees, the volunteers in the streets and the people that are working for their churches there. They do not have adequate money with which to get people out doing the things that are working. Instead, we put it into a lot of the traditional programs because we are worried that somebody might actually say that character matters. What Vice President Gore has said, which the Republican Party and our logical leading contender at this point, Governor Bush, has said, and as well as this House three times, is that faith-based organizations need to be included when we look at how to address these social problems.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude this portion of the preliminary debate with a couple of comments. First off, it is patently ridiculous to suggest that after a year and a half of the welfare reform debate, after multiple versions of that bill here that Members of Congress did not understand what they were voting for in the welfare reform debate. Furthermore, while we unfortunately did deal with the charitable choice at several times in the evening during the debate, I would argue that Members of Congress fully understood, or at least most Members of Congress, at least on our side, understood what they were debating in the charitable choice as did those who were generally supportive of this legislation. I find it a little disconcerting for my colleague to suggest that Members of Congress did not know what they were voting on three different times. Furthermore, I believe that this is such a fundamental principle, and we will debate this further, I am sure. I am not referring to illegal mingling of church and State. What we are talking about here is that whether it is an individual church or a church entity, being able to come and say, we want to work with juvenile delinquents, in this case with father questions, in other cases with homeless questions, we have to meet these criteria of serving this population. But in doing that, because we have seen that character matters, that, in fact, you do not have to, if you are a Catholic priest, take your collar off, you do not have to strip the crucifixes off your room. That part and parcel of the effect of faith-based organizations is their faith and character. Lastly, as far as this question of bringing the State into the church, the fact is that if it is a church-based entity or a church, if you say it can only come from an entity, you bring the government by default into the church. If you say that it can be either, you only bring the government in if there is a question about the grant. Under either way we do this, under the Edwards amendment or the existing, if there is a question about the grant, of course the government comes in. It would be illegal use of funds.

Mr. SOUDER. The gentleman just shifted his argument. He just said you could not apply for a job. Earlier he told me you could not apply to the agency to be served. I want to point out to the listeners, he just switched his argument in the middle of his debate.

Mr. SOUDER. As the gentleman presumably knows, you cannot do that if you receive Federal funds. What you are allowed to do under this is in your staffing, if you are a religious organization, you can discriminate because part of your faith-based organization is that. You also have alternative programs in any of these, and if there are not alternatives for individuals to the faith-based organizations, there are protections. That has been in all of our different bills. That has been the standard interpretation. Remember, the final decision as far as who gets the grant money lies with the Federal agency, not with the church. This is not like a block grant or something we are driving straight to the churches. What you are saying is you do not trust HHS under a Democratic administration to protect these rights.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, it is a nice try to wrap himself in the Constitution. Mr. Speaker, the legal technicality that I was talking about is, in fact, what we have debated many times in this House floor related to fungibility of money, that, as I understand the amendment of the gentleman, he is saying that if a church has an entity that would work with this and, for example, in this case a fatherhood initiative had a separate entity but was not part of the church, the money could go to the entity but not the church, which then brings the States in to audits of the church as to how they move their funds around, that in fact some organizations such as Catholic Charities have done that for years and have been eligible. What we have done in our past bills is said that if the money goes to the church itself, they still have to make a proposal to whatever government entity, say it is on juvenile crime, as we did in the Justice bill or others, and they have to make that and the government then audits that. But sometimes it does not work in the inner city and other places to have this money, just have this paper trail.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, this has been a fascinating partial debate. Now we are to the actual amendment, which the sponsor says would not affect faith- based organizations but would, in fact, gut the intent of this amendment and certainly would set back and probably reverse the whole flow that the Federal Government has been doing for a number of years to try to include people who want to include character and faith-based organizations in the delivery of social services by going back to the pervasively sectarian standard. In fact, Vice President Al Gore, in his home page for President, as well as his speech that he gave in Atlanta, said, I believe the lesson for our Nation is clear. In those instances where the unique power of faith that can help us meet the crushing social challenges that are otherwise impossible to meet, such as drug addiction and gang violence, we should explore carefully tailored partnerships with our faith communities so that we can use approaches that are working best. Governor Bush in Texas has done this with prison fellowship, with other groups that are involved in youth issues and fatherhood issues, and we see many examples in this current administration. The Brookings Institute has come out forcefully for this saying that, in fact, to use a pervasively sectarian standard has, in fact, discriminated against those who want to include as a part the moral teachings. Now, to argue and rewrite the American Constitution to say that this obliterates the wall of separation, first off, that was not in the original Constitution, but it certainly does not obliterate the wall of separation. The intent of the Founding Fathers was clearly not to take religion out but, rather, to keep certain religions from being funded. As an anti-Baptist, I would not have wanted to fund the Anglican Church. People in the other States would not have wanted to fund, as they were at the time of original founding, the ministers and the church schools in those States as the only choice for schoolchildren. But, in fact, the United States Congress in their first few years when they could not get Bibles in from England, the United States Congress, with Federal dollars, bought Bibles to distribute to the public schools. A little bit later the Congress, concerned that it was difficult even to purchase those, the same Founders who wrote the Constitution purchased Bibles, printed them, and it says at U.S. Government expense, to be distributed by congressional legislation to public schools. That is not what we are proposing here. The question is not whether we are proposing actual religious education. In fact, everything in this bill and in the previous three times this House has voted overwhelmingly for the charitable choice provision, the same provision that we are voting on today that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) is trying to gut, the plain truth of the matter is that we cannot use any of these funds for religious teaching. So contrary to what the Founding Fathers allow, which was Bibles printed at congressional expense distributed by the United States Congress to public schools, we are not proposing that. We are just saying, in the process of addressing questions like fatherhood, as we did earlier in Juvenile Justice, as we did earlier in Human Services, as we did earlier in welfare reform, that we should be able to include character and faith-based organizations in that section. The most dynamic organizations in this country, in fact, have pastors, youth leaders, people who attend churches, church-based organizations, or parent church organizations that do not teach religion but have that as a component, the love, the hope, the faith, the kindness, the tolerance that comes through religion is intermingled in their programs. To say that a program, for example, if a particular religion, whether it is, for example, Orthodox Jews, and if Orthodox Jews have a program to reach kids in their neighborhood or fathers in their neighbor, to say that they must hire somebody who does not belong to their religion, in effect, means they will not participate in these programs. Now, the Government gets to decide when a faith-based organization comes up and says we have a proposal here under the Father Counts bill or any of the other three previous bills where we passed this exact same language, that when they propose this to the Government, they do not say it has to show it is not teaching religion, it has to show that it is addressing the problems there, it is addressing them in a unique way regardless which of these bills we are talking about, and there are many protections; and ultimately the Federal Government has to decide is this group the best way to deliver these services. So I think this is a reasonable amendment that has passed by as many as 350 votes in this House. It is supported by the leading presidential candidates in both parties as a general principle.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to briefly talk again about the Edwards amendment on whether or not we are going to have a pervasively sectarian standard that basically, for all of the rhetoric, will eliminate faith-based organizations from being eligible for grants because States and others would be scared away from including faith- based, because there is no definition of what constitutes pervasively sectarian. The Supreme Court has been evolving this definition. But rather than just talk about Vice President Gore, Governor Bush and others in this House and in the Senate in signed law that has passed three times with this clause, let me read a little bit from the Brookings Institution, once again where it separates kind of the far left of the Democratic Party from the moderate part of the Democratic Party, where they are talking about the reason to change the ``pervasively sectarian standard which they say has constituted a genuine, though more subtle establishment of religion, because it supports one type of religious world view, while penalizing holistic beliefs.'' Now, what did the Brookings Institution mean by holistic beliefs. They say, ``Holistic faith-based agencies operate on the belief that no area of a person's life, whether psychological, physical, social or economic, can be adequately considered in isolation from the spiritual.'' In other words, that is what we see in many of the grass- roots organizations around the country. This bill would not allow them to teach religion; it would not allow them to have the bulk of this program, to discriminate against people who are not in that church, but it would say that if you are a faith- based organization, you can have standards on your staff, you can have it be part of your ministry, because in fact, the holistic approach says that it is not just the mechanical parts of this, but it is also the character that matters. That is why many, if not most, although we have many secular organizations that had an impact; but many, if not most in the highest risk areas of the effective organizations have dealt with matters of the soul in addition to kind of the just mechanical execution, whether that is in homelessness, whether it is in juvenile delinquency, or whether it is as in this case, fatherhood, as this bill addresses.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first I will join with those praising our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), who stuck with this through good times and tough times, as well as the ranking Democrat on the committee, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), because it has really been a struggle at times, and then, as has been pointed out here, there are things we agree on. Whatever the court in the end rules on I believe is guessing, and I believe they will rule to uphold the Constitution, but every Member of this body, Republican or Democrat, has a stake in making sure that this count is as complete as possible within our districts, because if the court rules, as I think they will, that you cannot guess and you have to have a real count, everybody needs to make sure that their count is actual and does not miss the hard-to-reach population. If it is going to be estimated, the estimates will come off of a real count, because ultimately that is how estimating is done as well. So it is important that every Member get directly involved in every aspect of this. My office has, unfortunately, been involved on a couple of points early on that shows the difficulty of doing the census and why every Member should be paying attention. Fort Wayne, Indiana, has undergone an aggressive annexation program, unlike many other cities. The Census Department still does not have the right maps in the hands of our counters. In fact, their recent estimate of population, I forget the actual number, is around 30,000 off. Now, 30,000 may not be a big number to Chicago or Los Angeles, but it is a huge number to Fort Wayne, Indiana; and it is inconceivable to me at this late date we are still having trouble with the maps. It has been important for our office to stay involved to back up our local census workers who are very concerned about the lack of accurate maps. I have also been involved, and we had a great visit with the regional administrators from Chicago who came into Fort Wayne and met with Reverend Humphries and our local citizen group, because we have another problem. Who is going to go door to door? Where are the workers going to come from? What type of people are they going to be? The two places they are doing the interviews are, in fact, suburban. The undercounted populations are generally minority, hard-to-reach populations, sometimes homeless, sometimes illegal immigrants who also get counted in the census and are important to each one of our districts. You need to have people in the community organizations who live in that community who can go and reach them and get them to cooperate with the census, because in fact the mail-out will have a decent response, but, ultimately, particularly in the hard-to-count areas, the door-to-door response and the community organization response is critical. To do that, you need people from within that community. As a Member of Congress, you know, me going door to door in the urban center of Fort Wayne, I might have some success. But I will tell you what, there is going to be a lot more success if it is an African- American locally based group or Hispanic group or whatever group is in a given area going door to door in these programs, and the Census Bureau needs to take that into account; and you need to help hold them accountable that they are working to where they can get, because sometimes it is hard to recruit and hard to make those people comfortable in coming to work for the Government. If you only do your interviews for employees out in the suburbs, that is who you are going to get. So hopefully as Members of Congress, not only do the schools and census show up at your local Census Bureau to try to support those workers there, to encourage them in what is a very difficult job, because many people in fact fear that this census is far more intrusive than it is. It takes 5 to 10 minutes, unless you have a long form, which is a whole different ball game and not what we are doing here. The short form is only 5 to 10 minutes, but it scares people off. Unless you get involved in supporting and encouraging these people, they are going to get demoralized. If they get sloppy, it is each Member of Congress and the people who live in their districts that lose, because our districts will be undercounted; and we have a stake not only for the representation, for the potential as it relates indirectly to grants and other prestige things regarding the size of your cities, but it also relates to the total accumulation in your State in how many Congressmen you have representing you. For example, there are a number of States right on the bubble that could lose a Congressman if they have an undercount. In other words, you could lose part of your right to vote in your State merely because you did not participate in the census and because your Member of Congress did not help with the count. We each have a deep stake in this, our communities have a stake in this, the churches do, the people in our districts do; and I encourage each Member to do what they can to get a fair, accurate, and complete count.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, it is kind of ironic we have this religious debate from time to time here, and when we stand in the House well the only lawgiver facing us is Moses, whose head is turned right towards the Speaker; and above the Speaker's head it says, ``In God we trust.'' It is clear what Congress intended. We open in the morning with a prayer, and clearly Congress may need prayer more than the schools but I think it is a double standard for us to say these things cannot go on in schools but they can go on here in Congress. Prayer is not for victory. Hopefully everybody understands that in these football games it is not for victory; unless maybe with the exception of Notre Dame, God does not take sides in football games. In general, however, what is disappointing to me is that apparently if one uses our Lord and Saviour's name Jesus Christ in vain it is allowed, but if one uses it in a biblical sense it is not. If I would refer to God damning people because of their behavior, that would be wrong but if one uses it in blasphemy, that is free speech. Free speech is a one-directional thing. How can it possibly hurt the young students at a football game to acknowledge that there is a Creator; that there is someone higher than them; that hatred is wrong; that violence in an extreme way is wrong? How can the humility that comes from the Bible be wrong at any moment, whether it is a football game or in school? We are in danger of putting us, the almighty ``I,'' the all-powerful me, in such a preeminent position that we will not even allow kids who voluntarily, in a voluntary activity, after school hours, can pray together. It is a sad day if this amendment does not pass.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to congratulate the chairman on his leadership and his diligence in coming down here to the House to keep America informed as to this process. I was privileged to join the chairman when we were in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Panama again this last winter, as we have been multiple times. This week we finally have Blackhawk helicopters going into Colombia that we fought 4 years to get there. It has been a very frustrating process, and I commend the persistence of the gentleman. The President is quick to make promises to Colombia, as he did to President Pastrano when he was recently here when the cameras were going. But when the rubber hits the road and we are in the budget negotiations, all of a sudden there is not any money for their anti- narcotics force. I really appreciate the leadership of the gentleman to keep that pressure on, and it is a privilege to work with him and his subcommittee.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate what I just said a minute ago as far as the gentleman from Florida's work for many years as a Senate staffer and then as a leader here in the House and has been down in the region for multiple times. You can hear the frustration in his voice about the mismatch, particularly in the past, between the rhetoric and the action. And while General McCaffrey, the drug czar, and General Wilhelm in SouthCom and others are aggressively working to try to interdict these drugs before they hit our country and working with us in multiple areas, this has been a frustrating process because a lot of times over at the White House, the rhetoric is not matching the action. Those who are paying for that are our kids in the streets, families that are being wrecked, our jail systems and prison systems that are clogged with people who have abused illegal narcotics, partly because we have let down our interdiction guard and this stuff has flooded our Nation at a very cheap price and high purity. I am here tonight to talk about a totally different issue. I serve on the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Resources. One of my goals has been to work with a number of the historic areas in this country in trying to work with historic preservation. I plan this week to introduce a bill along with many of my colleagues from the Midwest called the Northwest Territory of the Great Lakes, America's First Frontier National Heritage Area. I want to give a little bit of background about this tonight and set up this piece of legislation which I believe has been a long time in coming and is a very important thing for the Midwest. Many people are not even aware of what the Northwest Territory is, and that is why we have to put the Northwest Territory of the Great Lakes. They think it is someplace up in Canada or somewhere around Washington and Oregon, in the northwestern part of the continental United States, but in fact the Northwest Territory in the famous Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was America's first western frontier. At the end of the American Revolution in the treaty with Great Britain, we all of a sudden received lands that heretofore had not been part of the Continental Congress of the United States Government. So even while we were under the Articles of Confederation, they were busy putting together the first guidelines of how a democratic government would work in new areas. In 1785 they passed laws on how to subdivide the land, which we still largely use today, as new settlers were moving in and what relations, good and bad, we would have with Native Americans, the Indian tribes in those zones. Basically the Northwest Territory, which did not have State divisions at that point, and this map, I want to thank the Library of Congress for this. They somewhat cut off the eastern side of Ohio but it is Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois that were the original Northwest Territory. This area of Wisconsin that includes part of Minnesota at that time was part of Illinois, and so for the purposes of our act, up until the point of the end of this pioneer period, Wisconsin would be included but actually Wisconsin became a separate territory as did Minnesota and historically, while geographically was part of that Northwest Territory, was not considered as a territory or State. In other words, once there were significant numbers of people there, they were not really part of the Northwest Territory. At the point of the original Northwest Territory and the Ordinance, there were not very many people here. The bulk of the people were in the eastern side of Ohio, just across from Pittsburgh, pretty heavily around Cincinnati, and some in the southern part of Indiana, a few in Vincennes, in the southern part of Illinois, some along the Ohio River. The rest of this was Indian land, a few scattered French villages where traders of questionable allegiance were still located and a number of British forts. The British were in fact supposed to have left this territory but did not. They were still in the Detroit area, up in the Mackinac area, in the Fort Dearborn area, around Chicago, and did not really leave until John Jay's treaty later, just before 1800, around 1793 to 1795. They started moving back across over to the Windsor, Canada, area, but amazingly they still kept some Canadian troops down as far as what is now Fort Wayne and other critical points, as well as British agents stirring up the different tribes in hopes of coming back. And then once again around the War of 1812 time, the British came back in and it was not really until the War of 1812 that this really became part of the United States rather than Canada, which is another important part of this. At the time that the British ceded this to the United States, the Native Americans continued to claim all of Ohio down to the Ohio River, most of Indiana, all of Illinois and basically all of Michigan. So while the British gave us control of this, they gave us control without treaty and without any justification as far as the Indians were concerned. The British felt they could continue to control that area, so they did not give it up. So why should this be a heritage area and what are we looking at here? First off, we are defining this fairly tightly. The period that would be covered is from 1785 until 1830. Why 1830? By 1830, even northwest Ohio was starting to get fairly well settled. We have not finalized it, maybe 1835, 1830, but somewhere in that area. A book on the Ohio frontier considers the end of their frontier period at 1830. Indian removal in Indiana finally occurred in its final stages in the 1840s. Michigan by 1840. The degree that they had settlers there, most of them by that point were farmers which is a sign that it has been pacified and the pioneer period is certainly down. In Illinois, it was starting to get pretty heavily settled from central up and some around the Fort Dearborn/Chicago area, and really after the Black Hawk so- called war where the Indians were removed from Illinois, that time period around 1830, 1835 was really the end of the frontier period. So the sites that would be covered by this heritage area would fall first in a date period of 1785 to the middle 1830s. What is the dominant thing and why did I select tonight this particular map? One of the things that becomes really apparent is there were not highways, there were not canals, there were not railroads, there were not air systems. The United States in that period was defined by its rivers and rivers were our highways. In other words, to understand the Northwest Territory, or really any part of the United States and any part of any heritage area that we should do should start with the topography, it should start with the geography and with the landscape and nature itself, because that is really what our heritage is and that is how we largely developed. If it was not actually around a river or the Great Lakes, which is really a defining region as well and also another major part of communication, the other way it could get defined is, for example, the capital of Ohio is Columbus. Why Columbus? Because it is right in the center. The capital of Indiana is Indianapolis, right in the center. The capital of Illinois is Springfield, right in the center. The capital of Wisconsin is Madison, right in the center. The capital of Michigan is Lansing which is just south center but certainly the center between Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and so on and Detroit. In other words, if it was not a river that determined it, it was still geographical that your capital was in the center of where the people were. That was even true in the early days. The first capital in Indiana, the territorial capital was in Vincennes because that was the kind of population center, that is where William Henry Harrison was based. The first state capital was in Corydon because most of the people were in southern Indiana. The first capital in Ohio was Chillicothe because that was kind of where the people were between Cincinnati and the eastern side, and then it moved up to Columbus, in between Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati and the different cities. So you can understand first the heritage of an area by understanding its geography. Now, a couple of things jump out from this. First off, the importance of the Ohio River. There would be no Lewis and Clark adventure if we had not settled this area first. For one reason, if you could not control the Ohio River, you could not get to the Missouri River and to go to the West. Thomas Jefferson understood that and he knew that unless he could get pacification and settlement in this area, he was not going to make the Louisiana Purchase, that is why this is the first frontier, and he was not going to send Lewis and Clark out. In fact, Lieutenant William Clark was not worried about going to the Pacific Ocean, he was up in the area at the Battle of Fallen Timbers and other battles in this area because this was the first frontier. My hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was important for another reason. If we had a larger U.S. map here, if you started and came in from Quebec City, which at that time was the key French settlement and went down through Montreal and then wanted to get to New Orleans, you would go down through the St. Lawrence River, down through Lake Ontario, Lake Erie to around what is present day Toledo, come down the Maumee River, at the Maumee River there was a portage at an Indian village called Kekionga. In Kekionga there was a small portage, you could either go to Boy Creek, Little Wabash, and connect with the Wabash River which then went down Indiana, all the way down to here, connected the Ohio River, which then connected the Mississippi River, which was then, of course, New Orleans. Now Chief Little Turtle, the war chief of the Miami Indians of Indiana, said and referred to the village of Kekionga as that ``glorious gate which the Miamis had the happiness to own and through which all the good words of their chiefs had to pass north to the south and from east to the west.'' What did he mean by that? Since that was the only portage of navigable rivers for the French, it became a critical area. In fact one French fort, two British forts and two American forts eventually were at that location now called Fort Wayne, because it was not only critical this way but there was as much traffic if you wanted to go from this Great Lake to this Great Lake. You had two choices. Either go up like this and all the way through the straits of Mackinac and on down or you could come into Fort Wayne, portage and come to Fort Dearborn this way. That is what Chief Little Turtle meant when he said it was east-west and north-south. It became a critical junction. There were other critical junctions as well, some less important. For example, to the Indians, this area of the Great Miami River which Anthony Wayne later went up and the different battle things was never really an important navigable river to the modern Native Americans because there were always settlers pushing in along the Ohio River and it was a battle zone and not somewhere where the Native Americans really developed a stable community or was within their own land structure. The French and the British tended to concentrate up in these zones. The fur trade was better here, the timber trade was better and they tended to be concentrated up this direction. The settlers coming across into Kentucky and across from Pennsylvania were tending to come further south. So you have to understand the geography. Now, understand the importance of this Northwest Territory. If this had been part of Canada from here up, we would have lost the agriculture, the farm belt of the United States, some of the best producing agriculture land, timber land, iron and copper and many of the critical natural resources that today are so important to our country. There were also critical battles here that were decisive in the settlement of the United States. Among the important battles was where Harmar and St. Clair were defeated, eventually Anthony Wayne came up, this area along the Great Miami River, the Indians fled from Kekionga and Fort Wayne to try to get up by the British at Fort Miami by Toledo and at the Battle of Fallen Timbers was really the major breakthrough for the United States settlement of the Midwest. After that period, the next big battle was the Battle of Tippecanoe where William Henry Harrison won right near Lafayette and what is now Purdue University. There also was a battle just across from Detroit over in Ontario, the Battle of Thames. The battle which is now celebrated at Put-in-Bay where Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British in control of the Great Lakes and really settled the fact of whether this was going to be part of Canada and the United States. So there were a number of very critical battles. There were also a lot of interesting people. Mad Anthony Wayne as he was called is certainly an interesting individual, very important in the American Revolution. At Stony Point, at Valley Forge, other critical battles. In fact, we have a number of his items in Fort Wayne at our Allen County Historical Museum. Next Monday we are having an official dedication of a new letter for our public library in the Indiana Collection. I include the following material for the Record at this point. Rare Gen. Wayne Letter Displayed at Library (By Bob Caylor) A magnificently preserved Revolutionary War letter written by Gen. ``Mad'' Anthony Wayne will find a place of honor in the city that grew from a fort he founded. The letter was written by Wayne in 1782, just three days before his troops met the British in a skirmish along the Combahoe River in South Carolina. Theirs would be the last American-British fighting of the war. The letter was donated to the Allen County Public Library earlier this year. The library will place it on display in its rare-books room in a dedication ceremony Monday. Gen. Wayne, a surveyor before the war began, was not a prolific correspondent like many of the Founding Fathers, and letters from his pen are uncommon. ``Apparently they are fairly rare,'' said Steven Fortriede, the library's associate director. ``As far as we know, there's nothing similar in Fort Wayne.'' Bringing the letter to Fort Wayne took the combined efforts of a Fort Wayne history buff, a circle of generous donors and a Noblesville man who trades in rare military artifacts. It began early this year, when Duane Arnold, owner of the Gentleman Soldier Gallery in Noblesville, learned a private collector in Indiana was looking to sell the letter. It had been in his collection for about 20 years, and he likely would have sold it out of state, Arnold said. ``I thought if possible, we should try to keep it in state,'' he said. Arnold, who was born in Fort Wayne, has clients in this area. Among them is Fort Wayne attorney Jack Lawson, who collects Revolutionary and Civil War weapons. ``Jack is someone who's very interested in history and very committed to Fort Wayne,'' Arnold said. He showed Lawson, the letter, and Lawson hit on the idea of finding donors to divide the $10,000 price and then donating the letter for public display. Hew had no trouble finding takers. ``Once it was explained to (potential donors) what the letter was and what its historical significance was, we had no difficulty,'' Lawson said. Mostly, he appealed to donors' civic spirit. ``This belongs to Fort Wayne. It would be a monument for the city,'' he told them. Wayne's letter was written Aug. 24, 1782, from Drayton Hall in South Carolina. In it, Wayne tells Gen. Nathaniel Green what forces he believed he would need to handle the British. Drayton Hall, incidentally, survived the devastation of the Civil War, adding another dimension of historical appeal to the letter. ``We can see the house. We can imagine the room in which Anthony Wayne actually wrote the letter,'' Arnold said. Gen. Wayne's military career converged with local history a dozen years later, when he led an American army in a campaign against Indians through what is now Ohio and Indiana. His Fort Wayne at the confluence of our three rivers was established in 1794. Arnold said Wayne's military success against Chief Little Turtle opened the path to settlement here much earlier. ``Without Anthony Wayne's actions, it's extremely unlikely that Indiana would have been achieving statehood within about 20 years after that time,'' he said.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 194. For nearly a century, 4-H has been helping the children of this Nation ``learn by doing.'' As the largest youth organization in the United States, 4-H educates children through practical, hands-on methods that emphasize life skills. It is difficult to point to another organization that has had a comparable positive impact on America's youth. Since its inception in the early 1900s, more than 45 million Americans have participated in 4-H. In my home state alone, 4-H is currently helping over 252,000 young people improve their self-confidence and learn important skills such as leadership, citizenship, and decision-making that can be applied over a lifetime. Originally founded as an agricultural youth organization, the 4-H program is no longer limited to rural communities. 4-H clubs are thriving in urban centers across the country, teaching inner city kids the same values and self confidence that have helped so many rural youth. Today, kids from all walks of life can learn to design web pages, participate in mock legislatures, and organize community clean-ups. 4-H continues to work toward the development of youth as individuals and as responsible and productive citizens. I urge you to join me in supporting this resolution.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I apologize again for my voice. I am doing the best I can. I want to express some frustrations that I had today. This bill is no longer, after our management amendment, quite Straight A's anymore. It is more like a B, A, and an F, better alternatives for a few. But at least we have 10 pilot programs, which is better than nothing. Part of my concern is that, as we move to conference committee with the Senate, then we might only wind up with one governor picks one student for half a day. But we need to continue to move this bill forward because at least it gives the opportunity for us to give more flexibility in return for accountability, which was the original intent of our bill earlier today, which was to provide more flexibility to the States in return for accountability. But by the time we got done in committee, by the time we got done on the floor, we continued to add more and more things that reduced the flexibility but kept the accountability measures in. This bill would help rectify that. That is why this bill, Straight A's, has been supported by, among other groups, American Association of Christian Schools, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Education Policy Institute, Family Resource Council, Hispanic Business Roundtable, Home School Legal Defense Association, Independent Women's Forum, Jewish Policy Center, Professional Educators of Tennessee, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; by the State school officers, Arizona Superintendent of Public Education, Georgia State Superintendent of Schools, the Michigan Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, the Virginia Secretary of Education. It is also supported by the following governors: Governor Hull of Arizona, Governor Owens of Colorado, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, Governor Kempthorne of Idaho, Governor Ryan of Illinois, Governor Engler of Michigan, Governor Gilmore of Virginia, Governor Thompson of Wisconsin, Governor Geringer of Wyoming, Governor Pataki of New York, Governor Keating of Oklahoma, and Governor Guinn of Nevada. It is also interesting, as we look for what is our vision as to how we approach education, rather than just saying we are going to do more of the same only for a little less dollars than the way it is done in the past, I would hold forth what our current leading candidate for President, Governor Bush, said in his education speech to New York, not the parts that the media picked up, but the fundamentals of it. And let me quote from that. ``Even as many States embrace education reform, the Federal Government is mired in bureaucracy and mediocrity. It is an obstacle, not an ally. Education bills are often rituals of symbolic spending without real accountability, like pumping gas into a flooded engine. For decades, fashionable ideas have been turned into programs with little knowledge of their benefits for students or teachers. And even the obvious failures seldom disappear.'' On the next page he said, ``I don't want to tinker with the machinery of the Federal role in education. I want to redefine that role entirely. I strongly believe in local control of schools and curriculum. I have consistently placed my faith in States and schools and parents and teachers, and that faith in Texas has been rewarded.'' He also said, ``I would promote more choices for parents in the education of their children. In the end, it is parents, armed with information and options, who turn the theory of reform into the reality of excellence. All reform begins with freedom and local control. It unleashes creativity. It permits those closest to children to exercise their judgment. And it also removes the excuse for failure. Only those with the ability to change can be held to account.'' He also said, contrary to public opinion, that he always says that the Republican Congress is just too conservative, he also said what we did earlier today was too liberal, because what he favored as a reform to Title I was to ``give parents with children in failing schools, schools where the test scores of Title I children show no improvement over 3 years, the resources to seek more hopeful options. This would amount to a scholarship of about $1,500 a year.'' He said with regard to charter schools that we need someone bold enough to say, ``I can do better. And all our schools will aim higher if we reward that kind of courage and vision.'' I hope my Republican colleagues and those on the Democratic side of the aisle that are open to real school reform will support me and my colleagues in support of the Straight A's, which would give our governors real flexibility. Mr. Chairman, I provide for the Record the full speech given by Governor George Bush, and the list of groups and individuals who support Straight A's: Governor George W. Bush--A Culture of Achievement, New York, New York, October 5, 1999 It is an honor to be here--and especially to share this podium with Rev. Flake. Your influence in this city--as a voice for change and a witness to Christian hope--is only greater since you returned full-time to the Allen AME Church. I read somewhere that you still call Houston your hometown, 30 years after you moved away. As governor of Texas, let me return the compliment. We are proud of all you have accomplished, and honored to call you one of our own. It's been a pleasure touring New York these past few days with Governor Pataki. Everywhere I've gone, New York's old confidence is back--thanks, in large part, to a state senator who challenged the status quo six years ago. From tax cuts to criminal justice reform to charters, your agenda has been an example to governors around the country. It is amazing how far this city has come in the 21 years since the Manhattan Institute was founded. You have won battles once considered hopeless. You have gone from winning debating points to winning majorities--and I congratulate you. Last month in California, I talked about disadvantaged children in troubled schools. I argued that the diminished hopes of our current system are sad and serious--the soft bigotry of low expectations. And I set out a simple principle: Federal funds will no longer flow to failure. Schools that do not teach and will not change must have some final point of accountability. A moment of truth, when their Title I funds are divided up and given to parents, for tutoring or a charter school or some other hopeful option. In the best case, schools that failing will rise to the challenge and regain the confidence of parents. In the worst case, we will offer scholarships to America's neediest children. In any case, the Federal Government will no longer pay schools to cheat poor children. But this is the beginning of our challenge, not its end. The final object of education reform is not just to shun mediocrity; it is to seek excellence. It is not just to avoid failure; it is to encourage achievement. Our Nation has a moral duty to ensure that no child is left behind. And we also, at this moment, have a great national opportunity--to ensure that every child, in every public school, is challenged by high standards that meet the high hopes of parents. To build a culture of achievement that matches the optimism and aspirations of our country. Not long ago, this would have seemed incredible. Our education debates were captured by a deep pessimism. For decades, waves of reform were quickly revealed as passing fads, with little lasting result. For decades, funding rose while performance stagnated. Most parents, except in some urban districts, have not seen the collapse of education. They have seen a slow slide of expectations and standards. Schools where poor spelling is called ``creative.'' Where math is ``fuzzy'' and grammer is optional. Where grade inflation is the norm. Schools where spelling bees are canceled for being too competitive and selecting a single valedictorian is considered too exclusive. Where advancing from one grade to the next is unconnected to advancing skills. Schools where, as in Alice in Wonderland, ``Everyone has won, and all must have prizes.'' We are left with a nagging sense of lost potential. A sense of what could be, but is not. It led the late Albert Shanker, of the American Federation of Teachers, to conclude: ``Very few American pupils are performing anywhere near where they could be performing.'' This cuts against the grain of American character. Most parents know that the self-esteem of children is not built by low standards, it is built by real accomplishments. Most parents know that good character is tied to an ethic of study and hard work and merit--and that setbacks are as much a part of learning as awards. Most Americans know that a healthy democracy must be committed both to equality and to excellence. Until a few years ago, the debates of politics seemed irrelevant to these concerns. Democrats and Republicans argued mainly about funding and procedures--about dollars and devolution. Few talked of standards or accountability or of excellence for all our children. But all this is beginning to change. In state after state, we are seeing a profound shift of priorities. An ``age of accountability'' is starting to replace an era of low expectations. And there is a growing conviction and confidence that the problems of public education are not an endless road or a hopeless maze. The principles of this movement are similar from New York to Florida, from Massachusetts to Michigan. Raise the bar of standards. Give schools the flexibility to meet them. Measure progress. Insist on results. Blow the whistle on failure. Provide parents with options to increase their influence. And don't give up on anyone. There are now countless examples of public schools transformed by great expectations. Places like Earhart Elementary in Chicago, where students are expected to compose essays by the second grade. Where these young children participate in a Junior Great Books program, and sixth graders are reading ``To Kill a Mockingbird.'' The principal explains, ``All our children are expected to work above grade level and learn for the sake of learning * * * We instill a desire to overachieve. Give us an average child and we'll make him an overachiever.'' This is a public school, and not a wealthy one. And it proves what is possible. No one in Texas now doubts that public schools can improve. We are witnessing the promise of high standards and accountability. We require that every child read by the third grade, without exception or excuse. Every year, we test students on the academic basics. We disclose those results by school. We encourage the diversity and creativity of charters. We give local schools and districts the freedom to chart their own path to excellence. I certainly don't claim credit for all these changes. But my state is proud of what we have accomplished together. Last week, the federal Department of Education announced that Texas eighth graders have some of the best writing skills in the country. In 1994, there were 67 schools in Texas rated ``exemplary'' according to our tests. This year, there are 1,120. We are proud, but we are not content. Now that we are meeting our current standards, I am insisting that we elevate those standards. Now that we are clearing the bar, we are going to raise the bar--because have set our sights on excellence. At the beginning of the 1990s, so many of our nation's problems, from education to crime to welfare, seemed intractable--beyond our control. But something unexpected happened on the way to cultural decline. Problems that seemed inevitable proved to be reversible. They gave way to an optimistic, governing conservatism. Here in New York, Mayor Giuliani brought order and civility back to the streets--cutting crime rates by 50 percent. In Wisconsin, Governor Tommy Thompson proved that welfare dependence could be reversed--reducing his rolls by 91 percent. Innovative mayors and governors followed their lead--cutting national welfare rolls by nearly half since 1994, and reducing the murder rate to the lowest point since 1967. Now education reform is gaining a critical mass of results. In the process, conservatism has become the creed of hope. The creed of aggressive, persistent reform. The creed of social progress. But many of our problems--particularly education, crime and welfare dependence--are yielding to good sense and strength and idealism. In states and cities around the country, we are making, not just points and pledges, but progress. We are demonstrating the genius for self-renewal at the heart of the American experiment. Of course want growth and vigor in our economy. But there are human problems that persist in the shadow of affluence. And the strongest argument for conservative ideals--for responsibility and accountability and the virtues of our tradition--is that they lead to greater justice, less suffering, more opportunity. At the constitutional convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin argued that the strength of our nation depends ``on the general opinion of the goodness of government.'' Our Founders rejected cynicism, and cultivated a noble love of country. That love is undermined by sprawling, arrogant, aimless government. It is restored by focused and effective and energetic government. And that should be our goal: A limited government, respected for doing a few things and doing them well. This is an approach with echoes in our history. Echoes of Lincoln and emancipation and the Homestead Act and land-grant colleges. Echoes of Theodore Roosevelt and national parks and the Panama Canal. Echoes of Reagan and a confrontation with communism that sought victory, not stalemate. What are the issues that challenge us, that summon us, in our time? Surely one of them must be excellence in education. Surely one of them must be to rekindle the spirit of learning and ambition in our common schools. And one of our great opportunities and urgent duties is to remake the federal role. Even as many states embrace education reform, the federal government is mired in bureaucracy and mediocrity. It is an obstacle, not an ally. Education bills are often rituals of symbolic spending without real accountability-- like pumping gas into a flooded engine. For decades, fashionable ideas have been turned into programs, with little knowledge of their benefits for students and teachers. And even the obvious failures seldom disappear. This is a perfect example of government that is big--and weak. Of government that is grasping--and impotent. Let me share an example. The Department of Education recently streamlined the grant application process for states. The old procedure involved 487 different steps, taking an average of 26 weeks. So, a few years ago, the best minds of the administration got together and ``reinvented'' the grant process. Now it takes a mere 216 steps, and the wait is 20 weeks. If this is reinventing government, it makes you wonder how this administration was ever skilled enough and efficient enough to create the Internet. I don't want to tinker with the machinery of the federal role in education. I want to redefine that role entirely. I strongly believe in local control of schools and curriculum. I have consistently placed my faith in states and schools and parents and teachers--and that faith, in Texas, has been rewarded. I also believe a president should define and defend the unifying ideals of our nation--including the quality of our common schools. He must lead, without controlling. He must set high goals--without being high-handed. The inertia of our education bureaucracy is a national problem, requiring a national response. Sometimes inaction is not restraint--it is complicity. Sometimes it takes the use of executive power to empower others. Effective education reform requires both pressure from above and competition from below--a demand for high standards and measurement at the top, given momentum and urgency by expanded options for parents and students. So, as president, here is what I'll do. First, I will fundamentally change the relationship of the states and federal government in education. Now we have a system of excessive regulation and no standards. In my administration, we will have minimal regulation and high standards. Second, I will promote more choices for parents in the education of their children. In the end, it is parents, armed with information and options, who turn the theory of reform into the reality of excellence. All reform begins with freedom and local control. It unleashes creativity. It permits those closest to children to exercise their judgment. And it also removes the excuse for failure. Only those with the ability to change can be held to account. But local control has seldom been a priority in Washington. In 1965, when President Johnson signed the very first Elementary and Secondary Education Act, not one school board trustee, from anywhere in the country, was invited to the ceremony. Local officials were viewed as the enemy. And that attitude has lingered too long. As president, I will begin by taking most of the 60 different categories of federal education grants and paring them down to five: improving achievement among disadvantaged children; promoting fluency in English; training and recruiting teachers; encouraging character and school safety; and promoting innovation and parental choice. Within these divisions, states will have maximum flexibility to determine their priorities. They will only be asked to certify that their funds are being used for the specific purposes intended--and the Federal red tape ends there. This will spread authority to levels of government that people can touch. And it will reduce paperwork--allowing schools to spend less on filing forms and more on what matters: teachers' salaries and children themselves. In return, we will ask that every state have a real accountability system--meaning that they test every child, every year, in grades three through eight, on the basics of reading and math; broadly disclose those results by school, including on the Internet; and have clear consequences for success and failure. States will pick their own tests, and the federal government will share the costs of administering them. States can choose tests off-the-shelf, like Arizona; adapt tests like California; or contract for new tests like Texas. Over time, if a state's results are improving, it will be rewarded with extra money--a total of $500 million in awards over five years. If scores are stagnant or dropping, the administrative portion of their federal funding--about 5 percent--will be diverted to a fund for charter schools. We will praise and reward success--and shine a spotlight of shame on failure. What I am proposing today is a fresh start for the federal role in education. A pact of principle. Freedom in exchange for achievement. Latitude in return for results. Local control with one national goal: excellence for every child. I am opposed to national tests, written by the federal government. If Washington can control the content of tests, it can dictate the content of state curricula--a role our central government should not play. But measurement at the state level is essential. Without testing, reform is a journey without a compass. Without testing, teachers and administrators cannot adjust their methods to meet high goals. Without testing, standards are little more than scraps of paper. Without testing, true competition is impossible. Without testing, parents are left in the dark. In fact, the greatest benefit of testing--with the power to transform a school or a system--is the information it gives to parents. They will know--not just by rumor or reputation, but by hard numbers--which schools are succeeding and which are not. Given that information, more parents will be pulled into activisim--becoming participants, not spectators, in the education of their children. Armed with that information, parents will have the leverage to force reform. Information is essential. But reform also requires options. Monopolies seldom change on their own--no matter how good the intentions of those who lead them. Competition is required to jolt a bureaucracy out of its lethargy. So my second goal for the federal role of education is to increase the options and influence of parents. The reform of Title I I've proposed would begin this process. We will give parents with children in failing schools--schools where the test scores of Title 1 children show no improvement over three years--the resources to seek more hopeful options. This will amount to a scholarship of about $1,500 a year. And parents can use those funds for tutoring or tuition-- for anything that gives their children a fighting chance at learning. The theory is simple. Public funds must be spent on things that work--on helping children, not sustaining failed schools that refuse to change. The response to this plan has been deeply encouraging. Yet some politicians have gone to low performing schools and claimed my plan would undermine them. Think a moment about what that means. It means visiting a school and saying, in essence, ``You are hopeless. Not only can't you achieve, you can't even improve.'' That is not a defense of public education, it is a surrender to despair. That is not liberalism, it is pessimism. It is accepting and excusing an educational apartheid in our country--segregating poor children into a work without the hope of change. Everyone, in both parties, seems to agree with accountability in theory. But what could accountability possibly mean if children attend schools for 12 years without learning to read or write? Accountability without consequences is empty--the hollow shell of reform. And all our children deserve better. In our education reform plan, we will give states more flexibility to use federal funds, at their option, for choice programs--including private school choice. In some neighborhoods, these new options are the first sign of hope, of real change, that parents have seen for a generation. But not everyone wants or needs private school choice. Many parents in America want more choices, higher standards and more influence within their public schools. This is the great promise of charter schools--the path that New York is now beginning. And this, in great part, is a tribute to the Manhattan Institute. If charters are properly done--free to hire their own teachers, adopt their own curriculum, set their own operating rules and high standards--they will change the face of American education. Public schools--without bureaucracy. Public schools--controlled by parents. Public schools--held to the highest goals. Public schools--as we imagined they could be. For parents, they are schools on a human scale, where their voice is heard and heeded. For students, they are more like a family than a factory--a place where it is harder to get lost. For teachers, who often help found charter schools, they are a chance to teach as they've always wanted. Says one charter school in Boston: ``We don't have to wait to make changes. We don't have to wait for the district to decide that what we are doing is within the rules . . . So we can really put the interests of the kids first.'' This morning I visited the new Sisulu Children's Academy in Harlem--New York's first charter school. In an area where only a quarter of children can read at or above grade level, Sisulu Academy offers a core curriculum of reading, math, science, and history. There will be an extended school day, and the kids will also learn computer skills, art, music and dance. And there is a waiting list of 100 children. This is a new approach--even a new definition of public education. These schools are public because they are publicly funded and publicly accountable for results. The vision of parents and teachers and principals determines the rest. Money follows the child. The units of delivery get smaller and more personal. Some charters go back to basics--some attract the gifted--some emphasize the arts. It is a reform movement that welcomes diversity, but demands excellence. And this is the essence of real reform. Charter schools benefit the children within them--as well as the public school students beyond them. The evidence shows that competition often strengthens all the schools in a district. In Arizona, in places where charters have arrived-- teaching phonics and extending hours and involving parents-- suddenly many traditional public schools are following suit. The greatest problem facing charter schools is practical-- the cost of building them. Unlike regular public schools, they receive no capital funds. And the typical charter costs about $1.5 million to construct. Some are forced to start in vacant hotel rooms or strip malls. As president, I want to fan the spark of charter schools into a flame. My administration will establish a Charter School Homestead Fund, to help finance these start-up costs. We will provide capital to education entrepreneurs-- planting new schools on the frontiers of reform. This fund will support $3 billion in loan guarantees in my first two years in office--enough to seed $2,000 schools. Enough to double the existing number. This will be a direct challenge to the status quo in public education--in a way that both changes it and strengthens it. With charters, someone cares enough to say, ``I'm dissatisfied.'' Someone is both enough to say, ``I can do better.'' And all our schools will aim higher if we reward that kind of courage and vision. And we will do one thing more for parents. We will expand Education Savings Accounts to cover education expenses in grades K through 12, allowing parents or grandparents to contribute up to $5,000 dollars per year, per student. Those funds can be withdrawn tax-free for tuition payments, or books, or tutoring or transportation--whatever students need most. Often this nation sets out to reform education for all the wrong reasons--or at least for incomplete ones. Because the Soviets launch Sputnik. Or because children in Singapore have high test scores. Or because our new economy demands computer operators. But when parents hope for their children, they hope with nobler goals. Yes, we want them to have the basic skills of life. But life is more than a race for riches. A good education leads to intellectual self-confidence, and ambition and a quickened imagination. It helps us, not just to live, but to live well. And this private good has public consequences. In his first address to Congress, President Washington called education ``the surest basis of public happiness.'' America's founders believed that self-government requires a certain kind of citizen. Schooled to think clearly and critically, and to know America's civic ideals. Freed, by learning, to rise, by merit. Education is the way a democratic culture reproduces itself through time. This is the reason a conservative should be passionate about education reform--the reason a conservative should fight strongly and care deeply. Our common schools carry a great burden for the common good. And they must be more than schools of last resort. Every child must have a quality education--not just in islands of excellence. Because, we are a single Nation with a shared future. Because as Lincoln said, we are ``brothers of a common country.'' Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I apologize for my voice. I will do the best I can. I have been involved in this issue, and I want to participate in the debate today. I would like to clarify a few statements that are going around and add some additional comments. One is this is not a spending bill, it is an authorizing bill. This is a bill that sets policy. Secondly, inside that policy, we are not moving dollars between school districts. This is a question of how the school district moves the dollars within a school and who is included in a given program. It is not moving from low-income districts to high-income districts; this is not driving money to the State. This affects formulas and what percentage of the students are covered within this program inside a school and inside that district. Thirdly, I am very concerned about bipartisanship. We have talked about trying to develop this as a bipartisan bill. I am one who is a believer that if the Federal Government is going to be involved in Federal aid to education, there is a legitimate need to come in and to help low-income families where they may not have the property tax structure, they may not have the income, and that was a legitimate role, even though the Constitution was silent on the Federal role in education, because that means by definition that it was intended to local and State. But when there has been a failure such as for special needs kids or for low-income kids, the Federal Government has stepped in. My goal is not to spread targeted Federal dollars to all students in America so that everybody gets attached to the Federal dollars. But this was to be a bipartisan bill. We worked out a compromise. Some of us are starting to feel that the only thing that is bipartisan in this is we have to do it the other side's way, or we do not do it. I am fast moving towards a no on this bill when I have been a strong advocate of this bill all the way along. I, for one, do not believe that Title I has failed. I differ from many of my conservative friends. This is like Lou Holtz coming to the University of South Carolina and South Carolina not winning this year in football and people saying well, that failed. It takes more than a football coach to change the football program in South Carolina and turn it into Notre Dame, not that Notre Dame is the best example this year. But when we look at this, it takes split ends, it takes quarterbacks, it takes halfbacks. Title I going to low-income schools, they often do not have a lot of other resources. This is only part of the program that goes into these schools. We cannot expect Title I to solve every problem in low-income schools. What I see in Indiana is they are doing it very effectively in targeting for reading recovery. But this is a question about flexibility. It is not a question about moving among students. In this bill, we require that the students' performance has to move up if we go down to 40. We are caring here about individual students. Why do we feel in Washington that we have to tell each principal and superintendent and teacher that they have to do it a certain way. What we want to see is that the students' scores are improving. I am sorry I did not get down here to debate on the Armey amendment. I do not understand why people do not want to give local schools and school boards more flexibility if we say you have to improve the students' scores. The argument here is not in my case against having the money go to those who need it most. I want to see it used most effectively, whether it is public school choice, private school choice, Title I inside the schools, reading recovery programs. We want to see that the kids who are left behind in our system, who often are not able to get the job, to get the opportunities that many of us who have been more fortunate have, we want to see the most flexibility and the best ways possible to do that, and I fear that this amendment will lead to further unraveling both of that local flexibility and of this bipartisan bill.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. (Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri), and it has been a privilege to work with him in committee and here on the floor. I support this amendment because I believe our Nation's students will immeasurably be benefited when Federal money begins to follow the child. This is a proposal that has been floated for a number of years by Checker Finn and others. It has been supported by the Heritage Foundation and is hardly a strange concept. We have a similar approach in college funding called Pell grants named after former Senator Claiborne Pell, a Democrat. Out of deference to my friend from Michigan, I guess we will not call these Kildee grants, but it is not a new concept that we would have the money follow the student and follow the child. We have done this in college education for years and have not disrupted public educational colleges, and it has strengthened in fact the choices that parents have. This amendment simply allows 10 States to experiment with a new pilot program. One would think that we were trying to gut the schools rather than saying if the legislature and the governor decide in a few pilot States that they want to experiment that they should be allowed to do so. I believe in choice. I believe in public school choice. I believe in private school choice, and one of the most astounding things that is happening in America is watching in the urban centers in particular the rapid growth of African American and other minority school choice programs run by locals who are concerned that their kids are not getting the education. It is not sufficient to say that the dollars that go to Title I to the student is not enough to cover the tuition. The fact is in Cleveland, when the court just threw out their private school support program, the parents worked together to come up with that money because they are very concerned about the quality of education for their students. The Catholic church for years has subsidized members of their parish who cannot afford it. We see that in Golden Rule in Indiana with Pat Rooney. He has put together scholarship funds. We see Ted Forstman and others do this. The demand is far exceeding. There are supplemental ways to get the income in. Some sacrifice for the parents. They are voting with their feet, and not every school costs like St. Albans, where our vice president may send his children or like the private schools in Washington where Members of Congress may send their children or the private schools around the country where the affluent send their children. There are many lower cost private schools where people, apparently the only people who can have those choices are middle-class and upper-class parents, not the lower-income people who need the desperate education. Furthermore, let me make clear that it is not a matter of just this sudden abandonment of the public schools. We are not going to wipe out our Federal education programs for the public schools because even if we maximized private school choice, for multiple reasons it would probably never hit in this country. If we had a pure voucher system, more than 20 percent. I went to public schools; my kids are in public schools. Most people are not going to abandon their local school. It is close, they know the teachers, they are invested in it. But denying those who have the most at stake who most need the best education possible the possibility of even having a pilot program that would have to clear State legislature and a governor and give them an opportunity that if they can find a place where they can take this voucher or at least have the leverage to go to the school and say, I might take my child out if you do not respond to some of my concerns, to deprive the powerless of any power over their school systems, they often have very little control over the school boards already. They are ignored by the principals; they are ignored by the teachers. At least if they could take their money like a middle-class or an upper-class family and say, I might leave, perhaps they would be listened to. Why would we take the most powerless in this society and say, everybody but you gets a choice, but not you. Mr. Chairman, I include the following for the Record: [From the Public Interest, Fall, 1998] Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Washington Versus School Reform (By Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Michael J. Petrilli) [Note: This is the original manuscript and has been heavily edited by the Public Interest.] ``Promiscuous'' is an overused word in Washington these days, but it aptly describes the trend in federal education policy-both at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and on Capital Hill. The 1990's have seen the wanton transformation of innumerable notions, fads and impulses into new government programs and proposals for many more such. Since inauguration day, 1993, the Clinton administration alone has embraced dozens of novel education schemes, including subsidies for state academic standards, tax credits for school construction, paying for teachers to be appraised by a national standards board, hiring 100,000 new teachers to shrink class size, ensuring ``equity'' in textbooks, collecting gender-sensitive data on the pay of high school coaches, boosting the self- esteem of rural students, establishing a Native Hawaiian education Council, connecting every classroom to the Internet, developing before-and after-school programs, forging mentoring relationships between college students and middle schoolers, increasing the number of school drug- prevention counselors, requiring school uniforms, and fostering character education. ``Superintendent Clinton'' has also supported the Family Involvement Partnership, the America Reads partnership. Lighthouse Partnerships (for teacher training), HOPE Scholarships, Presidential Honors Scholarships, Americorps, Voluntary National Tests, Education Opportunity Zones, and Comprehensive School Reform Grants. And that's just a selection from the brimming smorgasbord. But Mr. Clinton is not alone. Nor is policy promiscuity indulged in only by lusty Democrats. Roving-eyed Republicans in Congress have proposed, inter alia, slashing class size, ending social promotion, legalizing school prayer, replacing textbooks with laptops, funding environmental education, paying for school metal detectors, and creating a new literacy program. As education has ascended the list of policy issues that trouble voters, politicians of every stripe have predictably lunged for it. This has led Washington officials to shoulder problems and embrace initiatives that once were deemed the proper province of states and communities (or individual schools and families). The federal education policy arena has come to resemble a vast flea market, where practically any program idea can be put on display and offered for purchase without regard to its soundness or effectiveness. As at a flea market, there's plenty of old stuff hanging around, too. Once created, education programs seldom disappear, no matter how poorly they accomplish their stated purposes and no matter what harm they may do along the way. It's not that their authorizers and appropriators are ignorant. The major programs have been evaluated time and again. Countless studies have shown that most of them, for all their laudable ambitions and fine-sounding titles, do little or no good. What then accounts for this risky--even reckless--behavior? Why can't federal officials keep their wallets zipped? Today's promiscuous approach has four main origins: (1) The clamor for someone to do something. Education is clearly a problem. Solving that problem ranks high with voters and taxpayers. The simplest way to give at least the appearance of action is to propose another program or three. Of course, this impulse isn't confined to Washington. Many governors, legislators, mayors and aldermen have spent their way into citizens' hearts with pricey education programs. As the 1998 election draws closer, reports the Washington Post, local, state, and national candidates of both parties are stumbling over one another with promises to shrink third grade classes, build new classrooms, launch after-school programs, etc. (2) Devotion to focus group fancies and pollsters' pointers. The public is vague about how it wants education to change, and rather naive about the sources of its problems. The easiest, surest way to appeal to voters is to offer to do something with instant, intuitive appeal, like shrinking classes or refurbishing buildings, even if that something won't actually solve any real problems. One thereby avoids being labeled ``anti-education'' because one wants to overhaul or--quel horreur--scrap some dysfunctional program or disrupt an established interest. Democrats have long tended to solve education problems by hurling new programs at them. When Republicans briefly and clumsily tried a surgical approach in 1995, they wounded themselves (for seeking to trim the school lunch program and scrap the federal education department, etc.) They, too, have mostly retreated from the operating room to the program delivery room. Even when they propose a radical innovation, such as Paul Coverdell's education savings account (which would lightly subsidize private school attendance), they no longer offer it instead of an obsolete program; it is nearly always an addition to the federal nursery. (3) Gridlock over the tough ideas that might actually effect change. One serious reform strategy focuses on standards and accountability, the other on school choice and diversification. It's not hard to design a shrewd blend, combining national standards with radical decentralization and merging tough accountability measures with school choice. But politicians with an eye on their ``base''--or an upcoming primary--won't yield an inch on their pet schemes and aversions. Unable to reach agreement on genuine reforms, they reach instead for crowd-pleasers. (4) The marginal nature of the federal role in education. Washington furnishes just seven percent of the K-12 education budget. Federal officials know very well that nothing they do will have great impact. Since they're not ultimately responsible for what happens in the schools, heedlessness comes easy to them. They rarely behave quite so immaturely in policy areas where Uncle Sam plays the lead role, such as national defense, Social Security and international trade. How We Got Here Because the Constitution assigns Washington no responsibility whatsoever for education, the federal role is guided by no general principles. It just grew. This property never had a master plan, an architectural design or even a central structure, just a series of random sheds, annexes and outbuildings. Though some early construction can be found as far back as the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the creation of land-grant colleges in 1862, the federal role in education is essentially a late Twentieth century design. Indeed, save for vocational education, the G.I. bill, the post-Sputnik ``national defense education act,'' and, of course, the judiciary's deep involvement in school desegration, the federal role as we know it is a creation of the mid-sixties, of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The major legislation of the day included Head Start (1964), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965), the Higher Education Act (1965), the Bilingual Education Act (1968), and, soon after, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975). All these programs sought to expand access to education for needy or impoverished segments of the population--and to disguise general aid to schools as help for the disadvantaged. The dozens of programs created by these five statutes (and their subsequent reauthorizations) script the federal role in education today. That role will soon be up for review. The 106th Congress will reauthorize the centerpiece Elementary and Secondary Education Act (E.S.E.A.) and its $11 billlion worth of programs, accounting for fully a third of the Education Department's budget. Out of 69 K-12 programs currently administered by that agency, 47 are authorized by E.S.E.A. Title I, the largest of them at nearly $8 billlion, is included, as are bilingual education, safe and drug free schools, the Eisenhower professional development program, and scores more. These programs mostly began under Lyndon Johnson (and up now no Republican Congress has had a crack at them), but their support has been bipartisan. Richard Nixon presided over a significant expansion of aid to college students. Gerald Ford signed the burdensome ``special education'' bill into law. The Reagan and Bush administrations proposed to return control to states and localities. They found early success-- federal K-12 education spending declined 21 percent in real terms between 1980 and 1985. But funding for these programs then skyrocketed 28 percent from 1985 to 1992, and another 14 percent during Clinton's first term. Their complexity grew, too. The 1994 version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--passed just a few weeks before the GOP won control of Congress--sprawled over 1000 pages. Today, the federal government currently spends $100 billion per year on over 700 education programs spanning 39 agencies. The Department of Education manages roughly one-third of this money and employs close to 5000 people. changing problems, unchanging programs The underlying assumptions of the federal role in education have not changed since LBJ occupied the Oval Office. Increasing access to more and more services--rather than boosting achievement and productivity--is the primary mission. States and localities are assumed to be unjust, stingy, and stubborn. Top-down regulations and financial incentives are assumed to be the surest ways to induce change. And Uncle Sam's primary clients are assumed to be school systems, not states and municipalities, and certainly not children and families. It's remarkable how stable these assumptions have been despite thirty-plus years of failure. America's schools remain perilously weak. Whether one looks at worldwide math and science results, comparisons of ``value added'' over time, or other indices of achievement, they simply don't measure up-except in spending, where U.S. outlays per-pupil are among the planet's loftiest. Domestically, our National assessment results are mediocre-to-dismal, and the achievement (and school completion) levels for minority youngsters and inner-city residents are catastrophic. In Ohio, for example, the school districts of Cleveland, Youngstown, and Dayton are all posting drop-out rates of greater than 40 percent. Nationally, a staggering 77 percent of fourth-graders from high-poverty urban schools cannot read at a basic level. The achievement gap between the rich and poor and between whites and minorities has not closed; it may even be growing. After three decades, billions of dollars, and thousands of pages of statutes and regulations, we have astonishingly little to show for the effort. One might think policy makers would take notice. One might suppose they would demand a fundamental overhaul, a thorough hosing-out of this Augcan stable of feckless programs and greedy interest groups. But one would be wrong. In a spectacular example of throwing good money after bad and refusing to learn from either experience or research, the scores of program proposals made within the past few years simply extend--indeed deepen--the familiar trend. The recent proposals and new programs don't sound exactly like the old ones. Although the basic approach is the same, the language has been updated. Today's programs are generally mooted in phrases that focus groups favor, such as ``comprehensive services,'' ``mentoring'' and ``literacy.'' Most of them fall under three headings: ``partnerships'' that mask government activism under complex organizational links; the extension of services into new domains; and the adoption by Uncle Sam of duties and responsibilities that were once the province of states and communities. ``partnerships'' ``Partnership,'' the pollsters assure us, is a ``warm'' term that focus groups adore. Upon examination, though, most ``partnerships'' turn out resemble what used to be called ``bureaucracies.'' Consider the ``Lighthouse Partnerships'' for teacher training, proposed by the Clinton administration and supported by several Republicans (and soon to be enacted). Washington's dollars would allow ``model'' colleges of education to ``partner'' with weaker ones. They would also ``partner'' with state education agencies, local school districts, and non-profit organizations. All these new partners would supposedly work together to improve teacher training. Nobody can quite explain why federal funding is necessary for them to cooperate. They are all supposed to be improving teacher training in the first place. Nor is it clear that anything real will result from their newly-subsidized bonding. Will teachers be tested on more difficult material? Will schools of education be held accountable for producing teachers who know their stuff? Will students learn more? No one can be sure, since the stated mission of the program is simply to encourage institutions to hook up with one another. What is certain is that teacher training colleges and other pillars of the education establishment will reap added financial benefits. The traditional monopoly will be strengthened and the teacher quality problem, far from being solved, will likely be exacerbated. colonizing new territory The President recently trotted out a proposal to support ``community learning centers'' that tutor students and provide them with a safe place to go after school. It's hard to fault the impulse (though like most ``compensatory'' efforts it may let the original malefactors off the hook--why is it that most public schools close by 3 p.m.?). But is there a compelling reason for the federal government to fund them? And won't Uncle Sam's embrace prove to be a chokehold? If there is any sure lesson from these years of experience, it is that regulatory entanglements follow federal funding. New programs bring unaccustomed mandates, fresh conditions and additional rules. We'll wake up one day to learn that the new after-school centers must be accredited, or staffed by certified teachers (or unionized teachers); they can be sponsored only by secular organizations; their buildings must be built or rehabbed by workers paid the ``prevailing'' union wage; they will have to teach diversity and conflict resolution, saving the environment, or esteem-building via ``cooperative learning.'' Are there compelling benefits that outweigh these costs? Perhaps some esoteric expertise that the federal government is privy to when it comes to after-school tutoring? We have not spotted it. The only real asset Washington has to offer to education is money. But at present the states have more of that than they really need. Their combined surplus was estimated by the National Conference of State Legislatures at $28.3 billion for FY 1997. With so many dollars floating around, why burden worthy programs with Washington-style red tape? States, philanthropies, and local communities could easily create after-school havens for kids and recruit tutors for those who need help. Why must the Department of Education grow a ``bureau of community learning centers'' to manage this process? Minding Other People's Business Far from being stodgy, recalcitrant and ignorant, the states today are bubbling labs of education reform and innovation. Information about promising programs gets around the country in a flash. A few years ago no states produced school-by-school ``report cards''; now at least a dozen do. Five years ago, only eight states had charter school laws. Today, 33 have enacted them. This copycat behavior can be seen even at the municipal level. Chicago's successful accountability plan--ending social promotion and requiring summer school for those who failed--is being mimicked by dozens of communities, just as Chicago's dramatic new school governance scheme (with the mayor in charge) is being adapted for use in other communities. Yet the tendency in Washington is still to nationalize problems and programs that states and communities are capable of tackling. When, for example, did class size become a federal issue? It's states and communities that hire and pay teachers. It's states and communities that make the trade-offs, deciding, for example, whether they would prefer a large number of inexperienced, low-cost teachers or a smaller number of pricey veterans. Long before Mr. Clinton (and, for the Republicans, Congressman Bill Paxon) decided that smaller classes are better, several states were headed this way on their own. And while the idea is undeniably popular with parents, state class-size reduction initiatives have shown that its efficacy is unsure and its unintended consequences numerous. Pete Wilson's class size reduction plan for California, for example, prompted a mass exodus of experienced teachers from inner-city schools to posh suburbs, leaving disadvantaged kids with even less qualified teachers than before. Teacher shortages are now rampant and thousands of people have received ``emergency waivers.'' Instead of remedying the real teacher crisis--the lack of deeply knowledgeable instructors--it has made the situation worse. Research on class size is also inconclusive. Most studies show no systematic link between smaller classes and higher achieving pupils. The versions that seem to yield the greatest gains are those that slash class size below fifteen kids. Such an expensive proposition must be weighed against the opportunity costs of other programs, strategies, or initiatives that could be funded. Some communities might decide the price is worth it, while others would rather use their incremental dollars in different ways. But Mr. Clinton's across-the-nation plan does not allow for such delicate and decentralized decision-making. While the President often uses words like ``autonomy'' and ``accountability,'' his proposal would micro-manage school staffing and budget priorities from Washington. Once upon a time, Uncle Sam provided some real leadership in educational innovation. Now that the states are taking charge, the feds appear disoriented, playing ``me too.'' And not just with respect to class size. From ending social promotion, to adopting school uniforms, to implementing accountability systems, Washington now reverberates with echoes of state and local initiatives. a chance to repent A rare opportunity is at hand for a top-to-bottom overhaul. The public seems readier for fundamental reforms in education than ever before--and indeed is getting a taste of them at the grassroots level. There we can glimpse higher standards, tougher accountability systems, brand-new institutional forms and profound power shifts. Surveys make it plain that voters, taxpayers and parents are hungry for charter schools, for ending social promotion, for tougher discipline, for more attention to basic skills, and for school choice. Privately- funded voucher programs are booming, with hundreds of millions of philanthropic dollars now being lavished on them and thousands of children in queues for lotteries to participate. Two cities have publicly-funded voucher programs, and more soon will. Charter schools are spreading like kudzu. And opinion leaders from newspaper columnists to business leaders to college presidents--are signaling their own readiness to try something very different. Into this shifting landscape will soon drop the periodic reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The federal role in education could be almost entirely reshaped via this one piece of legislation. But will it be? Plenty of political obstacles block the path to a true overhaul. Three decades of doing things one way creates huge inertia, and every program, indeed every line in this endless statute, now serves an entrenched interest or embedded assumption. Still, that was also true of welfare a few years back, and Washington was able to muster the will and imagination to change it anyway--once policymakers understood that the old arrangement had failed and allowed themselves to visualize a different design. What would a different approach to the federal role in K-12 education look like? We see three basic strategies. block grants Instead of myriad categorical programs, each with its own regulations and incentives to prod or tempt sluggish states and cities into doing right by children, what about trusting the states (or localities) with the money? do federal officials really know better than governors and mayors what the top education reform priorities of Utica or Houston or Baltimore should be? The block grant strategy rests on the belief that, while states and communities may crave financial help from Washington to solve their education problems, they don't need to be told what to do. Block grants can be fashioned without cutting aid dollars at all. (Indeed, by reducing the overhead and transaction costs of dozens of separate, fussy programs, they should enable more of the available resources to go to direct services to children.) Rather, they amalgamate the funding of several programs and hand it to states (or communities) in lump sums that can be spent on a wide range of locally- determined needs. In so doing, they dissolve meddlesome categorical programs in pools of money. Block grants also rid the nation of harmful programs, which get dissolved in the same pools. Do federal taxpayers really need to be funding the development of TV shows for kids? How about the sustenance of ``model'' gender-equity programs? Are ``regional education laboratories'' still needed to disseminate reform ideas in the age of the Internet? Block grants come in every imaginable size and shape. If all the programs in E.S.E.A. were combined into a single one, at 1999 appropriation levels the average state would receive $220 million per annum to use as it saw fit. Earlier this year, the Senate passed a somewhat smaller block grant designed by Washington's Slade Gorton, which assembled some 21 categorical programs into a block grant totaling $10.3 billion. (Facing a Clinton veto threat, it was later deleted by Senate-House conferees.) Block grants respect the Tenth Amendment and--in our view properly--leave states in the driver's seat. They allow Uncle Sam to add fuel to the gas tank but they hand the keys to the governors. In the process, federal bureaucracy is slashed--along with the state and local bureaucracies that currently service the torrent of federal regulations (and are paid for with overhead siphoned from federal grants before any services are provided to children). vouchers While block grants hand money and power back to the states, vouchers empower families directly. Instead of writing fifty checks, Washington would send millions of them straight to needy children and their parents, thus helping them meet their education needs as they see fit. Vouchers shift power from producers to consumers. This is already standard practice in federal higher education policy, where an historic choice was made in 1972; students rather than colleges became the main recipients of federal air. A low-income college student establishes his own eligibility for a Pell Grant (or Stafford Loan, etc.), and then carries it with him to the college of his choice. That might mean Stanford or Michigan State, Assumption College or the Acme Truck Driving School. The institution only gets its hands on the cash if it succeeds in attracting and retaining that student. The same thing could be done with federal programs meant to aid needy elementary and secondary students. The big Title I program, for example, spends almost $8 billion annually to provide ``compensatory'' education to some 6.5 million low- income youngsters. That's about $1250 apiece. What if the money went straight to those families to purchase their compensatory education wherever they like: from their public or private school, to be sure, but also from a commercial tutoring service, a software company, a summer program, an after-school or weekend program, or the local public library? Title I would turn into millions of mini-scholarship, like little Pell grants. A similar approach could be taken to any program where individual students' eligibility is based on specific conditions: limited English proficiency, disability, etc. The argument for vouchers is that a program designed to help people in need should channel the resources directly to them, not to institutions, intermediaries or experts. Giving families cash empowers them while also building incentives for providers to develop appealing, effective programs. Furthermore, they make disadvantaged children financially attractive to schools and other service providers. The question most often asked about vouchers is whether families can be trusted to do right by their own children. We think the answer is yes about 99 times out of a hundred and experience with publicly- and privately-funded voucher plans all over the country seems to confirm that intuition. How about the administrative headache of linking the federal government directly to millions of families? Such huge direct-grant programs as social security and veterans' benefits show that this can be done. But it's still an invitation to bureaucracy and confusion. There are alternatives to direct relationships between Uncle Sam and millions of children and families, however. A hybrid strategy of vouchers and block grants, for example, would turn the money over to states for them to hand out in the form of vouchers. Or the whole process could be outsourced to private financial services managers (much like the new welfare services providers). bust the trusts While the first two strategies loosen Uncle Sam's grip and shift power and decisions away from Washington, the third demands vigorous federal action. It calls for Big Government to tackle Big Education. Think of it as trust-busting. Even if all federal programs were block granted, or voucherized, after all, the present power structure would still be in charge. School administrators, teachers' unions, colleges of education and similar groups have erected a fortress that devolution may slightly weaken but will not vanquish. Lisa Graham Keegan, Arizona's crusading Superintendent of Public Instruction, understands this well. By pressing for charter schools, for school choice, for capital dollars ``strapped to the back'' of individual children, and for tough statewide standards, she has started to break the iron establishment grip that has long been obscured by the beguiling phrase ``local control.'' As David Brooks recently wrote, Keegan recognizes that ``If you really want to dismantle the welfare state, you need a period of activist government; you need to centralize authority in order to bust entrenched interests.'' Though the agencies sometimes overstep their bounds, few question the role of the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission in combating monopoly and collusion in the private sector. Education is currently the largest protected monopoly in our country; a tough federal agency that presses for true competition might work wonders. What education ``trusts'' need busting? Our three leading candidates are: (1) The information monopoly. Education consumers inmost of the U.S. lack ready access to reliable, intelligible information about student, teacher, and school performance. By manipulating the information, the establishment hides the seriousness of the problem. While most Americans know the education system is troubled, they also believe that their local school serves its students well. This is the misinformation machine at work. There's need for the education equivalent of an independent audit--and it's a legitimate role for the federal government, albeit one that many Republicans in Congress have so far been loath to permit. (2) The teacher training monopoly. Due to state licensure rules, virtually all public school teachers must march through colleges of education en route to the classroom. As indicated by Massachusetts' recent teacher-testing debacle (over 60% of those taking the Commonwealth's new certification test flunked), those campuses aren't even teaching the rudiments. Institutions other than traditional ed schools should be allowed to prepare future teachers. Knowledgeable individuals should be allowed to bypass formal teacher training altogether. And nobody who has not mastered his/her subject matter should enter the classroom at all. Federal programs--including grants and loans to college students--could wield considerable leverage in this area. (3) Exclusive franchises. Local public school monopolies need competitors. Entities besides local school boards and state bureaucracies should be allowed to create and run schools. Private and nonprofit managers should be encouraged to do so. Any school that is open to the public, paid for by the public and accountable to public authorities for its performance should be deemed a ``public school''--and eligible for all forms of federal aid. Vigorous trust-busting undeniably smacks of Big Government. It's as much a Washington-knows-best strategy as was the Great Society. But it directs that strategy against the genuine problems of 1998 rather than the vestigial problems of 1965. what to do? These approaches to the reconstitution of federal education policy are not mutually exclusive. All three would shift power away from vested interests. All three would profoundly alter the patterns established over the past third of a century. In reconstructing the federal role, especially its centerpiece Elementary and Secondary Education Act, through these means--and deciding which current programs warrant what treatment--we would be guided by a trio of principles: (1) First, do no harm. This is part of the Hippocratic oath, familiar to budding doctors but a solemn pledge that policymakers should make, too. Federal programs should not impede promising state and local initiatives or contravene family priorities. (2) Consumer sovereignty. Federal aid should actually serve the needs of its putative beneficiaries--primarily children and families--rather than the interests of the education system qua system. (3) Quality, not quantity. America has largely licked the challenge of supplying enough education. Today's great problem is that what's being supplied isn't good enough. The mid-sixties preoccupation with ``more'' needs to be replaced by a fixation on ``better.'' Applying those principles to E.S.E.A. via the three strategies outlined above, here are some specifics: Block grant. Most of today's categorical programs--and all of the pork barrel programs--should be amalgamated into flexible block grants that are entrusted to states--not to the ``state education agency'' but to the governor and legislature. Most of E.S.E.A.'s 47 programs would benefit from this fate. Into the mix go myriad teacher-training programs, including the $800 million Eisenhower Professional Development Program. Also the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, which has yet to yield safe or drug free schools. Impact aid, school reform grants, technology money, facilities funds, arts education programs, and many another vestige of some lawmaker's urge to play school board president should be thrown in. So should the regional labs, the gender-equity programs, federally-funded TV shows, and the like. Interest groups will object because they crave (and have grown dependent on) the categorical aid. Also protesting will be the (literally) thousands of state education department employees whose salaries are paid by Washington. But block grants will largely remove Uncle Sam's hands from the education cookie jar. States can use the funds for their own reform plans. The strings should be very few--possibly a requirement that the money be spent on direct services, perhaps a priority for low-income kids, maybe a commitment from the states to publish their scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress--and states should have the right to convert their block grants into vouchers if they wish. The total value of the most obvious candidates for block-granting is (at 1998 spending levels) about $3 billion, or $60 million per state. Throwing in a few other categorical programs that would benefit from this treatment (such as the ``Goals 2000'' program, the school- to-work program, and vocational education) would boost the total to roughly $5 billion, or $100 million per state. Voucherize. Take the three big programs aimed at helping needy individuals--Title I for the poor, special education for the disabled, and bilingual education for those who don't yet speak English well--and hand that money directly to the putative beneficiaries. Take the annual appropriations for each program and divide by the number of students eligible for aid. Using 1998 numbers, this would mean youngsters eligible for Title I would each receive a $1250 annual stipend. Those who cannot yet speak English would receive a $130 voucher. Special education students would receive aid in relation to the severity of their disability, with amounts ranging from $200 to $1200 in federal money. A family whose child is poor, disabled and does not yet speak English would receive a check in the $1600 to $2600 range, all within current budget levels. Such a system would certainly empower consumers, slash federal red tape, and create a world of new educational services and providers vying for the attention of disadvantaged students. Bust the trusts. To crush the information monopoly, Congress should renew the National Assessment of Educational Progress (which also expires the next year) on a more independent basis--and authorize its governing board to make those standards-based tests available to communities, schools, even individual parents. This would replace the politically-stalemated ``voluntary national test'' that Mr. Clinton proposed with a more flexible instrument that enjoys greater insulation from politicians, bureaucrats and special interests. To tackle the teacher training monopoly, Washington should fund alternatives to ed schools. Think of them as ``charter schools'' for future teachers. Uncle Sam can also make shoddy schools of education accountable by holding their federal aid hostage to graduates' meeting minimal standards of knowledge and skill. To end the exclusive franchise of local school districts and state bureaucracies, the federal government should vigorously support the development of thousands of charter schools and other supply-side innovations (like contract schools, alternative schools, etc.). These schools should only be supported, though, if they are held to high standards and operate independently from school districts and state regulations. Finally, to tilt federal incentives in the direction of quality, Washington should insist that all students seeking federal college grants and loans first pass a rigorous high school exit exam. Students will not get serious about academics until there are palpable consequences linked to academic standards--an obvious point that has been hammered home by (among others) the perceptive columnist Robert Samuelson and the late teacher union chief, Albert Shanker. (This will also serve to hold voucher schools to high academic standards--as their business will dissipate if their graduates cannot matriculate to college.) Could trust-busting activities get out of hand? Yes, indeed. Perhaps these functions should be overseen by an outfit one step removed from direct political influence, much like the National Assessment Governing Board. Maybe governors should be empowered to excuse their states from these initiatives, if they attest that the cause of education reform would be advanced by immunity from all Federal meddling. But we suspect that most governors would quietly welcome as much help as they can get in combating the education establishment. the next welfare reform? The Elementary and Secondary Education Act will likely be signed into law just before the presidential election in 2000. The legislative process is cranking up with field hearings and advisory panels already being convened by the Clinton administration. If 33 years of history is any guide, the likeliest outcome will be minor tweaking of extant programs. They may not work--they may even do harm--but they have great momentum and plenty of vested interests, and the few members of Congress who really understand them tend to favor the status quo. Certainly the administration will do nothing to rile its friends in the school establishment. So there will be plenty of proposals to tinker and fine tune. A few decrepit programs may even vanish, to be replaced by new fads and pet schemes. The bad habits of a third of a century will go unconquered and the Johnson-era conception of the federal role in education will endure for another five or six years. But there could be an altogether different ending to the tale, a transformation of the federal education bazaar from flea-market to a consumer-focused department store. While promiscuity may well continue elsewhere inside the Beltway, it plainly isn't good for schools or children. When it comes to education, Federal officials should pledge themselves to temperance, prudence and clean living.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of legislation to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Reverend Theodore Hesburgh in recognition of his outstanding and enduring contributions to civil rights, higher education, the Catholic Church, and the nation. I want to thank my colleague from Indiana, Tim Roemer, for his initiative in introducing this bill. It has been a pleasure to co-sponsor this legislation. Father Hesburgh is a man known for the wide scope of his influence. However, for me personally as a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Father Hesburgh will remain etched in my mind as a legendary figure in the field of higher education. The tenacity and passion that he continues to carry into the academic arena are clearly evident. Serving as Notre Dame's president from 1952-87, Father Hesburgh led the University in its rise to national prominence. When he stepped down as head of Notre Dame--after nearly 35 years--he ended the longest tenure among presidents of American colleges and universities. His position as a fixture in American higher education is reflected in his 135 honorary degrees, the most ever awarded to an American. Father Hesburgh's influence as an educator goes far beyond measurable successes. His unique vision of the contemporary Catholic university as an institution responsible for touching the moral, as well as the intellectual dimensions, of scholarly inquiry has benefited countless university students--myself included. ``The Catholic University should be a place,'' he wrote, ``where all the great questions are asked, where an exciting conversation is continually in progress, where the mind constantly grows as the values and powers of intelligence and wisdom are cherished and exercised.'' Father Hesburgh instills in students that they have a moral obligation to make a positive contribution to society both inside the classroom as well as in the larger community. Today over eighty percent of Notre Dame students volunteer their time to serve those who are less fortunate. The public service career of Father Hesburgh is as distinguished as his many educational contributions. Over the years, he has held 15 presidential appointments, served four popes, and he has remained a national leader in the fields of education, civil rights and the development of the third world. The lengthy list of awards honoring Father Hesburgh includes the Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor, bestowed on him by President Johnson in 1964. Finally, social justice has been the focus of many of his involvements outside of the university. He was a charter member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, created by Congress in 1957, and chaired the Commission from 1969 to 1972. Mr. Speaker, as an original co-sponsor of this bill, I strongly encourage my colleagues to join me in bestowing this high honor upon this excellent American.