John Tierney

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I also appreciate the comments that have been made. I think we are having a healthy debate here, but I want to make a note that I sense that what is being said here is there may be more than one purpose of this proposed bill. I think that there are apparently two purposes being put forward on this. One is apparently some desire to have this Congress impose upon States a necessity that they charge forward with a judgment that charter schools are already a raging success before they have had the opportunity to assess and measure the performance of their own experimental schools that have been started. I am not sure that that is a healthy aspect. I thought experimenting was about setting on a path, taking a very conscious and prudent evaluation and proceeding only after those types of measurements have been made. The other purpose, as I understand it in this particular statute, is to make sure that startup schools that currently say they do not have sufficient funding to start up can share in some additional funding, and that is why there is more money being put into the pie. But the maybe unintended consequence of this act will be that it will now preclude them because the Secretary may come in and decide that they do not have enough autonomy in one or more types of experimental school that has been established and they do not meet the priority because they have a cap on that and when they meet that cap, although they may not be there now, they will then be precluded from getting any of those additional funds. I note that earlier the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] put forth an amendment that called this the Community Designed Charter School Act. I think that at least with respect to one of those priorities, we move against communities designing the type of charter school they will have where we attempt to impose how this Congress wants to design individual charter schools. In Massachusetts, as I have said before, we have come together as communities and designed several different kinds of charter schools with varying degrees of autonomy, with varying degrees of numbers that they can reach before they get evaluated. That to me seems the way to go. It has more people engaged in this process, and some that were not in favor of charter schools before are now coming on board, willing to exercise that experimental nature. I urge that we do away with the priorities and simply take the initial funding and let all States qualify so that we have better public schools, with the involvement of the entire community, and that we do not try to preclude anybody's participation.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. TIERNEY. I was going to ask for the same 1 minute the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] got. I liked that one. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I understand what the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer] says when he talks about the C paragraph, the third priority. But I think, as Mr. Riggs stated, the base statute already has a number of criteria that we require be met. Amongst them are a number of accountability situations. So I would not object if you wanted to amend my language to leave that language in there, but I think you have a sufficient amount of language on accountability. But that is not the issue. I think we are willing, I guess, from what I hear, we do not want to regulate any other aspect, we want to regulate the pace at which States decide how fast they want to go into this limited venture. I think that is where the mistake comes in. Yes, we want to give incentives within a reasonable degree, but the only way to give incentives is not exclusive to adding these priorities. The fact we are giving $49 million extra in funds is certainly an incentive for States to participate. They can see something going on here, and they can hear that this is something they want to get involved with. The part I object to is, your intention to give the incentive may have the effect of disqualifying some people. I want to say there are other ways to do the incentives. I offered as part of this, grandfather in those States that have these provisions, that have charter schools, so that we do not get subject to those disqualifications, and we will all proceed along. I understand that States do not have a statute yet, and you want to encourage them to get one, and you want to encourage them to put more schools on the books. Let us do it. If this is the way to do it, fine. But do not penalize those of us, a number of us, that already have schools that have decided we want to put a cap so we can measure. That is prudence. We should reward prudence, not penalize it. I do not think any of us want to go forward without having a moment to reflect and assess.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask one question of you, and then I will yield back for the answer in a second. But this priority schedule that is laid out there talks about a high degree of autonomy. In the base legislation, it already establishes a charter school would have to have some degree of autonomy. Is the gentleman prepared to tell Massachusetts which level of autonomy it must decide is best for its charter schools? Because it has a couple of levels now, and it may decide to have more. When it goes to getting to that cap, women are going to stand in there and tell them if they do not pick the right one, they do not qualify.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not know the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I do not think we have had any lengthy conversations, so I am a bit surprised to find out that he is taking what up to this point in time has been a fairly, I think, good level discussion about charter schools and how to best move forward in an inclusive manner and somehow inject it in an establishment type of argument. Let me tell my colleagues that Massachusetts under Democratic legislation has charter schools. As I said before, we have a variety of charter schools. So the issue is not whether it is establishment or antiestablishment, the issue is how do we become more inclusive so that even those people that were mentioned that might have been resisting now get brought into the fold and move forward and put these schools on the experiment basis that work, and that is the real issue. Nobody has raised, until the gentleman did, the issue of accountability; we did not say that we did not want accountability. In fact, to qualify as a charter school under the base legislation, there has to be an appropriate level of accountability. Saying it again as one of these three priorities probably was not necessary; it is the other two criteria that stand the potential of having my State pay a penalty of not being eligible for those additional funds initially and for any money eventually that brings us into this discussion, and there are other States similarly situated. So the fact of the matter is, if we want to be inclusive and we want to bring in even those folks that might have been hesitant to experiment and to get them because they have a lot to offer, and if we want to bring them in, and Massachusetts, for instance, wants to say we will have several kinds of charter schools, and we are going to get some people to participate in that we can move forward and experiment on, and if we want to have different degrees of autonomy, and we do not want to have Congress tell us what is the appropriate amount of autonomy, we want to experiment and find for ourselves what works in this State as the proper degree of autonomy, then I frankly think that that is a step forward, a step in the right direction. I think that now we are moving to these experiments and having the public schools have the opportunity to become energized, and to do new things, and to bring everybody into the fold and to work together, and I have said it a million times here, and it bears repeating, that when we do that, when we get the parents, and the employees, and the administration, and local colleges and businesses all working together, that we experiment, we will find the model that lets those schools that might be struggling succeed if we put the resources to allow them to succeed. And that is the measure that we want to go forward. And I do want to say for the record, and just to bring up the point of the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], that I think might have misled some of us when he was speaking, this statute specifically says that in 1998, 1999, and 2000 fiscal years, the additional money will be what is distributed under these new priorities, but it also goes on to say that in succeeding fiscal years all the money will be distributed under this particular priority formula. So there is an exposure there to States that may reach the cap at some later date, and I think that is even a stronger argument for why we do not let States proceed as they want to and make an evaluation. When it hits 50 in Massachusetts, they ought to be able to look and see what has worked and what has not worked, and then, after they have taken the requisite amount of time to do that, decide how they want to proceed and if they want to proceed. This is not a program where anybody has the evidence or the materials that can say now the charter schools of any nature are a raging success. It is an experiment, it needs to be assessed.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Martinez], the ranking member, for yielding me the time. I also want to thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], chairman of the subcommittee, who has done a good job in putting together a generally very good bill here. I think it is one area in education that we can finally say that people have tried to work together without rancor and bitterness to try to come together with an idea of how we might really buttress our public schools. When we voted a little over an hour ago on vouchers, I think there was a clear division, a clear disagreement as to whether or not that was a step outside of support for public schools into an area that many of us did not want to go and do not think is going to strengthen our public school system. I have said it here on the floor before, and I think it bears repeating, that we have a clear philosophy in this country that we are, in fact, in favor of public schools. We understand that those people that are fortunate enough to be able to send their children to private schools should have the ability to do so, and that has historically been the case. But there are over 50 million children in this country that do not have that kind of benefit, do not have the family with that kind of income. Nor is there any likelihood that we are going to ever create 50 million vouchers to give everybody the chance. But we can provide better public schools for all 50-million-plus of those children. We are willing to step forward on the charter schools to experiment, to let local States and communities experiment within the public school system and find the direction that they are comfortable with. I think that we have done that in the appropriations bill, where we talked about the comprehensive schools, we talked about people and communities coming together with the school to define a mission, to decide just how they are going to measure the progress under that mission, to bring the whole community in to work on that, whether it is colleges nearby, business communities, the parents of course, employees at the school, the administration, to develop this system and to move forward. And always, we want higher standards. But in all of those scenarios, we also expect we are going to have to provide the resources to make the public schools successful. The chairman of the subcommittee and I had a discussion the other day. We talked about a certain charter school, where it had left the public school building, set up across town, and thought they were doing great because they gave each student a computer and each student a computer at home. That will always work if you do it, even if the public school had not moved. We want to say that there are parts of this bill we need to improve, one being the priority section, so that Massachusetts and other States can benefit from legislation as well. And providing we do that, an amendment will be offered for that, we should be able to work forward to improve our public schools.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, let me just make an observation that we make a choice under this proposed bill every time we decide to take public resources and apply them to a private use. That is exactly the choice that is being made on that side of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, let me just go back. When we first started dealing in this country with education, people that had the means obviously made a choice to send their children to private schools. That is all that existed, and they made a good choice. I think private schools are wonderful. People that have the opportunity to do that, this is a free country, they ought to have the freedom of making that choice. We understand all the things that people got out of education. It was obvious and there is no mistake and no coincidence that people with the resources made sure their children went to private schools. But as a society it became clear to us over a period of time that those benefits of education would be good for every child in this country, and there were not opportunities for every child in this country to go to a private school and there will never be an opportunity in this country for every child to go to a private school. Mr. Speaker, we decided to use public resources for a public purpose to have public education. The idea is that we would invest enough resources to make sure that every child had the best opportunity to get an education, all of the economic arguments that have been stated a million times, and they are obvious. The idea that we will have a better democracy, a better society if children are educated has been quoted and spoken to often. The idea that every child has a right to enjoy life, whether it is art or music or literature or history, just the idiosyncracies of the world they live in, that is obvious. Mr. Speaker, that is the chance we want to give to the 50 million children that cannot go to a private school or will never, under this plan or any other plan, be able to go. The idea of choice is how will we spend our limited public resources? Will we be giving tax breaks so those people who are already situated well enough that they can make the choice to send their child to private school will get another break, or will we make sure that the public resources are spread around the larger group to benefit all of us as well as that family and that individual. Mr. Speaker, I think that is the choice that I think the public wants made for public schools. There are excellent public schools in this country, when they have the resources, when the walls are not falling down, when the lights work, when they have the textbooks, when they have the computer, when the teachers are trained and retrained, when the class sizes are small enough. I visit them every week in my district and they work quite well. It is our disinvestment from public education through the proposed means and other similar means that will spell the bad note for public education. We can make public education work, as it is in so many places in this country, if we do not divert the resources. That is the challenge for us.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, let me say that it is obvious to all of us that when we are talking the taxpayers' money, we are talking about the community's money. I do not think it is my money. I know quite well it belongs to everybody. It is their choice to have a good public education system in this country. We ought to spend public funds, their funds on that, not some wealthy individual's further advantage on a private school. They have made that choice and they do that on their own.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett] for drawing to the attention of the House this serious matter. I also acknowledge the interest of the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Whitfield], our colleague across the aisle, and his concern for the veterans and want to draw a distinction between the legitimate claims our veterans have to health care services within the system and within the processes, and a separate matter of having a legal claim for wrongs and injustices done to them when Iraq violated international law. Mr. Speaker, I think people need to know the distinction we are talking about here is $1.3 billion in assets frozen when Iraq entered into Kuwait, and those assets are there and available now. The U.S. Government has them for claims by people who feel they are legitimately pursuing some injustice to them, whether it be a contractual matter or personal injury. What we stand to see happen over in the Senate and now in the conference committee is that veterans would be precluded from pushing their claims, but other corporations and other entities, in particular tobacco companies, would be allowed to exclude the veterans and go forward with their claims. Mr. Speaker, what this particular resolution on behalf of my colleague from Texas says is that the veterans will at least have the ability to put forward their claims to stand there with the others and make their case for the wrongs that were done to them. We have to remember that these were violations of international law that people are suffering from problems that have manifested themselves, sometimes very much later after their service was done. Veterans in my district and throughout this country have the continuing feeling that sometimes their concerns are lost. This is one way of assuring that they are given equal footing and a right to pursue the claims that they have.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Madam Speaker, just in line with what the gentleman is saying, I note that what the Speaker is talking about in terms of unlimited campaign contributions is, in essence, as one editorial says, trying to paste on the label of reform without the content. I think that finally the majority party and the Speaker in particular are starting to hear the voices of America coming forward and saying they will not tolerate inaction on campaign finance reform, and clearly, that majority party, led by its Speaker, do not want to have any real meaningful campaign finance reform, so they are doing just that, trying to paste on the label of reform without the content by saying that they want to reform it by lifting all the rules, and have people have unlimited individual contributions, and then in the next step, they go on to ban so-called soft money. Madam Speaker, soft money was there just to beat the limits. So if we remove the limits on contributions, we do not need the soft money. In effect, we just open it right up and you can buy any vote you want. It is just unlimited money coming in and basically, again, trying to disarm one party, leaving a party that traditionally gets enormous amounts of money from very wealthy interests to have their day. Editorials have already started to see through this ploy. I think the American people have seen through it long before.

Mr. TIERNEY. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today slightly bemused at the specter we are witnessing where the Republican Majority is effectively denying its own member, the gentlewoman from Washington, the opportunity to address a matter of significance to her and other members. Last week, the same Majority brought forward for a vote H.R. 2378, Treasury, Postal, General Government Appropriations for FY 1998. The rules established by the leadership did not allow for broad amendments, Representative Smith tells us she wanted an opportunity to raise under that bill the issue of Cost of living Adjustments for federal employees, including judges and Members of Congress. Mr. Speaker, I have no way of knowing if the gentlewoman was persuaded or tricked by her leadership into not raising the issue, at that time. I do know that the membership, in the absence of amendments, addressed the merits of appropriations set forth in H.R. 2378, and voted only on that. In the aftermath, the vote on the appropriations bill was construed as being either ``for'' or ``against'' maintenance of the Cost of living Adjustment--for all Federal employees, judges and Congressmen and women. This, of course, later got further distilled as a vote ``for'' or ``against'' a congressional pay raise. All of that occurred without adequate deliberation on the issue of COLAs, and even without specific discussion as to whether a distinction could be made for COLAs for federal employees, judges or Members of Congress. Thus, the American public was deprived of a clear and full enunciation of respective positions as well as a recorded vote on this particular issue. Members were ill-served by the portrayal of the vote on the broad Treasury, Postal, General Government Appropriations bill as a vote on a pay raise, particularly when the bill did not specifically address Ms. Smith's issue. The Majority now appears ready to compound the travesty today by once again closing debate without providing Ms. Smith and those who might agree with her position an opportunity to amend or even debate the issue. Mr. Speaker, operation of the House in such a manner could rightly be seen by the public as akin to the conduct of a certain Senate Committee Chairman in the other legislative body who recently invoked procedure to stifle a hearing and vote on an ambassadorial appointment for Mexico. I suggest Mr. Speaker, that people will and should be more troubled by the way this business has been conducted than by whether or not a 2.3% COLA, in place since 1989, actually is authorized. Personally I find that points made by experienced Members--including those who were here in 1989--seem to be reasonable in support of the 2.3% COLA, for Members of Congress, as well as for judges and other federal employees. I am told that the COLA was first established at a time when Members' ability to earn outside income was curtailed. In addition, Members are afforded no living allowances for the costs of maintaining a second residence and other expenses associated with the need to be both in the home district and in Washington D.C. Many Members believe firmly that the 2.3% COLA is fair, especially since it has not taken effect for several years, and that the salary set for Members helps attract quality candidates and Members. They also cite their seven day (and most evening) schedules and dedication to their work--which includes a responsibility to legislate on significant issues, including a multi-trillion dollar budget. Yet these arguments have not been fully articulated because of the Majority's procedural maneuver to shut down debate. Other than a sense that the public may resent Congress' COLA, there has been little discussion as to why other federal employees and judges ought to be denied COLAs. Mr. Speaker, I've yet to hear a sufficient rebuttal to the points made in favor of the COLA, but unfortunately it seems I shall not get that chance as the Majority appears set against it. Had I the opportunity to weigh in, I'd like it known that I would support COLAs for federal employees and judges. Since many would seize the opportunity to politicize any action on Congressional COLA's, I would prefer that they be allowed to take effect in the session of Congress following the one in which a vote is taken. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that that would be the better course this year and at any future time when the compensation of those voting on the issue is in question. So, I object to abuse of the process, and the refusal of the Majority leadership to put the question squarely to the membership for deliberation, debate and vote. I am also sure many Members will find objectionable the interpretations and misinterpretations of Members' positions. Mr. Speaker, the insistence of the Republican leadership to be clever on the issue instead of forthright is a disservice to the public and to Members.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I stand today to address the same issue many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle have addressed to date, and that is simply campaign finance reform, and once again reiterate that all of the procedural steps that have been seen over the past several weeks are, in fact, the only way that the minority can try to shed some light and focus the attention on this particular issue. It has been made clear to us and to the American people that there is no current intention of the leadership on the majority side of this House to bring that issue forward for deliberation, for debate and for a vote. And while we are talking about this issue, I want to broaden the discussion a little bit, because once again I feel that the House of Representatives is going to be behind the States in taking action and way behind the American people as individuals. When people talk about reforming the current system, they talk about something bold, they talk about actual reform. I do not believe there is a great deal of interest of people looking at incremental changes or marginal changes around the edges of what we have, rather we are talking about doing something fundamental because we need to have the confidence back in our system. We need, in fact, to know that every piece of legislation we put out of this body has credibility so that the American people understand that it is their business being done and not the business of a special few who can give not just hundreds of thousands of dollars but the $1,000, the $2,000. The small percentage of people in this country that actually contribute to campaigns should be no less certain that the $1,000 and $2,000 contributions of individuals get some sort of access than they are about the hundreds of thousands or $200,000 contributions that are made in so-called soft money, which a friend of mine likens to money put into a blender. It is run through the blender so when it comes out nobody is sure where it came from. We have a right to know where the money comes from. We have a right to have control over our system. Sometime ago, months ago, I put on the floor of this House a bill, H.R. 2199, entitled ``Clean Money, Clean Election Campaign Finance Reform.'' It is modeled after what happened in Maine when the people in Maine took a referendum and decided they wanted to own their system; they wanted to have control over their electoral process and they would publicly fund the campaigns in that State. They understood that if they were going to have people come down and do their business, they wanted to make sure that they knew who they were and that they had decided, just like big corporations invest in the selection of people that run their corporations, as voters they had to invest in knowing who was coming here. We have to make sure it is not the people that are funded by tobacco companies or other huge corporations, or individuals that are so well off or so vested in the process that they are putting forth the money in thousand dollar increments. The States know it. The State of Maine went out in a referendum and put in a system. The legislature in Vermont went out and put in place a similar system. In a dozen polls across this country, in States that are considered to be liberal or progressive, in States considered conservative, the people have spoken out that they think public financing of campaigns is the way to proceed. USA Today acclaims the States are leading the way in cleaning up campaigns. They talk about the fact that in Maine they have an even better idea than just putting limits in there, they are going to fund the campaigns so that they know that they own their own process. The Boston Globe several weeks ago supported the concept. In Wisconsin, the Daily Tribune Wisconsin Rapids says public financing will give true reform. In St. Louis, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, in its editorial, says public financing is the answer. The American people want their system back. This House fails to take a bold step on either side of the aisle. I think we have to understand that if the people are going to have confidence in this body they have to have confidence that we will do something, not just work around the margins and not proceed forward. People want limited campaign seasons, not endless campaigns. They want to know their elected officials do not spend their life at fundraisers and on the phone asking for money. They want to know that the free air time is available to candidates because the spectrum that broadcasters get for free belongs to the American people. They want to make sure that there is an even and level playing field so that candidates, no matter what their personal wealth or no matter what their ability to get the attraction of large corporations or other big investors involved in their campaign, will have the ability, through good organization, through leadership abilities to go out and address the people and get elected. A fair campaign that would attract candidates, that would get people involved in a process that we would know we as voters control is where this thing should be moving. The American people are there, certainly it is now finally being reflected in editorials, the AFL-CIO is willing to give the Beck decision or whatever else they want if we go to that system, and in fact the large donors and huge corporations the other day agreed and said they too are tired of giving money and they would go to that system. Simply speaking, what we need to do is have a system like that that does not unilaterally disarm any party. That is what we need, is something everybody can coalesce behind.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the provision of money for the Coastal Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Program. Mr. Chairman, I rise to join my colleagues who are offering this amendment in voicing my strong support. I commend those Members who have worked diligently to provide funding for this important program, and I am extremely pleased that the chairman of the subcommittee has agreed to provide $1 million in much needed funding. Mr. Chairman, the Massachusetts Audubon Society has been tracking this issue and has reported some alarming facts about pollution that is damaging the coasts of Massachusetts. According to the Massachusetts Audubon Society, pollution levels have been measured at 1,000 times higher than existing water quality standards for the safe consumption of shellfish and 100 times higher than is considered safe for swimming in some areas. Aside from protecting our environment, fighting pollution can also yield significant economic benefits. Adequate funding to address this problem will help open the shell fishing beds for harvest, promote increased tourism, and generally enhance fishing, swimming, boating, bird watching, and other recreational activities. I am also pleased to note that this funding will boost other initiatives that we have taken to improve the lives of the people of Massachusetts, including funds for improvements to wastewater treatment facilities as well as the Essex Heritage area in Essex County and Merrimac Valley areas of Massachusetts. The combined result will be a healthier environment, cleaner coastal regions and waterways, and more effective wastewater treatment programs. Providing money for the Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program is a positive and necessary part of this process.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer a preferential motion.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TIERNEY

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

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. If the gentleman will continue to yield, one of the important things we need to do is to focus the debate where it belongs. In order for a voucher program to get support, not only for the abandonment of public schools to get support, I think the polling that we referenced earlier of the other party shows that first they have to denigrate the system so badly that people want to walk away. They have to disparage it. They have to say all schools are bad, all teaching systems are bad, all participants are not performing. And that simply cannot be done. My colleague knows from the tour of his schools, and I can see that we have with us a former superintendent of schools in his State, that the fact of the matter is a number of public schools are performing and performing well; a number of pilot programs are working and working extraordinarily well; that teachers are trying very hard; that, given the tools, they do perform to an extraordinary degree; that we have teacher involvement programs, the Eisenhower program being one; that we have technology programs available which allow teachers to have the technology in their classrooms and enable them be able to use them effectively in teaching students. So that the whole entire public education system is not broken. I like to use, instead of the word ``reform,'' the word ``improvement.'' We need to improve those systems that need improvement. We need to build better schools when that is the issue. We need to have smaller classrooms where that is the issue. We need to have better materials, more teacher improvement. We need to have community involvement and parent involvement. We have all the tools for that in the various programs that we have implemented here as a small part of the Federal budget spent on education. But it is a major impetus for communities to be able to embark on those avenues that will give them hope and equal opportunity for every public school student. I think that block granting is the first step for the Republican party trying to eliminate education as a Federal part of the agenda, and I think we ought to move away from that. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for allowing me to participate.

Mr. TIERNEY. If the gentleman would further yield, one of the more insidious aspects of this debate that happened over the last couple of weeks was the intention and the repetition that we do not want National Government to get involved with education. We do not want to nationalize education. We do not want the Federal Government doing education programs. Nothing could be further from the truth in the programs that have been created over the last 15 years, and the resources for which are provided to States and local communities. And the superintendents and the school committees, the principals and the teachers and the parents all recognize that these resources otherwise would not be available. These programs came into being because local communities and States either were not purposely doing things that they should have been doing or did not have the resources to work on these programs and to give these opportunities, particularly in areas or communities where money is hard to come by, where the tax rate may already be stretching the limits and the base is not big enough to expand. The programs were designed for participation. One of the programs that people attacked on the other side of the aisle repeatedly was the whole school concept. We have debated that for several days and eventually we passed it, I am happy to say. We needed only to change the language so that others on the other side of the aisle could perhaps feel more comfortable that their efforts had gone for something. Now I believe it is known as the comprehensive school concept. But to show how it was really not the idea of nationalizing education that they were attacking, that what they were attacking was education and the Department of Education, the project that they eventually ended up working with us to pass takes the resources and brings them down to the community. There is nothing in that package that says the Federal Government instructs them to take any particular action. What it says is that we go down to a local community and we have to have that community working together to support the concept of building a mission and a foundation for that school or school district. Parents get together, teachers come back to the table to negotiate what changes have to be made, administrators get into the program, businesses in the community and colleges in the community. And they work together and get the kind of effort that identifies what that school's goals are going to be, what are the standards of achievement that are going to exist for those children to live up to. What are the tools that will work, in terms of curriculum and materials to provide those children. How many hours a day will they go and how many days a week in a year will they attend school. This was a program that was put together, and there are 1200 programs across the country and it has worked.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I was struck by the gentleman's remarks on education. I want to commend the gentleman for his work he has done on the floor in the last several weeks along with the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. When we dealt with the education matters, we did come up against a barrage of measures, all incidently from the Republican side of the House, but not all Republicans participating in that, that seemed to attack the very foundation of the Federal role in the educational system. I, as does my colleague, go home every weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and when we have in-district weeks, and we take that time to go from school district to school district, visiting the high schools, the junior high schools, and some of the elementary schools; going to the businesses, talking to the people that work in those businesses as well as the people that run those businesses, to find out what their thoughts are on the work force, on their own children, their own communities, and their own schools. I have yet, in the entire 6th District of Massachusetts, heard anyone telling me they are in favor of slashing the Federal role, which is already somewhat minimal in terms of what we provide for resources in education. I think it is notable that the school-to-work program, which the gentleman just mentioned, which was targeted to be wiped out completely, except for the matter that the Member figured, I think, that he did not have the support and finally withdrew his motion, it was targeted to be wiped out completely, and every business in my district is supportive of that program, every community is supportive of that program. The Chambers of Commerce, the individual businesses, the people that work either unionized or nonunionized that participate as mentors for high school students, helping them acclimate to the adjustment that it will be going from school to work or school to work plus going back to college or junior college. These are important programs that are working that are showing success. Two weeks ago I spent time with 14 students from the Lynn, Massachusetts High School that had been working with NYNEX, now known as Bell Atlantic, and basically they have been on that school-to-work program and they have been getting mentored by people that work within the company. And the business itself would put management people into work with that program. The students were so impressed with what they were learning, when it came time at the end of that summer to get a week's vacation, all of them have opted not to take the week off but to stay in the program right up to the time they went back to school and asked the company if they could not work something out to do part-time, because they were learning valuable skills. They were learning valuable behaviors about the workplace and also learning what they had to know further in order to do very well in the workplace; what other schooling behind high schooling they might need, whereas before they were not everyone anything in that direction. So that is important. Literacy in our district. We have 15,000 people in Massachusetts that are waiting in line to get into an adult literacy program; that want to help their children with mathematics skills and with reading; that want to be able to encourage their children to go to school and do better. They want to be able to get a job of their own that earns more money for their family and gives them a better quality of life, yet they are waiting in line. Programs like that were targeted to be eliminated, when the ones that we have are working and can be made to work better. For the first time in our district we got all of the literacy programs, public and private together, introduced them to each other, told them how the system works, how the funding works down, and got them to work cooperatively so that there was not a contest to sort of pull the funds away from each other but to maximize their use, to work with one another so that the programs would dovetail and more people could participate and benefit. I could go on and on, but I suspect the gentleman has comments he can make of his own.