Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will be brief. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his very gracious remarks. To summarize: What this amendment says is there is three critical ingredients about this testing to make sure that it is reliable, to make sure it is fair, and that it is accurate. One of those ingredients is that it is comprehensive. You want to use multiple measures. You do not want to use one single standardized test to evaluate how students are doing or how schools are doing or how a school district is doing. The second thing is, you want it to be coherent. You want the testing to actually measure the curriculum, the subject matter that is being taught. You want there to be a connection. You don't want, in turn, teachers to have to teach to standardized tests that have no relation to the subject matter. It is critically important. This is what the Committee on Economic Development was trying to say in their report. The final thing is that it should be continuous and it should measure the progress of a child over a period of time. That is terribly important to do. I want to, one more time, say to colleagues that I guarantee you that if we don't have this language that just makes explicit what I think all of us are in agreement on, which is that this testing should be based upon the very best professional standards, then what you are going to have is teachers all over the country having to teach to standardized tests. It is going to be drill education, educationally deadening. It is going to be horrible for kids. It is not going to fire their imagination. It is going to be at cross-purposes to getting people to go into education. A great deal is at stake. I hope to have support and I appreciate the support of the Senator from Massachusetts. I hope I will have support from the other side of the aisle and that we will pass this amendment. The two concerns I have had about the legislation when we went through committee--I say to the Senator, when we marked up the bill, this was one question. The other is the resource question. At the very minimum, I think it is terribly important to do this the right way. If I could, I am speaking from this desk, and I will move to my desk. If I may have the floor for one more second, let me just also list a number of the organizations that are supporting this. They are: the American Association of School Administrators, Hispanic Education Coalition, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Council of La Raza, National Education Association, National Parent Teacher Association, National Hispanic Leadership Agency Scorecard, and the American Psychological Association. There are a variety of organizations around the country that support it. So I hope this amendment will engender widespread support and that the Senate will pass this amendment. I think it will make it a much better bill. I don't think it is the whole answer. It deals with part of the testing legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask I follow the Senator from Illinois, just for 10 minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague. I thank him for the question. This also goes to what the Senator from Maryland says. It is not just a question of nothing in the box; it is how it affects the lives of people. I am heartbroken. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but I am heartbroken about what is going on here because I say to the Senator from Illinois that it is quite one thing to have our picture taken with children--we all love to do that; we all love to be in the schools--it is quite another thing to make a real investment to help improve their lives. The Senator is quite right. If all you do is tell every school and every school district and every State you will have these tests age 3 to 13 every year, and you don't provide the resources, and we don't live up to our commitment, in fact we provide a pittance--next to nothing--to give them the tools so the teachers and the schools and, most important of all, the children, do you want to know something? This is cruel. It will be cruel and it will be punitive. It will be downright dishonest. It is symbolic politics, with children's lives, at its worst.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I can say to the Senator from Illinois that at least 100 times I have said on the Senate floor you cannot realize a goal of leaving no child behind if you cut budgets. You can't. Again, think about it for a moment. Then I will promise not to take much time. We are going to start testing these children. Let's have the best test. Let's make sure it is done the right way so you know how these children are doing. Take 8-year-olds. You have two, and one of them has 4 years of schooling--grades 1, 2 and 3, then also kindergarten. The other child is probably receiving 7 years of early schooling because he came from a family with a lot more income, and you can count on the home. There was all the intellectual stimulation, with reading to them, and where there was really good child care. They came to kindergarten ready to learn. If you are going to fund Head Start--not at the 50-percent level--and Early Head Start, grades 1 and 2, at the 3-percent level, and that is all, do you know what you are measuring with 1- and 2-year-olds when you do these tests? It is poverty. You are not measuring anything else. This is a really critical time. I hope people in the country will realize that. I thank the Senator for his question. This is all about who we are. It is all about priorities and values. This budget reflects the most distorted and perverted values imaginable because it is Robin-Hood-in-reverse tax cuts, with over 40 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent, and not the investment in children and education.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Reserving the right to object, I believe I was in order to follow. To give other Senators time, I have had an opportunity to speak. So if you want to go to the other side after the Senator from Illinois, that is all right.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the Senator from New Mexico wants to go to the Senator from Oklahoma; is that correct?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I wonder if I might have 3 minutes after the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent during the vote on the Warner amendment regarding tax relief for teachers. The amendment was No. 383 to S. 1, the elementary and secondary education bill. I would like the Record to show that if present I would have voted aye.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that John Adams, who is a fellow in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the debate on the Bolton nomination.

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleagues for their graciousness. I did want a chance to speak about the nomination of John R. Bolton to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. I thank colleagues for providing me this opportunity. My understanding is that we are going to adjourn soon. I hope I have not inconvenienced everyone. Mr. President, filling this position is a critical responsibility of the new administration. Crafting the Nation's arms control agenda is a formidable, serious task that directly affects our national security. Moreover, the administration needs to have its arms control team in place as soon as possible. For these reasons, I do not oppose John Bolton's nomination lightly. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am convinced that the position of Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs must be filled with an individual who is committed to advancing the entire Nation's agenda. He or she must carry out arms control responsibilities in the spirit of idealism that characterizes the best tradition of America's public servants. The individual who is confirmed by the Senate must provide deliberate and thoughtful advice to the Secretary of State, independent of political party allegiance or affiliation. He or she must be objective in his analysis of exceedingly complex issues. He or she must be committed to protecting our national security, to reducing the world's immense stockpile of nuclear weapons, and to making the world a safer place for all mankind. After careful consideration, I have concluded that John Bolton is not the right man for Under Secretary for Arms Control and Non- proliferation. I believe John Bolton is too conservative and too partisan; his views are too extreme for a position of this importance and he does not represent the kind of bipartisan cooperation needed to advance the Nation's arms control agenda. Finally, I do not believe that John Bolton possesses the requisite arms control experience to carry out the responsibilities of this job effectively. I want to make clear that I do not question John Bolton's integrity or his commitment to public service. I had a chance to meet with him, and I do not question this at all. He has a long career in senior appointed positions in the administrations of Presidents Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush. I respect his willingness to serve our Nation again. I recognize the prerogative and responsibility of Presidents to nominate their foreign policy teams. I have supported a majority of the President's nominations. But, I also insist on exercising my constitutional right as a Senator to provide advice and consent to the President's nominations. I have fundamental disagreements with this nominee on a number of substantive issues. I believe that in this case the gap between the views of the voters I represent in Minnesota and John Bolton's are too wide to ignore. There is ample room in a democracy for a wide spectrum of political philosophy and belief. I believe in the free exchange of ideas. Divergent views make our public debate healthier and our Nation stronger. My opposition to John Bolton is not merely ideological. I believe our primary public official responsible for arms control, nonproliferation, and security policy must make a convincing case that he or she will advance the Nation's agenda in a constructive and positive fashion. To date, John Bolton has come up short in this regard. First and most important, I am disturbed by John Bolton's views on strategic nuclear policy. He opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a treaty which I supported, voted for, and believe in. Our failure to approve this treaty effectively scuttles it and leaves the United States as the spoiler in this international effort to curb nuclear testing. The CTBT was the first modern arms control agreement ever rejected. It was defeated in a period of intense partisan bickering and ideological polarization. Yet, at the time of CTBT defeat, two of my distinguished colleagues, Senator Hagel and Senator Lieberman, a Republican and a Democrat, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that: Our constituents and our allies have expressed grave concerns about our hasty rejection of the (CBTB) treaty and the impact of that rejection on the treaty's survival. They need to know that we, along with a clear majority in the Senate, have not given up hope of finding common ground in our quest for a sound and secure ban on nuclear testing. I share this belief and I am convinced that is important for the nation's chief arms control administrator to be on record as favoring strict curbs to nuclear testing. In the days following its defeat, John Bolton announced that the ``CTBT is dead.'' He characterized proponents of the treaty as ``misguided'' and ``neo-pacifists.'' These remarks ill serve the efforts of many of my Senate colleagues and of thousands of dedicated activists world-wide who are committed to ending the reckless development of nuclear weapons. They are not the kind of remarks that speak well for a member of a new administration. On another key international agreement on which the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control must advise the President and Secretary of State, John Bolton has not made up his mind. You will recall that on March 29, John Bolton told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his views on whether the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is in force or not were not fully formed. He asked for time for the ``intellectual heavy lifting'' required to understand this issue. I am the first to admit that the issues raised in the ABM treaty are extremely complex. But is it right to give the consent of the United States Senate to a nominee who has not fully thought out issues that are fundamental to our national security? On the role of international institutions, John Bolton has been both outspoken and negative. Again, I do not share his views. He has not supported the critically important role of the United Nations. I agree with him that the U.N. is not a perfect institution. But, it remains the sole forum in which all nations of the world discuss international issues. John Bolton has suggested that we would be better off if the U.N. were decapitated and the top 10 stories of the U.N. building in New York removed. This blanket condemnation of an international body created to promote peacemaking and mutual understanding is discouraging coming from a former Assistant Secretary of State of International Organizations. As a nation, we have a 50-year commitment to the U.N. As a United States Senator, I will continue to insist that we fulfill this commitment. The nominee to this position should be fully dedicated to pursuing multilateral diplomacy. CTBT is, after all, a multilateral treaty. Increasingly, we live in a multipolar world that requires our senior diplomatic officials to be fully aware and sensitive to the concerns of all nations, including the non-aligned and developing countries as well as first world countries. If our officials do not appreciate this world view, they will not be intellectually equipped to provide sound advice on the conduct of American foreign policy. John Bolton has asserted (in the 1994 Global Structures Convocation) that ``there is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when its suits our interest and we can get others to go along.'' In today's world, these remarks are inevitably seen by the rest of the world as arrogant, confrontational, and condescending. They make it more difficult for the U.S. to provide world leadership. I would suggest that President Bush find a more inspiring leader to serve in the new Administration. On the issue of trade in conventional arms, I am not convinced that John Bolton possesses the objectivity to provide advice that is always in the best interests of the United States. The Under Secretary of State for Arms Control is a key player formulating the Administration's policy on arm sales to politically sensitive countries. Foremost of these is Taiwan. John Bolton would undoubtedly be an aggressive supporter of future sales to Taiwan. In his past writings, he has explicitly supported independence for Taiwan. At the hearings last month, he appeared to back off from this position somewhat. We are left uncertain about what his real views are. For a senior State Department official, this posture is unsettling. When John Bolton sits down to advise the Secretary of State on relations with Taiwan, which view will Colin Powell be getting? It may be instructive to look at this position in the context of John Bolton's work in behalf of Taiwan. In accordance with disclosure requirements for consideration for this post, John Bolton reported receiving $30,000 from the Taiwanese government for a series of 3 articles he wrote from 1994 to 1996. The articles argued in favor of a U.N. seat for Taiwan. Twice during this period, Bolton testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the same subject. I am not critical of Mr. Bolton for offering his legal and literary services to the Taiwanese government. That is his private affair. However, I am concerned that his unorthodox pro-independence views on Taiwan plus his acceptance of fees may color his judgment on key issues relating to Taiwan. If not handled in a balanced and deliberate way, arms sales issues have the potential to be destabilizing for the entire East Asian region. On other issues of international significance, I do not believe John Bolton's views are in the best interest of the United States. Bolton opposes creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC), which I have supported. Our failure to support the ICC was one of the reasons that the United States was voted off the United Nations Human Rights Commission on May 3, for the first time since the commission was founded under U.S. leadership in 1947. Bolton supports covert actions to arm and train Iraqi opposition to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I have profound reservations about this approach to eliminating Saddam. Before we back Iraqi opposition groups financially and logistically, we need practical assurances that these groups have the support of the Iraqi people, are capable of using our resources effectively, and are committed to following through with a realistic campaign. Bolton has written that our approach to the North Korea Agreed Framework is ``egregiously wrong.'' This is an initiative that the Clinton Administration spent years patiently crafting with the North Koreans. It has the support of the Japan and the European Union in addition to the government of South Korea, which is taking courageous steps to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula. In my judgment, U.S. interests are best served by providing continuity to this approach and not by undercutting the South Korean leadership. Regarding Kosovo, John Bolton has demonstrated little appreciation of our national interests in resolving the most violent threat to the stability of Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Indeed, Bolton wrote that President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair's justification for military action is ``singularly, and indeed, proudly devoid of any concrete U.S. or UK interests as we traditionally understand the term. Indeed, they justified the instigation of hostilities as a humanitarian intervention.'' In my opinion, our humanitarian interests are always in our national interests. Senior State Department officials should understand this point unequivocally. John Bolton's work for the Reagan administration has also drawn fire. At the Department of Justice under Attorney General Meese, Bolton earned a reputation for his abrasive and controversial tactics in dealing with Congressional requests for information. I understand from some of my colleagues that he was repeatedly unhelpful, slow to respond, and argumentative. He was reportedly involved in the delay and cover-up of missing documents on several occasions. As I reviewed my prepared remarks on the nomination of John Bolton, I could not avoid the conclusion that the Administration has proposed a controversial, highly partisan man to perform a job of utmost sensitivity and importance to our national interests. John Bolton's presence in the inner circle of the State Department may actually undercut the promising start of Secretary Colin Powell, who has demonstrated a deft touch and sound judgement in dealing with the our allies and friends around the world. I believe we do the nation no service by confirming the wrong man for this position.

Mr. WELLSTONE

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I understand a number of colleagues are on their way to the floor to lay down amendments. However, I thought this might be a chance to speak for a short period of time about the substitute amendment that was laid down by Senator Jeffords but is the result of negotiations among a number of Members of this body and the administration that is presently under consideration. As we consider the substitute, first of all, I give credit where credit is due. First, I will give credit where it is due to my colleagues from both parties and then raise questions about the result of these negotiations that we will consider in this substitute. I say to Senator Kennedy, in particular, how aware I am of the yeoman's work that he and his staff have done to modify some of the most troubling aspects of the issues that were under consideration, especially the block-grant proposal that has been known as Straight A's. And, I know that Senator Jeffords and his staff have worked hard over the last few weeks as well. Other Senators have been part of those tough negotiations as well and, in particular, I commend those Senators who worked to remove some of the most troubling aspects of the parts of this amendment that were up for discussion. This morning I just want to discuss two parts of the substitute amendment: the so-called Straight A's proposal and the proposal to allow some Title I dollars to be used for supplemental services such as tutoring. Straight A's is going in the direction of block-granted education money to up to seven states and 25 districts. I do recognize that a number of important programs, for example, the migrant program, homeless, immigrant, Indian education, neglected or delinquent children programs, the programs focused on students with special needs, will not be consolidated. This is important and I thank my colleagues for their yeoman's work in protecting these crucial programs from consolidation. This is important because we made a national commitment that those students coming from families and communities which are most vulnerable--take, for example, homeless children or the migrant farmer worker population. We said we would not all of a sudden leave to State and local communities whether or not they make a commitment in these areas. So, again, I thank my colleagues for the work they have done to make sure that we continue with these commitments. I also appreciate that, while title I is consolidated in those states and local districts that are granted these performance agreements, tough negotiations have assured that these programs will remain targeted to the poorest children. On the other hand, there are other additional programs, including afterschool programs and teacher quality that are block-granted here. My own view is we are going down a dangerous path. We have moved away from an important commitment. The commitment we have made is we are a national community, we are one Nation, and there are certain decisive priorities we have. Two of these are additional help for kids for afterschool programs and a national commitment to teacher training. I think this is a slippery slope. It is a huge mistake to move away from a national commitment to these priorities. I come to the floor to say this part of the agreement is not a step forward. I have some deep concerns about this move. I know people negotiated in good faith and, as I have said, this part of the agreement is much better than any Straight A's proposal that we've seen in the past. One thing I appreciate is that if local school districts can make the case vis-a-vis a statewide education agency that has been named a block grant recipient that, as a local district, they do not want to be part of the block grant, and if they want to continue to receive money for these important national programs, they can do so. However, I also understand that the State agency will ultimately be an important player in the decision about whether a local district can opt out. As a former community organizer, when I think of grassroots politics in any State in the country, I don't think the grassroots level stops at the Governor's level. I don't think the grassroots is the Governors, I don't think the grassroots are Senators and representatives, I don't think they are statewide education agencies. The grassroots are at the local level. There are decisive priorities for our Nation, no matter where a child goes to school, no matter where a teacher teaches. However, I far prefer that the designing and implementation and creativity is done at the local level. So, this Straight A's concept fails both in recognizing the national commitments and fails in encouraging truly grassroots efforts in creative implementation. The state level is not the place for the decisions about these issues to be made. So, this block-grant proposal is my first concern with the agreement. My second concern is that in consistently failing schools, up to 15 percent of the title I program dollars may be given to the parents of children in those schools for supplemental services such as tutoring. Now, this basic concept of providing parents with funds to pay for supplemental services is not one that I fundamentally object to. Because it promotes those students finding success in public schools, it is significantly different from a vouchers plan in which we promote students leaving public schools. And, once again, I recognize that my Democratic colleagues and their staffs involved in the negotiations did good work to build in a number of safeguards into this program. However, despite my basic support for the concept, I do have problems with this particular scheme for providing supplemental services. My main point is that I don't really understand why we are going to take some money out of the title I program, which is already severely underfunded at the 30 percent level, to provide additional help for kids in other settings, vis-a-vis tutoring done somewhere else, even outside the public school system. This perhaps is where I register my strongest dissent from the direction we are going at the moment. We don't yet have a final agreement on whether or not there is going to be a real investment of resources to back this bill up. As a result, we now find ourselves getting into a situation where we are actually going to be taking money away from the title I program, which is the program that is there for disadvantaged children. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. There are other more specific concerns that I have with this proposal as well, but it is the taking funds out of disadvantaged schools when we should be focused investing more in these schools that is my fundamental problem here. Finally, there are some important civil rights issues and questions that have been raised with the supplemental services program and with the afterschool program as it has been revised in this agreement. They both allow public funds to ultimately go to religious providers of these services. I am someone who has supported that basic idea that religious groups can play a key role in helping to solve social ills. And, I have seen the ways in which the religious communities can make a lot of very good things happen. But if we are going to put money in this direction, we ought to have some guarantee, some language, that says clearly that there can't be proselytizing in any of these programs funded by tax dollars. It is my understanding that such language is not in this agreement. In addition, I certainly would not want any public dollars going to any religious organization without some type of guarantee that there would not be any kind of discrimination against any group of citizens in their hiring practices. I actually think the religious community in many ways has done superb work. That is my view. That is what I voted for in the welfare bill. But I would raise these questions about protecting children against being proselytized to and about being sure that public dollars do not fund discrimination. So I thought, as long as we are just at the beginning, that I would thank my colleagues for the negotiation. I thank my colleague Senator Kennedy in particular for really being so strong and making sure we make migrant education and education for homeless children and others a national priority. That makes the block-granting portion of this agreement much stronger. I argue about some of the other programs that potentially could be block-granted. In general this is not what I think we should be doing. I think we are moving away from an important national commitment. And, as I mentioned, I think in some ways it is not decentralized enough. I think the statewide agencies will have too much control, versus the school districts, in the implementation of these programs. Those are my comments on the substitute. Of course, I have other concerns about the base bill that really were not part of these negotiations. I will have an amendment that says we can go forward with this testing if in fact it is done the right way. So, I will ask you a number of amendments there. In addition to making sure we do testing the right way, certainly we should have a trigger amendment in this bill that says, when it comes to title I money, we must live up to our commitment so we make sure all these kids can do well before the actual implementation of testing takes place. The outcome of the vote on that amendment will be extremely important to me. I think what we have in this compromise is an example of where we can go amiss if we are not careful. Taking money out of title I to give additional funds to kids outside the title I program doesn't make much sense when you have such a severely underfunded program. So, these are words of dissent based upon respect for what my colleagues have tried to do. Later on, as we get into this amendment and into other amendments, I know any number of us, including Senator Harkin who will have an important amendment on the IDEA program, will have a lot of amendments. I look forward to really being in the thick of this debate. I am hoping--maybe I will even use the word ``praying''--that some of the amendments I have that I believe will prevent the abuse of testing, will prevent teachers having to teach to a standardized test, will actually encourage teachers to go into education as opposed to discouraging teachers from going into education, especially amendments that say we trigger this when we make an amendment to title I, will be accepted. I hope that we do the testing in the right way and that we make sure these children and these schools and these teachers have the resources to do well. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield 30 seconds?

Mr. WELLSTONE. In the spirit of working together, I know we will have votes on these amendments. One thing I do want to get a chance to do is examine the substitute amendment. It is a huge package which just arrived recently. Before we have a vote on it, I want to get a chance to look at it so I understand it, and I want to be in touch with people in my own State. I suggest that we not vote on the substitute amendment until after Senators have had a chance to look at it.

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I was meeting with some people from the small business community. I was an original cosponsor of this very important IDEA amendment. I congratulate Senators Harkin and Hagel. I understand we actually had a voice vote on this amendment. I also congratulate Senator Jeffords, Senator Kennedy, and others who were involved in drafting and passing this critical piece of legislation. I point out to colleagues that by making IDEA part of mandatory spending and not leaving it up to the appropriations process year to year, we have done something very significant. In the State of Minnesota, if we have automatic funding for IDEA--and I think we get to fully funding it over a 7-year period--then we are going to have about $169 million for education in Minnesota. This is extremely important. I am proud to be an original cosponsor. The voice vote is a good thing but it makes me nervous; a voice vote is an indication of strong support, which is what I take it to be in this case. But I also must assert how extremely important it is that this, of course, stay in the bill through the conference committee. The word from the Senate today on this question is one of clear, unanimous support. Speaking for my colleague, Senator Dayton, he is going to have an amendment next week--and I will join him--that will accelerate the timetable for funding IDEA. He feels strongly about it. He campaigned on this issue and believes it is a longstanding commitment we have not met. I could not agree with him more. But for today, this is an extraordinary first step the Senate has taken. I congratulate everyone involved. In particular, I congratulate Senators Harkin and Hagel. I know this is near and dear to Senator Harkin's heart because he has been, maybe more than anyone in the Senate, the strongest advocate for children with special needs. There is some poetry and justice to the fact that Senator Harkin has led the way on this issue of funding. I am proud of what the Senate has done today. I hope with this and on a whole lot of other amendments we will continue to dramatically change and improve this bill to the point where we are really doing well for education and children. I will take it 1 day at a time or 1 hour at a time. This was important action. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about two extraordinary and significant people, Tony and Margaret Radosevich. Let me tell you about these people, let me tell you what they mean to their church, to their community and to their family. It is people like Tony and Marg Radosevich, first generation Americans, the very salt of the earth, who through hard work, strong ethics and clear vision, quite literally helped make northern Minnesota a wonderful place to live and raise a family--a place that strongly values education, democracy and hard work. Tony and Marg have lived their faith, standing up for their beliefs, putting them into action and teaching their children and community to do the same. On a personal note, I know these people well. It is their 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday, May 5, 2001. They are celebrating 50 years of loving, laughing, and discussions around the diningroom table. Marg and Tony have raised seven children, opening their home to their children's friends and foreign exchange students. Marg is known for her ability to put a feast on the table with only minutes notice. I, myself, have been the beneficiary of her wonderful cooking and their joint hospitality. I want to take a moment today to recognize these good and decent people, the true heroes and heroines of our time. Tony and Marg, you are well loved. I wish you all the best as you, your family and friends celebrate your 50 years together.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. How much time do we have left?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be brief. I spoke yesterday about this issue. Let me, first of all, say that, again, before the spring recess, there was a unanimous consent to go forward with the bill, but I had not seen much of the language that was going to be added and changed in the bill. In order to be a good legislator for the people you represent, you need to know what is in a bill. As it turns out--and don't ask me why; I may be alone on that--we are about to proceed to the bill, but we haven't seen so many of the fundamental changes that are in the process of being made. How can you be a good legislator and represent people and represent children on such an important question--and there is no more important question--without yet knowing what is in the bill? On principle, I am opposed to proceeding on a bill that we don't even know much of the language. There are some very important policy questions, one of which, for example, is the Straight A's Program. To what extent are we block granting programs like afterschool programs? To what extent are they no longer part of the national priority, national goals? I don't know. I want to see the language. I haven't seen the language on that. Second point. We are about to do something very reckless. I find it stunning so many Republican colleagues, much less Democratic colleagues, will vote for this. We are about to now put into law a Federal mandate that every school and every school district all over the country, every year, from age 8 through age 13, will test every child. This will be a Federal mandate. But, at the same time, we are quite unwilling to pass a Federal mandate that there will be equality of opportunity for every child to have a good education and to do well and to succeed. My understanding was the Democrats were saying yes to accountability, if it is done the right way. And, by the way, if we are not careful, this is going to result in the worst kind of drill education where we will basically be saying to teachers--and we are trying to recruit the best and brightest--we will tell them what to teach, when to teach, and how to teach. Over and over again the focus will be on these tests. The question is, How do you do an assessment system the right way? I will have a number of amendments to make sure we ensure high quality assessments so we can do it the right way if we move to the bill. Again, I would like to see the final language on this bill. I heard from my colleagues on our side that the position was yes to accountability, but we also were going to make sure that we were not creating a huge unfunded mandate. The President calls for $300 million for the administration of these tests. The National Association of State Boards of Education, the people who are in the field, are saying it will cost us a minimum of $2.5 billion to do this, maybe as high as $7 billion if we go to multiple measures and do not rely on one standardized test, which we should never do. On top of that, we are talking about a proposal from the President that says $670 million more for title I; that is all he is calling for. We are funding title I at one-third the level we should be if we were to fully fund the program. I will have a trigger amendment that says we cannot mandate new tests of all these children--starting as young as age 8--until we fully fund the title I program. My understanding was we were going to get a commitment on investment of resources in the IDEA program. My colleague from Iowa has been such a leader in this area for children with special needs. I also think it is disgraceful to talk about these mandatory tests when we don't even fully fund Head Start. We fund Head Start at 50- percent of what we need for 4-year-olds, even less for 3-year-olds and only 3 percent for Early Head Start, which serves children aged 0-2- year-olds. We know how important early childhood education is to future learning, we know that most kids do not get it, but we will still test these children at 8 years of age and expect them to do as well as children who have had every advantage. We are setting up a lot of children and a lot of teachers and a lot of schools in Minnesota and throughout the country for humiliation. I thought we would have a deal. I thought Democrats would stand up for investment in resources that go with accountability. I thought Democrats would stand up for accountability being done the right way. The President of the United States calls this the BEST program, yet all he offers in terms of support for children and schools is a tin cup budget. And we are going forward on this bill? I don't think we should go forward on the bill until we see the changes that are being agreed to. I don't think we should go forward until we have an agreement on the policy. I don't think we should go forward until we have a mandate on commitment of resources. I will talk more about this. I believe colleagues are giving up our real leverage. I wish to fight harder for children in education. I will spell this out in great detail after the vote. I, maybe only speaking for one, will vote against proceeding to this bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after the caucuses I be allowed to speak at 2:15 for my time, post cloture.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask, of the hour I have, I be allowed to take 10 minutes as in morning business to introduce a bill.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Perhaps the best way to talk about this legislation and why I have been opposed to the way we are proceeding, is to do two things. I will start by reading. I don't want to plagiarize. I was a teacher. I say to my colleague from Rhode Island, I can be relatively brief and do this in 15 or 20 minutes--is that not brief? I was a teacher; that, for me, is brief. I know Senator Reed from Rhode Island has come to the floor. I will speak about what we are and are not doing in this legislation, first of all, by quoting Jonathan Kozol. Jonathan Kozol has unbelievable credibility because this man has written some of the most eloquent and powerful books ever written about children and education. I don't think there is any question about it. It is what the book reviewers say. It is what people in education say. Jonathan's first book was called ``Death at an Early Age'' and was about him having lost his job as a teacher in Boston for assigning a poem by Langston Hughes because the children were all African American, and he wanted them to know about Langston Hughes. He has written so many books. I will quote some of what Jonathan Kozol has had to say about this legislation and where we are heading. His words are better. He starts out: Standardized tests in the third grade measure 7 years of learning for privileged children, but only 4 years for lower income kids who got no Head Start opportunity. Think about that for a moment. In other words, the wealthiest children typically receive 3 years of rich developmental preschool education at an average cost of about $15,000 a year, while half of the eligible children of poverty don't even get one year of Head Start. And in the poorest areas, as Jonathan's last two books have been about the PS 30 school in the South Bronx, 75 percent of the children, not one of whom comes from a family with an income of over $10,000 a year, are excluded from Head Start. So any standardized tests given in the third grade is not a test of ``school's success.'' ``It is a test of wealth or poverty. A third grade test for children whom we rob of Head Start is not school reform but punitive hypocrisy.'' Those are the words of Jonathan Kozol. Believe me, I wish they were my words. I agree with them. That is why I come to the floor and state I could not believe I heard some colleagues on the other side talking about how, if the schools do not succeed after 1 or 2 or 3 years, then there will be severe consequences, and on and on and on. I will say it again. Some of the harshest critics of these teachers in these schools could not last 1 hour in the classrooms they condemn. But at age 8, let us be clear about this, for these third graders, this is not a test of school success. It is a question of which kids by age 8 had rich prekindergarten education--which kids were able to come to school ready to learn. How many children were challenged, nurtured, and all of the rest. So basically you have one group of kids who had it all. You had another group of kids who did not even have a chance to be in Head Start because we fund Head Start at 50 percent of what is needed for 4- year-olds even less for three year olds and only 3 percent of what is needed for 1 and 2-year-olds. And the Head Start program is to do what--to give children from disadvantaged backgrounds a head start. Jonathan's conclusion: A third grade test for children or for the school, which is also supposed to be a reflection of how the teachers do, is not school reform but ``punitive hypocrisy.'' I will offer an amendment that will say that we will not mandate these tests in every school, in every district, in every State until we fully fund title I. Another amendment is going to be we should not do it until we fully fund Head Start. I will be interested to see how colleagues vote. Jonathan Kozol goes on and says--``and, please, this is my battle cry. This is my plea. This is my prayer.'' He says: ``Nationally enforced testing with no national guarantee of equal opportunity to pass the test is ethically unjust.'' I would like to see a Senator come out here and argue with me on that. So you have school funding for pupils in the poorest school districts of America that range around $6,000 per child, and you have school districts in the richest communities that range in the area of about $24,000 per child. In New York City, poor kids in the Bronx last year got $8,000 to pay for their education while children in the wealthy suburbs got $18,000 to $20,000. Teachers in the richest districts got $20,000 more in annual pay than New York City teachers. So the White House bill will test the poor against the rich and then announce that the poor are failing. Federally required tests without federally required equity amounts to clubbing these children over the head after systematically cheating them. I want to say this in this Chamber because that is exactly what we are doing. That is exactly what we are doing. We know in advance which kids will fail. So this is a plan not for reform, not for equality, but for guaranteed humiliation children. I am sorry, I know where ``leave no child behind'' comes from. That is the mission statement of the Children's Defense Fund. I heard a colleague--I will not use names because we are not supposed to be personal--come to the floor and say the money is not the answer. We need to give the children tools to do well. And then this colleague jumped to talk about the tests. Does the test assure a good teacher? Does the test assure that we are going to be paying teachers well so we have good teachers? Does the test assure a smaller class? Is the test the tool that brings about the technology in the schools or the good textbooks? Does a test rebuild a crumbling school building? Does the test assure that the children come to kindergarten ready to learn? The test does not assure any of that. We cheat these children. We do not even fully fund Head Start, and then we fail them and club them over the head and we call this reform. I want nothing to do with this unless we are going to have an honest commitment of resources. My friend Jonathan Kozol goes on to say that the testing advocates assume that teachers are afraid--I have heard some of this discussion-- to be held accountable. He says this is a liability against the future. And he is right. No good teacher--I have two children who teach. I am a proud Jewish father. I think they are great teachers--No good teacher is afraid to be held accountable for what she does or what he does with children, but it is manifestly unfair to ask accountability from teachers when the Congress is unwilling to be held accountable for its behavior in shortchanging kids and basically cheating them from the hour of their birth, and then clubbing them over the head with a punitive exam. Senators should be ashamed to go along with this. Now, I am going to make one other point from Kozol, although I could go on and on. This excessive testing is degrading and it is distorting instruction. Teachers, and I quote from Kozol, are turning to robotic drill and grill routines because they are terrified of sanctions--loss of funding--if their student scores are not high enough. And this mandate from the Federal Government, an unfunded mandate, is going to require every school and every school district, every child from age 8 every year to be tested. And what is going to happen is the teachers are not going to be able to encourage the students to have questions. They are not going to be able to encourage curiosity or humor or delight of any kind. All those trips to the museum and all that art and all that music and all of those other activities, they will go by the wayside as everybody will be drill teaching to drill tests. And this passes for reform? I wish there were more colleagues present so they could get angry at me. I think people in these school districts, people down in the trenches think we are crazy. I go to a school about every 2 weeks and I do not find people coming up to me, whether it is in rural or whether it is suburban or inner city, saying we need more tests. I have people come up to me and say: God, we need more teachers, or we need more counselors; we need affordable housing because our third graders are moving three and four times during the year and it is hard for them to do well in school. It is hard when the children come to school hungry. It is hard when they come to school with an abscessed tooth because they do not have any dental care and can't afford it. We need afterschool programs. Why can't you invest in Head Start, child care, and make sure the kids are kindergarten ready. We need smaller class sizes. Our buildings are dilapidated. I wonder how U.S. Senators would do if the toilets didn't work, or if it was cold during the winter, or there was no air conditioning, or we didn't have access to the fax, or we didn't have the books we needed, and we didn't have adequate facilities. How would we do as Senators? A lot of children are having to learn under these conditions. That is what I hear about. I do not hear people coming up to me saying: Please, Federal Government. Mandate that we have tests every year. But this is what we call reform. Then, to add insult to injury, the estimates that we are getting from our States is, wait a minute; to do the testing the right way, if there is a right way, is going to cost at a minimum over $2 billion. Some estimates are as high as $7 billion. The White House has a few hundred million dollars for this. Whatever happened to my Republican colleagues' outrage about unfunded mandates? In addition, in St. Paul, MN, after you get to a school where only 65 percent of the kids are low income, or, say, 60 percent, there is no title I money left. We fund about 30 percent of the children who can get the help. The President is calling for a total increase of $670 million or thereabouts because we have to have these Robin-Hood-in-reverse tax cuts with over 40 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent. Now we hear we are going to have several hundred billion over X number of years spent on the Pentagon. Then there will be missile defense, and all the rest. Where are the resources? My final point today is that I am disappointed. I said before we actually brought this bill up, and certainly before we proceed with this bill I am going to keep saying this. We should have an agreement on some of the policy questions that I know Senator Reed and others are going to talk about, and also whether or not there is going to be a commitment on resources because this will just be a mockery. Senators will rue the day they voted to mandate this and made every State, every school district, every school, every kid, and every teacher go through this and they did not provide the resources for IDEA and for kids with special needs or for title I or so kids can be kindergarten ready. You will rue the day. Democrats, my colleagues, this is not reform. You should stand up against it. If there is not a commitment--I don't mean authorization, I mean the commitment of resources, appropriations, and I mean now--we should fight this all the way. We should say to people in the country: God knows we are committed, but we are not going to let this be an unfunded mandate, where you will have to raise your property taxes. As Jonathan Kozol said, we are not going to have a Federal mandate for testing without a Federal mandate of equal opportunity for the children to get a good education to do well. So I will offer an amendment to title I which says that the new testing set to go into effect in the school years 2005 and 2006 shall not be required to go into effect in that year unless title I has been appropriated at $24 billion, nor will it have to go into effect in subsequent years until such sums are necessary are appropriated to fully fund title I. This is put up or shut up time. If you are serious about accountability, but you are equally serious about making sure children have the same opportunity, then I think you should vote for it. There will be seven test quality amendments, which are really important so that we do this right. I have another amendment that says the assessment should be used for diagnostic purposes only. That is basically what we are talking about right now. That is what we should be using the tests for, diagnostic purposes. Let's not talk about using these tests to start bashing these kids over the head and these schools and teachers over the head. Finally, a transition teaching amendment that I have been working on which will be a bipartisan effort which expands and enhances the current transition teaching program to ensure that funds are targeted to the high-poverty and high-need school districts. The program will ensure funds are used on activities that have proven effective in both recruiting and retaining teachers. This is critical because so much of the need for teachers is rooted in the high attrition rate in the field. 73% of teachers in Minnesota leave the field for reasons other than retirement. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the notes that Jonathan Kozol sent to me be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield such time to the Senator from Rhode Island as he requires. I will reserve the remainder of my time, if there is any, for parliamentary remarks.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this is the Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance, Research And Education Act of 2001. It really is the MD CARE Act. I thank Senators Cochran and Collins, especially, for their assistance. There are 20 colleagues who support this legislation. It is about equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, thank God, because of what this piece of legislation is about. To look at the record of research on these debilitating and deadly diseases is to realize that despite our country's enormous resources, sometimes people are left behind. Today, despite all the advances in medical science, victims of muscular dystrophy--which afflicts tens of thousands of individuals every year in America--have no cure and no effective treatments available to them. I became engaged with the muscular dystrophy community when I was approached by several families in my home state of Minnesota with children suffering from Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD). DMD is the most prevalent form of muscular dystrophy affecting children and it is the most deadly. Children with DMD are most often not diagnosed before the age of two or three years. Because it is sex-linked, the disease only strikes boys but in reality, it strikes the entire family. DMD children don't begin to walk until late, and then in an unusual manner. They frequently fall and have difficulty getting up. Climbing stairs is a major ordeal. By age 9 these children start to rely on a wheelchair and by their teen years reliance becomes total. Most tragically, the disease is characterized by a continued rapidly progressive muscle weakness that almost always results in death by 20 years of age. I have three children, ages 36, 31, and 28. I cannot imagine this. Children afflicted with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy have no ability to produce the protein dystrophin, the protein that binds the muscle cells together. It is an exceptionally cruel disease that slowly robs boys of their independence and ultimately immobilizes them, leading invariably to an early loss of life. Sadly, the federal response to this disease has been inadequate. This year, in an NIH budget of more than $18 billion, research into Duchenne and Becker Muscular Dystrophies totals just $9.2 million. Only $17 million was devoted last year to all of the muscular dystrophies combined. If you want to understand why there is nothing available to treat DMD children, you need look no further than the weak federal response to this disease. The gene that is flawed in this disease is readily identifiable, and has been so for 14 years. Astonishingly, however, the pace of research on DMD actually slowed down after the gene was discovered. One DMD child back in Minnesota that I have become especially fond of is Jacob Gunvalsen. Jacob is an adorable 10-year-old. He loves to play with his siblings out on his parents' farm, draw pictures for his family's refrigerator and play video games. Jacob and his mother Cheri Gunvalsen have made quite an impression on several members of Congress, and Jacob's picture adorns the desks of numerous health care legislative staff throughout Washington. This is because like so many other parents facing the day-to-day experience of living with a child suffering from this debilitating disease, Cheri is focused on leaving no stone unturned in her quest to help improve her son's chance of survival. One day, Jacob drew a picture of himself, and in a cloud above his figure he wrote the words, ``What I want most in the world is a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy''. I say to my colleagues, that's what I want, too. Today, we are getting one step closer to making Jacob's wish come true. David Mesick, also of Minnesota, is the Chairman of the Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, a national voluntary health organization committed to promoting medical research efforts specific to Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies. Through David's leadership and the organization's efforts, the muscular dystrophy community has successfully increased Congress' awareness of this devastating disease. Today, their voices are being heard here on the floor of the Senate. I have been moved by the number of families in Minnesota and elsewhere who have been affected by this disease, and I have been moved even more by their tenacious response. We can support this community by improving federal research efforts and public programs to address the needs of individuals with muscular dystrophy. Mr. President, passage of this legislation will improve coordination of research not only into Duchenne's, but into all the various forms of Muscular Dystrophy. It authorizes the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish separate Centers of Excellence to promote basic and clinical research, epidemiology, data collection and assessment on the various forms of muscular dystrophy. These steps are needed to ensure a long- term commitment by the federal government to the treatment and cure of muscular dystrophy. I am neither a scientist nor a physician. But I am told that it is highly probable that sooner or later gene therapy will be able to cure diseases of this nature. For diseases like Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, involving flaws on a single, identifiable gene, the outlook is even more positive. Yet the words `sooner' and `later' have profound consequences in the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and their families. With the introduction of the MD CARE Act, we move a step closer to giving those families hope. I encourage my colleagues on the Senate HELP Committee to work steadfastly to move this crucial legislation through the Senate, and I urge all colleagues to support it. I also think of Eric Anderson who is such a good friend of my son. David and Eric came to Washington. So many of the families who came, and many came with their children, were so young and their children were so young. Time is not neutral for them. There is an excellent chance we can make a real breakthrough in finding a cure. It is not too much that these families ask for and it is not too much to pass this legislation and try and push forward a commitment to the funding, a commitment to this research. This is one of those diseases. I hate to label, so few are affected, but for these children and these families, they are not too few in number. These are their lives. These are their hopes. These are their dreams. This is their pain. This is their agony. I want to turn this into hope. I ask all of my colleagues to support this legislation. I am very pleased this has strong bipartisan support.