Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the Senator's word is good enough for me.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, today I am offering a resolution in support of the President's decision to introduce a China resolution at the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on March 20th and urging the President to make every effort necessary to pass it. This important resolution calls on China to end its human rights abuses. The President must ensure that this resolution be placed on the agenda of the full Human Rights Commission. He must enlist support for this resolution by other governments, especially by the European Union, and get them to cosponsor it. Year after year China has used a parliamentary tactic known as a ``no-action'' motion so that resolutions condemning its human rights abuses are struck down before they are even placed on the agenda of the full Commission. We must not allow this to happen this year. Last year the Senate passed a resolution urging the United States to introduce a resolution condemning China's human rights practices at the 1999 Geneva meeting. Although the administration introduced a resolution, it was kept off the agenda of the full Commission by a ``no-action'' motion of China. It had no co-sponsors and received little support from European and other industrialized nations. The resolution did not pass because it didn't even come up. This year the President announced in January his decision to again introduce a resolution in Geneva condemning China's human rights practices. According to the Administration the goal of the resolution is to ``shine an international spotlight directly on China's human rights practices'' through ``international action.'' But, as of today, there has been little international action. The resolution still has no co-sponsors. When President Clinton formally delinked trade and human rights in 1994, he pledged, on the record, that the US would ``step up its efforts, in cooperation with other states, to insist that the United Nations Human Rights Commission pass a resolution dealing with the serious human rights abuses in China.'' While the U.S. has claimed an intention at least to speak out on human rights, the substance of US- China relations--trade, military contacts, high level summits--go foward while Chinese leaders continue to crack down on dissidents throughout the country of over one billion. The Chinese government continues to commit widespread abuses and has taken actions that flagrantly violate the commitment it has made to respect internationally-recognized human rights. Just this week Mary Richardson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced that she is deeply concerned about the deterioration in China's human rights practices. Mr. Shen Guofang, China's Deputy Representative at the United Nations said, ``China now has the best human rights situation in its history.'' This is unbelievable. Is the current system the best China has to offer its own citizens? If this is so, this issue will remain a point of contention between China and the international community. In January, China convicted two of the last leaders of the Chinese Democracy Party. These disgraceful arrests were part of a further crackdown by the government on efforts to form the country's first opposition party. The arrests worked--they effectively obliterated the Party. But those fighting for democracy in China have not forgotten those they have lost, and they continue to fight. Chinese authorities blocked the delivery of foreign donations to help the families of people killed in the crackdown on the Tiananmen student democracy movement. Mr. Lu Wenhe, a Chinese citizen who has lived in the US for twenty years, was detained in Beijing on his way to meet a woman whose 17-year-old son was shot dead by soldiers in 1989. Mr. Lu was forced to sign over his check to an officer of the Shanghai State Security Bureau. Donors stopped payment on the check but Chinese authorities continued to harass Mr. Lu's parents in Shanghai to come up with the money or risk losing their apartment and car. And China continues to limit freedom of information. In January Chinese authorities arrested a scholar from Pennsylvania. Mr. Song, a librarian at Dickinson College and a scholar of China's cultural revolution, was formally charged with ``the purchase and illegal provision of intelligence to foreigners.'' He was held for over four months. The ``intelligence'' that he is charged with possessing were documents that were already published as part of a collection of historical materials relating to the Cultural Revolution. Nothing could better illustrate the Chinese authorities' determination to suppress history or thought than the arrest of a scholar engaged in historical research. Since September, Beijing has arrested thousands of practitioners of Falun Gong and Zhong Gong, both popular spiritual movements, whose threats to the regime are that they are not under the Party's control. President Zemin announced in January that crushing the Falum Gong movement was one of the ``three major political struggles'' of 1999. The Department of State's 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices details an extraordinary amount of human rights violations. In October a Falum Gong practitioner in Shandong died from being beaten while in police custody. The official media reported she had died from a heart attack. According to Chinese authorities, two others who died in police custody jumped from a moving train. In March the Western press reported a 1997 case in which police executed four farmers in rural China over a monetary dispute. The arrested dissidents and their courageous supporters deserve our full backing, and the administration's, in their historic struggle to bring democracy to China. In light of China's still deteriorating human rights record, I urge the administration to make all efforts necessary to pass its resolution in Geneva. Past experience has demonstrated that, when the United States has applied sustained pressure, the Chinese authorities have responded in ways that signal their willingness to engage on the issue of human rights. This pressure needs to be exercised now. By ensuring that this resolution be placed on the agenda of the full Human Rights Commission, and enlisting support of the resolution and soliciting cosponsors of it by other governments, the United States can truly ``shine an international spotlight directly on China's human rights practices'' through ``international action,'' and not just pay it lip service. The US must demonstrate its true commitment to securing China's adherence to human rights standards. It is time for the United States to provide the leadership on which the people of China depend. We must take action to get this important resolution passed. The UN Human Rights Commission is the major international body which oversees the human rights conditions of all states. Getting this resolution placed on the agenda of the full Human Rights Commission will foster substantive debate on human rights in China and Tibet. As Americans, we must take action and lead the international effort to condemn the human rights situation in China and Tibet. I hope my colleagues will join me in passing this resolution.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Rhode Island, if he will give me 1 minute, I will be pleased for him to have the last 4 minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy for this amendment. I want to mention the part of this amendment I have had a chance to work on. I thank the Senator for letting me do this with him. It is the Teacher Corps part, where we basically put together a marriage of school districts that need teachers in certain areas along with schools of education. It is actually after students have already graduated, but they may want to go back and get certification, or they may be in their forties or fifties and go into teaching. During that 2-year certification period, it will be tuition free if they agree to teach in these areas for 3 years. It is allocated to local needs, it puts everything together in a promising way, and it is good for inner-city and suburban schools. It puts the schools together with good teachers. Everybody agrees this is the key. I yield.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, may I ask one question? What happened to our 10-minute votes? Can we try to do these in 10 minutes? Amendment No. 2872

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to be clear that I will have a second-degree amendment to the Feinstein amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time do my colleagues have?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I shall not take all my time. I will be interested in hearing from my colleagues. Then I will have a second- degree amendment after this debate is over. I hope Senators will look at the empirical evidence. I appreciate the sentiment behind this amendment, but I think it is profoundly mistaken. Part of the language reads: No education funds appropriated under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 shall be made available to a local educational agency in a State unless the State demonstrates to the Secretary of Education that the State has adopted a policy prohibiting the practice of social promotion. Then it goes on to be a definition. I want my colleagues to carefully examine the evidence. I want to offer a second-degree amendment which says these provisions would apply as long as we make sure every child has the same opportunity to learn. We had testimony in the HELP Committee from Dr. Hauser, who is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has received numerous awards. He also serves on the Board of Test and Assessment for the National Research Council. He is a prolific writer, a very key researcher in the field. Can I summarize his findings? His findings related to social promotion: Students who have been held back typically do not catch up. Low-performing students learn more if they are promoted even without remedial help than if they are held back. Students who have been held back are much more likely to drop out before completing high school. The long-term costs of holding students back are high to students and to school systems. The negative effect of holding students back are often invisible to those who make retention decisions because they occur many years later. I now wish to move on to some of the critical findings. There is abundant evidence which shows that this practice of high stakes testing and holding kids back as young as age 8 has not only been unsuccessful but it is also harmful. It is ethically questionable, basically, to experiment with our children. I am going to cite evidence. Maybe my colleagues can refute it. I am not sure they can. First of all, low-achieving students do better academically if they move forward with their peers rather than if they are held back. Dozens of studies over the past two decades have found that retaining students contributes to academic failure and behavioral difficulties rather than success in school. That is the evidence. I quote from ``Using Standards and Assessments To Support Student Learning,'' Linda Darling-Hammond and Beverly Falk. Linda Darling Hammond addressed our caucus. She is a distinguished professor at Stanford University. This piece was in the Phi Delta Kappan, November 1997. A scientific review of 63 controlled studies of grade retention through the mid-1980's revealed that 54 of the 63 yielded overall negative effects of retention. The best of these studies have shown the negative effects of retention. The authors concluded that ``[o]n average, retained children are worse off than their promoted counterparts on both personal adjustment and academic outcomes.'' I am just giving my colleagues the evidence. Ignoring educational research, too many of us and too many school districts have continued to hold out retention as educational reform instead of the failed approach that it is. In Chicago, they tried to do this in the 1970s and 1980s, and it failed. Then they decided to do it again. Here is some of the data that is now forthcoming: In 1998, researchers Ann McCoy and Arthur Reynolds at the University of Wiconsin-Madison completed longitudinal studies on the population of the Chicago students retained in grade. Their report, cited above, found ``[f]or all achievement comparisons, retained children consistently underperformed their promoted [low-achieving] peers, and usually significantly. No positive effects of grade retention were detected.'' There is no evidence that this works. They concluded that grade retention is, at best, an insufficient intervention strategy for promoting student achievement and, at worst, it impeded children's academic success and should be substantially modified or replaced by programs and policies which demonstrate effectiveness . . . On January 21, 1999, the New York Times reported that a whopping 5,500 Chicago students are repeating the third grade and 964 are repeating the third grade for a second time. The Washington Post reported on August 1, 1999, that 1,300 15-year-old Chicago students were sent to ``academic halfway houses between the eighth and ninth grades'' because of failing scores. The evidence from all of the studies is that retention leads to increased school dropouts. ``Researchers at the University of Wisconsin also found that 30 percent of those who were retained dropped out of school compared to 21 percent of those students who were not,'' controlling for academic ability; thus, there was a 42-percent increase in dropping out. That is from a piece titled ``Grade Retention Doesn't Work,'' Arthur Reynolds, Judy Temple, Ann McCoy, Educational Week, September 17, 1997. The August 21, 1999, New York Times reported preliminary results showing that 35 to 40 percent of the third, sixth, and eighth graders who took standardized tests at the end of mandatory summer school in New York City had failed to make the required score . . . Predictions are that many other students will be held back. Chicago showed similar results following mandatory summer school during its first 2 years. Summer school has not moved a large extent of these low-achieving students to acceptable levels of performance. They are held back, and when they are held back, they do not do better; they do worse. Research does show that there are preventive measures that do work, that if you put the emphasis--are we surprised?--into early childhood development, it makes a huge difference. Researchers found preschool participation was associated with a 24-percent reduction in the rate of school dropout and that participation for 5 or 6 years was associated with a 27- percent reduction in the rate of early school dropout . . . My second-degree amendment, which we will get to, says that the provisions of this section will not apply to any child who was not afforded by the State educational agency or the local educational agency an opportunity to learn the material necessary to meet the achievement standards. I do not know how colleagues can be opposed to it. I hope we will put the two amendments together. When I offer the second-degree amendment, I will list specifically what I have in mind. Again, I have cited study after study which shows retention has not worked. I have cited study after study which show it leads to increased dropout. I have cited study after study by the best people in the country, including those who testified before our committee and addressed our own Democratic caucus, that this is a mistake. Then what I said is, at least let's make sure these children have the same opportunity to achieve these results, to pass these tests, before we make this operational. I will yield the floor and listen to my colleagues, but when we look at what is going on with these tests and the assessments, I hardly think retention has been a successful strategy. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is adamantly opposed to the direction of this amendment, be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time does my colleague from California have remaining?

Mr. WELLSTONE. How much time do I have?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I think that is my time. I am the one opposing the amendment. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, it would seem to me that if we are talking about children doing well--and we want to look at the evidence about what makes for a good education and equal opportunity for every one of our children--then the second-degree amendment that I have to this amendment would be agreed to. What I am simply saying with the second-degree amendment is: Let's make sure, in fact, every child has had the opportunity to learn the material that is necessary to meet the achievement standards. Don't we want to make sure that every child has had that opportunity? I talk about how a child has to be taught by fully certified or qualified teachers as defined by the State; that the child's parents have multiple opportunities for parental involvement; that the child has access to high instructional materials; that the child has the opportunity to reach the highest performance level, regardless of income or disability; that the child receives the services for which the child is eligible under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; that the child receives proper bilingual education and special education services; and that the child has good early childhood development. Let's get real. If you do not do that, then we already know which children are going to fail. I am saying, before you start failing third graders and holding them back, let's make sure every third grader has the same opportunity to do well. Does anybody on the floor of the Senate want to argue that you do not need to do that first? When Secretary Riley testified, he said: Yes. Let's have standards, but let's also make sure every child has the same opportunity to meet those standards. This is incredible. We do not make the investment in early childhood development. We do not have the title I money. We do not put the money into bilingual education. We do not make sure these children have the same support services. We do not do enough to help children who are in some schools where they do not have the good teachers and they do not have adequate resources. Without doing that, and without making that commitment to every child having the same opportunity to learn--it is called equity; it is called equality of opportunity--then what we do is we fail these students. And then we pound our chests and say: We're being rigorous, and we have done something good for these children. That is my first point. My second point is, in all due respect, the superintendent from the Chicago schools can say one thing, but I say to the Senator from California and other Senators, I have come out on the floor and I have combined the best evidence of studies around the country. Again, I go to Robert Hauser, who is an acknowledged expert. He testified before our HELP Committee. Here are what his findings were related to retention: Students who have been held back, they don't catch up. You are not doing them any favor. Low-performing students learn more even if they are promoted, even without remedial help, than if they are held back. Students who have been held back are much more likely to drop out of school. In all due respect--we talk about Chicago--there was an independent study done, the 4-year Evaluation Report of the Chicago Public Schools Leadership by Parents United For Responsible Education and the Chicago Association of Local School Councils. This is what they found on retention: rising dropout rates, declining enrollment citywide, increased instructional time devoted to testing for the tests. That is another thing the teachers are ending up doing, testing for the test. Just rote drills, memorization. Then, drawing from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund letter, which pulled together such important research, the fact is, there is abundant evidence that--frankly, I have not heard any of my colleagues refute any of it--not only has retention been unsuccessful but it has been harmful. I cited a number of different studies. I cited the work of Linda Darling Hammon, who addressed us Democrats. In fact, I asked her about this. She said that as we look at dozens of studies that have been done over the past two decades, they have found that retaining students contributes to academic failure and behavioral difficulties rather than success in school. Then I went on and talked about work that the professor had also done with Beverly Falk. Then, I went on and quoted from another study: ``Grade Level Retention Effects: A Meta-Analysis of Research Studies,'' C.T. Holmes, in Flunking Grades: Research and Policies on Retention, that concluded that on average retained children are worse off because of retention. Then I went on and quoted about four or five different studies of what has been going on in Chicago and New York and quoted from the Washington Post and the New York Times and pointed out that the summer school remedial program didn't even help these kids. We don't have the evidence that retention has helped these kids because there isn't the evidence. The evidence is the retention has had a harmful effect on these kids. These kids don't do better; they do worse. They drop out of school. It has a devastating impact. If you keep them in age-appropriate settings, you move them on, but you give them the additional help. We should do that. If you want to make sure by the time they graduate they are, indeed, qualified, do that, but don't do something that is harmful. Given the evidence, I don't know how we can support this amendment unless my second-degree amendment is accepted, which says, again, the provisions of this section shall not apply to any child who was not afforded by the State educational agency or the local educational agency an opportunity to learn the material necessary to meet the State achievement standards. Do my colleagues mean to tell me they are going to vote for retention when the evidence shows it is harmful and they won't even vote for an amendment that says, let's make sure that at least every child has the same opportunity to pass these tests before we fail them and hurt them? That is unbelievable. I would be interested, if my colleagues have a lot of evidence from across the country that retention has been a great reform that has helped these children who have been retained, who have been flunked as young as age 8. I see no evidence. I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my colleague says: What the Senator has said is that the child has to be taught by fully certified or qualified teachers. You don't have that. You don't have the certified or qualified teachers, but you are willing to go ahead and flunk these kids. I am saying the children who are in classes as young as age 8, who don't have fully certified and qualified teachers, probably ought not to be flunked and held back because other kids in other schools who had highly qualified and certified teachers were able to pass those tests. Don't Senators think we should include an amendment which would say every child is going to have the same opportunity to pass these tests? That is an incredible argument to make. To make an argument to Senators, wait a minute, Senators, you can't vote for the Wellstone second-degree amendment because he is saying there have to be qualified and certified teachers before we flunk these third graders, that is unbelievable. That is exactly the point of my amendment. Let us have the standards, but let's make sure all the children have the same opportunity to achieve those standards. If the second-degree amendment is accepted, if passed, then we have an amendment that talks about standards, but we also have an amendment that makes sure these children have the same chance to reach those standards. I hate to say this but, one more time, I have presented about 10 different studies. I have presented the best testimony we have had in the Senate. I have presented the best testimony we had in our Senate Democratic conference about retention. Again, we had what the superintendent of the Chicago schools said. Well, I gave the Senate a different report, a 4-year independent evaluation: rising dropout rates, declining enrollment citywide. Then I have drawn on the best research from around the country, and the Senator from California and the Senator from Alabama have not refuted any of it. I don't want to repeat it again, but please vote on the facts. What did they show? Students who have been held back typically don't catch up. Actually, low-performing students learn more if they are promoted even without remedial help than if they are held back. Students who have been held back are much more likely to drop out. With all due respect, there is not a shred of evidence that my colleagues have presented which shows retention works. Again, I have a second-degree amendment which says, let's at least make sure every child has the same opportunity to pass these tests, determining whether or not they will pass a grade. That seems to me to be reasonable. Let's make sure they have certified teachers. Let's make sure we fund it properly, fund title I. Let's make sure we have the bilingual education fund so the kids who come from homes where English is a second language, such as the Hmong children in St. Paul, have a chance. Why would that not be accepted? And the second point I made is, right now, what we have out here is an amendment that says retention is really good, it is all about rigor but there is not a shred of evidence that it works for these children. In addition, it is an amendment which doesn't recognize that these children aren't going to do well unless we get it right on the prevention piece. I have a second-degree amendment that talks about what we should do. I ask unanimous consent that I may send my second-degree amendment to the desk.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Chair notify me when the time has expired-- when the other side's time has expired?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield the remainder of my time. Amendment No. 2878 To Amendment No. 2876 (Purpose: To provide a limitation regarding the policy prohibiting social promotion)

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this is an amendment I think Senators can vote for and I think feel comfortable about because, on the one hand, you can vote for the first-degree amendment, but you can also vote for the first-degree amendment with the understanding that the provisions of this section shall not apply to any child who was not afforded, by the State educational agency or the local educational agency, an opportunity to learn the material necessary to meet the State achievement standards. I am simply saying, let's make sure every child is afforded the opportunity to do well on these achievement standards. This says: ``the child has been taught by fully certified or qualified teachers as defined by the State; the child's parents had multiple opportunities for parental involvement.'' My colleague asked what that meant. That means to understand what homework is about, make sure you know when you can come in, understand what the standardized tests are about, understand how the child's performance is being measured. We are all for parent involvement. Next is: ``the child had access to high quality instructional materials and instructional resources''--how can anybody be opposed to that?--``to ensure that the child had the opportunity to achieve the highest performance levels, regardless of disability, income, and background; the child received the services for which the child is eligible under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act . . . and if necessary, the child received proper bilingual education and special education services, and that the child had the opportunity to receive high quality early childhood education [developmental child care].'' Colleagues, even if you don't believe me, all I have to tell you in this debate is, I presented all kinds of evidence suggesting that retention has been harmful and hasn't worked. I never was refuted at all. Now what I am saying is that even if you want to go in that direction, at least let's make sure that every child has the opportunity to do well in these tests and to achieve, that there are highly qualified instructors and certified teachers, that we have followed through on title I commitment, that we make sure they are the same resources. Don't you think we want to make sure children in our schools have the lab facilities and the textbooks and the good teachers, that there has been good pre-K education? Let's make sure every one of our children has had the same opportunity to achieve. That is what this amendment says. I hope there will be 100 votes for it. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, all this amendment says is let's have the standards, though I presented a lot of irrefutable evidence about retention not working and even being harmful. I understand the politics of some of these votes. It is not a pretty picture if anybody cares about the evidence. This second-degree amendment requires that if you are going to have these tests and these standards which determine whether or not a child as young as age 8 passes or not, or is held back, especially if retention is so harmful, and there is no evidence it is helping children--I thought we were trying to help the children--at least let's ensure we have met the standards that all these children have had the opportunity to pass these tests and do well. My colleague from Alabama says I am trying to gut the amendment because by this amendment we want to ensure these children are taught by fully certified and qualified teachers. If that guts his amendment, his amendment should be gutted. To make sure the child has had access to high-quality instructional material, to make sure the child has received the services for which the child was eligible under title II, to make sure the child has received adequate bilingual education, to make sure the child has had the opportunity to receive high-quality early childhood education, this is a no-brainer, colleagues. We all know this is critical to making sure the children do well in school. My colleague was referred to those who graduate and have a third-grade reading level. What I am talking about is critical to that. Let's make sure that before we fail all of these children and act as if that is doing something great for them, why don't we make sure those children also have the same opportunity to do well and to pass our achievement tests. Is it too much to ask other Senators to vote in favor of certified and qualified teachers, making sure there is parental involvement, making sure there are good instructional materials, making sure we live up to our title I commitments, and making sure there is adequate bilingual education? Colleagues, you know this is critically important. Let's vote for ``standards.'' That is the way you view it. But let's also vote for equality of opportunity for all of our children. I especially thank the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund for all of the research they have pulled together that I have been able to present today about why it is so important that we pass the second- degree amendment and meet the test of decency. This is true equality of opportunity for our children. If you do not do that, then what you have done is very harmful. It is brutal. I reserve the remainder of my time. Are my colleagues prepared to yield the remainder of time? I am prepared to yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me conclude this way. I think there is a bitter irony here. There is no evidence the retention works, and there is a certain amount of evidence that it is harmful. We should let the States decide, for those colleagues who worry about States and States making decisions. This amendment requires States to do retention, and if they do not do retention, then they are not going to get education funds. That is flaw No. 1. I think some of my colleagues would be troubled by that. Frankly, I think my colleague from Alabama would be troubled by that. If the States decide, on the basis of what they know, not to do the retention because of all of the evidence, we are now saying: You have to do it, States, or we will cut off Federal money. That is unbelievable. This amendment should be defeated for that reason. The Federal Government ought not to be doing that to States, especially given the evidence. The second point my colleagues are bothered by is my second-degree amendment which says let's make sure every child has the same opportunity to do well in these achievement tests. Let's make sure these children are taught by fully qualified teachers, that there is parental involvement, that they have good instructional material, that we live up to our commitment on title I, that we make sure the child has had the opportunity to receive good early childhood development, that there is bilingual education available. My colleagues are telling Members to vote against this? We are all for that. The evidence says retention doesn't work and can be harmful. If your State decides it doesn't want to do that, it doesn't matter because now if Members vote for this amendment, they are telling States they have to have retention of students, even if it is harmful. If they don't do what they think is right, we will cut off Federal funds. Do Members want to vote for that? I have a second-degree amendment I think colleagues should vote for because it makes elementary sense. Let's make sure these children have the same opportunity for achievement on these tests. If we don't do what I suggest in this amendment and don't make that commitment, what we will have done to children will be very harmful, brutal, and unconscionable. I yield back the remainder.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I defined that twice. I didn't know the Senator would speak against the amendment. I talked about the amendment three times.

Mr. WELLSTONE. We want to make sure parents know what the homework requirements are, know what the standards are.