Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the Feinstein-Sessions amendment, No. 2876.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the Wellstone amendment No. 2878.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2875

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the Sessions-Feinstein amendment says even if States decide, given the evidence, that retention and holding kids back does not work, States would have to do that. The Federal Government tells the States what to do and will cut off funds if they don't do it. My amendment makes a difference. It says at least let's make sure every child has an opportunity to do well and to achieve on these tests, that there are certified teachers, that there is English as a second language, that there is high-quality educational materials, and that we provide support for kids. If we do not do this, in the name of being tough, the only thing we are doing is punishing kids. Let's at least make the commitment that every child has the same opportunity to do well. I am going to send to each colleague an NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund letter which brings together all the evidence and makes this compelling argument. I hope my colleagues will vote for this equal opportunity to learn amendment. Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if colleagues will listen for a second, I have two points. First of all, the evidence is overwhelming. I went over evidence this afternoon. There was no rebuttal. Holding kids back doesn't work. That is not the real point. If your State decides that it doesn't want to hold kids back, this amendment says it doesn't make any difference; the Federal Government is going to cut off Federal funding. We are telling States what to do, to hold kids back no matter what you decide or we will cut Federal funding. That is wrong. I hope there will be an overwhelming vote against this amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. What is the request, again?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, the purpose of this amendment--and I hope there will be a very strong vote for the amendment--is to call on the Secretary of Health and Human Services to report to the Congress on the extent and severity of child poverty in our country. I will make the connection to education in a moment. We need to have some critical information about the welfare bill before reauthorization. That is what this amendment says. We ask the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide this Congress with critical information. The Congress has consented so far to allow welfare reform to continue without an honest accounting of how our actions impact our Nation's children. Before we reauthorize this bill, we need to know what has happened. There is one missing ingredient when we talk about welfare, and that missing ingredient is information. Let me quote from some of the most knowledgeable people who are doing research in this area. The National Academy of Sciences convened a panel of leading researchers to evaluate the data and methods for measuring the effects of welfare reform. This is basically a quote from their report: The gaps in the data infrastructure for determining the effects of welfare reform are numerous. ``Numerous gaps in the data''--what does that mean? It means we have no understanding of what the effects of this legislation on the lives of people in our country--poor people, mainly women and children. The information is simply not collected, and we don't know because we don't ask. The purpose of this amendment is to understand the effect of this legislation on child poverty before we reauthorize it. We need to know whether or not it is true, as has been reported in the data, that actually we are seeing an increase in the poverty of the poorest of the poor children--those children in households with less than half of the officially defined poverty income. We need to know what the gap is between the welfare bill and families working, and whether or not they are above the poverty level income, because the whole goal was to move people to economic self-sufficiency. We need to know what, in fact, is going on with programs such as the earned-income tax credit, or food stamp assistance, or Medicaid, and how that has affected the lives of poor children in America. We need to do some policy evaluation. Too many people--Republicans and Democrats and the administration--brag about the fact that the rolls have been slashed by 50 percent since 1994. But how can anyone in good conscience use that as a measure of success alone? Reducing the rolls is easy. You just push people off the rolls, you close their cases, and you wish them good luck. Reducing the rolls by half doesn't indicate whether or not we have reduced the poverty. The goal is to reduce the poverty of women and poor children in America. The question is whether or not people who have been pushed off the rolls are working and at what kinds of jobs. Are they living-wage jobs? And the question is, What kind of child care do they have for their children? Do they still have medical assistance, or are they worse off because they have been cut off of medical assistance? The question is, What about the additional services for those families where maybe the single parent struggles with addiction, or maybe she has been battered over and over again and there needs to be additional support before this woman and her family can move to employment and decent wages. Are the support services being provided? I think we have created a whole new class of working poor people in this country. We have created a whole new class--unless we call for a policy evaluation--of the ``disappeared.'' We don't know what is happening. We have been unwilling to do any serious policy evaluation. Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish sociologist, once wrote that ignorance is never random. We don't know what we don't want to do. Before we reauthorize the welfare bill and as we move forward on an education piece of legislation, I would ask the Senate to go on record calling for an evaluation as to the effect of this legislation on poor children in our country. Some would say: What are you doing, Senator Wellstone, calling for an evaluation on a welfare bill? This doesn't belong on an education bill. If a child is living in poverty--and I try to stay very close to this question, as I care a great deal about what happens to poor children in America--the preliminary reports I have seen indicate we now have more children living in households below the poverty level of income. We see a deepening of poverty in children in our country. I argue that if a child is sick, if a family has been cut off medical assistance--and please remember that Families USA, 6 months ago or so, issued a report that there are 670,000 people in our country today who no longer have medical assistance because of the welfare bill--I argue that children don't do well in school when they do not receive adequate care, when they are sick, when they have an illness, or when they have tooth decay or an abscessed tooth. It is very hard for children to do well in school under those circumstances. I think we are sleep-walking in the Senate if we don't see any connection between how well children do in school and the economic circumstances of their lives. We had a wonderful coalition gathering yesterday. Senators Kennedy and Specter are introducing antihunger legislation, of which I am proud to be an original cosponsor. If we have 30 million citizens in our country today with a booming economy who are ``food insecure,'' and if too high a percentage of those citizens are children, and if, in fact, we have seen a dramatic decline in food stamp participation--and I will marshal the evidence for this in a moment--and the Food Stamp Program was the major safety net for children in this country, you had better believe I have this amendment on this bill, because when children are hungry, they don't do well in school. May I repeat that. When children are hungry, they don't do well in school. May I repeat the fact that we have dramatically slashed the food stamp rolls and that many children who should be receiving food stamp assistance today are not receiving food stamp assistance. That is an important fact. We ought to do the policy evaluation. We ought to have the courage to evaluate the impact of this welfare bill on poor children in America today. In my State there is no longer any affordable rental housing. It is absolutely unbelievable. Children are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population in our country today, and they end up having to move four or five times during the school year. In many of the schools I visit in our State of Minnesota, especially in our cities, and I visit one every 2 weeks, the teachers tell me it is hard for a third- grader to do well when she is moved four times during a year because the family can't find affordable housing. Don't tell me that doesn't have any impact on how well a child performs in school. This is an education bill being debated, so I have an amendment that deals with the poverty of children in our country. I argue that today, with an economy booming and an affluent country, we have one out of every five children growing up poor in our country. Under the age of 3, I believe it is closer to one out of every four; and under the age of 3, it is about 50 percent of children of color growing up poor in our country today, which is a national disgrace. I argue that poverty has everything in the world to do with education and whether or not each and every child in America has the same opportunity to reach her full potential and his full potential, which is the goodness of our country. Challenging Senators today to vote for a policy of evaluation on the welfare bill, so we can assess what is happening to poor children, is the right thing to do on an education bill. If we blindly accept the argument that the welfare ``reform" is a great success because we have eliminated the rolls by 50 percent, we are guilty of turning our backs on the most vulnerable citizens in our country--poor children. And if we will not address the underlying problems that deal with race--yes, race--and gender, and poverty, and inequality, and social injustice in our country today, it is all too predictable which children will come to kindergarten way behind and which children will fall even further behind, and, yes, which children will fail these standardized high-stakes tests we give to show how tough we are and how rigorous we are, and which children will be held back, and which children will drop out of school, and which children will wind up incarcerated in America today. Don't move to table this amendment arguing that it has nothing to do with education. No Senator should say, ``Senator Wellstone, I am going to table your amendment because your amendment deals with race, gender, and poverty of children in this country and that has nothing to do with education.'' Today, 13 million children are growing up poor in our country with a booming economy. I ask my colleagues to consider my amendment before we reauthorize this welfare bill which will impact on children and the poverty of children. Let me now discuss some recent studies. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Bob Greenstein, director, received the McArthur Foundation grant--I think one of the genius grants--for the impeccable research he directs. More than two-thirds of our States impose full-family sanctions, stopping aid to children as well as parents. Nearly half of these States impose a full-family sanction at the first instance of noncompliance. More than one-fourth of all case closures in a number of States have been the result of sanctions. In other words, half of the people are off the welfare rolls. In many cases, the families have been sanctioned. That doesn't mean they are working. It doesn't mean they have good wages or are doing well. They have just been sanctioned. Then the question becomes, If in a lot of States you have these sanctions, are the sanctions justified? A recent Utah study found that three-quarters of the sanctioned families had three or more barriers to employment, including a health or medical problem, lack of transportation, or lack of skills. A Minnesota study concluded that sanctioned families were four times as likely as the caseload as a whole to report chemical dependency, three times as likely to report a family health problem, and twice as likely to report a mental health problem or domestic violence. We should be worried about this. We should want to know what is going on. Finally, quite often the families who are subject to the sanctions may have the greatest difficulty understanding the program, rules, and expectations. Recent studies from South Carolina and Delaware document that sanction rates are highest for those people with the least amount of education. The Delaware study also found that sanctioned individuals were more likely to have trouble comprehending TANF rules and did not understand the consequences of noncompliance. As a result of the welfare bill, more than 2.5 million poor families have lost their benefits. That is a decline in the rolls of 50 percent. But the number of people living in poverty in our country has held close to the study. Many of these families have gone from being poor to getting poorer, and most of the welfare recipients are children. This is why I challenge Senators today. I do not know how any of you can vote against this, colleagues. I am saying, before we do any reauthorization of this welfare bill, we ought to evaluate the impact of poverty on children. Don't table this amendment because you cannot separate whether children are hungry, homeless, or whether there has been decent child care before they get to kindergarten. One study I cite should trouble Senator Reid and every Senator. It was released by researchers at UC-Berkeley and Yale. They found that about a million additional toddlers and preschoolers are now in child care because of the changes in the welfare law. Mothers work. They are single parents. But these children, unfortunately, are in low-quality child care, and therefore they end up lagging behind other children their age in developmental measures. There was a study of nearly 1,000 single mothers moving from welfare to work, and they found that many of these children had been placed in child care settings where they watched hours of television or wandered aimlessly and had little interaction with their caregivers. The result: These toddlers showed developmental delays. When asked to point to one of three different pictures in a book, fewer than two out of five of the toddlers in the study pointed to the right picture compared to the national norm of four out of five children. One of the study's authors is quoted as saying, ``We know that high- quality child care can help children and that poor children can benefit the most. So we hope this will be a wake-up call to do something about the quality of child care in this country. The quality of day-care centers is not great for middle-class families, but it is surprising and distressing to see the extent to which welfare families' quality was even lower.'' Colleagues, we ought to know what is going on with this bill. If we are telling these mothers they have to work, that we are not looking at the child care picture, and their children are in dangerous and inadequate child care centers and falling further behind developmentally, shouldn't we know that? Don't we want to know the impact? Can any Senator tell me that is of no consequence as to how well these children do in school? Of course it is. I also want to point out that many of these families have been stigmatized. We have an additional problem. Again, I would like to see an analysis of this. But all too often, too many families don't even enter TANF. They do not know they have the right to receive assistance at the beginning, and, therefore, in this affluent economy we see a rise in the use of food banks and shelters. It is amazing. Everybody is claiming success. The 50-percent reduction in the welfare rolls has hardly reduced poverty. In many cases, children are poorer now than they were before. In all too many cases families don't even know they are eligible to receive this assistance, and they don't. I will save some of my time in case there is a response to the debate. But I want to talk about a report released yesterday by the National Campaign for Jobs and Income. It is a new coalition of antipoverty groups. They found a couple of results that are very distressing. In too many cases families are eligible still for medical assistance and food stamp assistance when they move from welfare to work, but at the local county level they are not told they are eligible. That is incredible. That is absolutely incredible. Let me talk about Medicaid and what is happening under welfare reform. Despite the creation of the State Child Health Insurance Program, CHIPS, which provide resources to States, the total number of low- income children enrolled in Medicaid in the State CHIP program combined has actually decreased in the 12 States with the largest number of uninsured children between 1996 and 1998. A study in the January issue of Health Fairs found that 41 percent of the women surveyed lacked health insurance one year after leaving welfare. Forty-one percent of these women no longer have any coverage. Their families don't have coverage. Only 36 percent of the women had been able to retain their Medicaid coverage. The same study found that 23 percent of the women with children were also uninsured. Some were about to keep their insurance. But 23 percent were uninsured one year after losing welfare benefits. I ask you to vote for an amendment that says we ought to do an evaluation of the impact of their welfare bill on the poverty of children. If 23 percent of the children one year after their mothers leave welfare no longer are covered and no longer have any health insurance coverage, that is a serious consequence. We ought to understand that. According to Families USA, two-thirds of a million low-income people--approximately 675,000--lost their Medicaid coverage and became uninsured as a result of the welfare bill. Families are losing Medicaid coverage under welfare reform because: No. 1, they are basically not being told they are entitled to it at the local level. No. 2, you have these complex rules, and it is very difficult for people to know their rights. Legal immigrants, in particular, are especially confused. No. 3, antiquated computer systems. Most States rely on computer systems that were designed for welfare programs, not Medicaid. As a result, these systems produce letters that are technical and difficult to understand. When families are pushed off welfare right away they don't even know they are entitled to medical assistance. Now for the second set of disturbing facts. Sometimes facts make Members uncomfortable--or they should make Members uncomfortable. According to the USDA, 30 million people live in a ``food insecure'' house; 40 percent of them are children; 12.5 million children are ``food insecure''--that is another way of saying going hungry or malnourished. I have talked about all of the people who have been pushed off welfare. According to a study by the USDA, more than one-third of those eligible for the Food Stamp Program are not receiving the benefits. A General Accounting Office report released last year found food stamp participation dropped faster than related indicators would predict. Furthermore, GAO points out there is a growing gap between the number of children living in poverty, an important indicator of children's need for food assistance and the number of children receiving food assistance. That food stamp participation dropped faster than related economic indicators would indicate simply means we have hardly made a dent in reducing poverty. We have many poor children in the country. The Food Stamp Program was the major safety net program for poor children in America and we have seen a dramatic decline in participation. Probably as many as 33 percent of the children should be receiving the help, and they are not. Therefore, they are hungry, they are malnourished, and therefore they can't do as well in school. And no Senator's child could do well in school if their child went to school malnourished or if their child was hungry. These are not my opinions but that of good researchers. The Urban Institute report found two-thirds of the families who left the Food Stamp Program were still eligible for food stamps. What is going on? We need a policy evaluation. A July 1999 report, prepared for USDA by Mathematics Policy Research, identified ``lack of client information'' as the barrier to participation and pointed out that many of these people who were not participating were not aware they were eligible. At the local level they are not being told. We have created such a stigma, we have done so much stereotyping and bashing of these poor women and children and the poor in America today, that it has filtered down to the local level. Basically, at the local level people don't even know they have the right to get this assistance. Much of this is happening at the same time the States are now sitting on a $7 billion surplus of TANF money. Colleagues who were for the welfare bill should be as concerned about this as I am. There were a number of States--Minnesota was one last year; not this year, I am happy to say--that through a little of bit of accounting and juggling, used the TANF money for a tax rebate. This is what we have: Families who are not being told they are eligible for medical assistance, and they are; we have families not being told they are eligible for food stamp assistance, and they are; we have a rise in the use of food shelters; we have hungry children in America; we have many families who no longer receive medical assistance 1 year after the welfare bill; we have the vast majority of the women no longer on welfare and still don't make even poverty wages; and we have a whole group of other recipients and women who have severely disabled children or they had children when they were children, who do not have the skills development or have struggled with addiction, or we have, unfortunately, a central issue of violence in the home, women who have been battered over and over again. They need to have the support services so they can move from welfare to work and be able to support their children in this prosperous economy. The Governors came here and said, several years ago: Trust us, trust us, trust us. Some States are doing good work. The Chair was a Governor of New Hampshire. Some States are doing good work. I can't believe they are sitting on $7 billion in TANF money, some of which could go into training, some of which could go into education, some of which could go into the support services. That is what this was all about. There is reason to be concerned. Not later than June 1, 2001, and prior to the reauthorization of this bill, let's call upon the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make a report on the poverty of children in America and in particular on the welfare bill and how it has affected the economic status of the children in these families. The reason I offered this amendment is manyfold, but let me make it twofold. First, there is disturbing evidence based upon reports that we are now seeing an increase of children who are among the poorest of poor in America. Second, there is disturbing evidence that very few of these families have actually moved from welfare to escape poverty. There is clear evidence that many of the families have now lost their medical assistance and are worse off. In addition, there is clear evidence that many of these children and many of these families are eligible for food stamp assistance, which is particularly important in making sure that children don't go hungry, and they are not being told about it. The second reason I bring this amendment to the floor is I think there should be an up-or-down vote. Members can't argue that this is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The Yale-Berkeley study sends chills down my spine. There has also been a national report. I know there was a New York Times article about it. What has happened with many of these families is the mothers work, but all too often they have to leave at 6 by bus. It takes them 2 hours. There is not adequate transportation. They don't have a car or they may live in a rural area. They don't get home until 8 o'clock at night. The child care situation is frightening. A lot of the child care for these children is dangerous and inadequate, at best. These children should be valued as much as our children. Colleagues, I wait for a response. How much time remains?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask my colleague from Georgia whether there is any response.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Georgia, I reserve the remainder of my time. I have tried to make the following arguments. I have tried to say there is disturbing evidence, outside reports that all may not be right with what is happening. Before we reauthorize this bill, we ought to have a policy evaluation of the impact on poor children. Then I went on and tried to give examples. I can repeat them if my colleague wants me to. It is in my head and my heart. My second point has been I certainly hope this amendment will not be tabled because I think it has everything to do with education. I think it is terribly important.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I gather from what my colleague said that means if there is not a rebuttal, there is going to be a good strong vote for this amendment? Is that what my colleague is saying? That would please me.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Is my colleague going to move to table?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Georgia. Here is what I am concerned about now. I want to say this to the Senator from Georgia. The background of this is, I have for the last 2 years, off and on, been trying to get a policy evaluation of the bill. This time I focused on the poverty of children because I thought it was so important, so relevant to education. I believe that. I think my colleague from Georgia does. I say to the Senator, he does not have to respond. We will see what the House does. It is a tax bill. It may go to the President, and it could very well be vetoed. If that happens, then I have to come back with this amendment on another vehicle, but I certainly hope if we go to conference committee this amendment will not be dropped. I am going to call for a record vote because I want everybody on record. What has happened in the past is I will come out and then it will get dropped. First, we lost on a vote, a slightly different amendment. Then the next one was dropped. I know I speak with emotion about this, but I really do think it makes sense before we reauthorize by 2001--before we reauthorize in 2002, we ought to know what the impact is. I have presented a lot of studies that should trouble all of us. I think it is terribly relevant to how well our children do. I thank the Senator from Georgia because he could have come out and tried to give this the back of his hand and tabled it. I appreciate the fact he did not. I do not think Senators should vote against this amendment. What I hope is it will stay in conference committee. I make that request to my colleague. I have been on votes that have been 99-1, where I am the 1. Obviously, I have not persuaded too many people. And then I have been involved in votes that are closer. If this is almost a unanimous vote or a unanimous vote, I would like Senators to know: You are on record. When we vote we are on record. I want Senators to know when you vote you are on record saying it is important we have a thorough policy evaluation done of the effect of the welfare bill on children. We want to know if there has been a rise in the poorest of the poor children. We want to know what the gap is between those families who are working and poverty-level income. Are they moving to economic self-sufficiency? We want to know what has happened with other programs such as food stamp programs and why there has been such a drop in food stamp participation, way below the drop in poverty. We want to know what is going on. We want to know what is going on with child care. I am troubled by all these reports about the dangers due to inadequate child care for these children. The way I look at it, I say to Senator Coverdell, the evidence is irrefutable that probably the most important thing any of us could do is try to make sure prekindergarten kids get the developmental child care from parents--or whoever, if the parents work--so they come to kindergarten ready to learn and not way behind. I want all Senators to know you are on record supporting this policy evaluation. I have been trying to do this for several years. I appreciate the support. It is not a small question. Children who are hungry do not do well in school. Children who receive no health care coverage or dental care where they have an abscessed tooth and infection do not do well in school. Children who have been in inferior prekindergarten situations, inadequate child care, do not do well in school. Children who are homeless do not do well in school. And children who are among the poorest of the poorest of the poor citizens of this country, living in households at less than half the poverty- level income, do not do well in school. I think it is important we get a handle on what it means that in the most affluent country in the world, with an economy booming and record surpluses, we have 12.5 million children who are ``food insecure.'' We can do better, and we will do better when we are willing to do an honest evaluation as to what is happening. I thank my colleague from Georgia. I take his support not as a sort of effort to trivialize this but as sincere support. It means a lot to me. Before I yield the floor, I ask my colleague, I would like to have the vote. I would like to have everybody on record. When would we be scheduling this vote?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Georgia, what would be best for Senators' schedules would be stacked votes, either later today or early tomorrow morning; is that correct?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I thank my colleague from Georgia. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I yield back our time.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if there is one thing we all can agree on in education, it is that teacher quality is absolutely critical to how well children learn. Yet, the nation confronts one of the worst teacher shortages in history. With expanding enrollment, decreasing class size and one third of the nation's teachers nearing retirement age, public schools will need to hire as many as 2.2 million teachers over the next decade. The need is greatest in specific subject areas such as mathematics, science, special education and bilingual education, all important subjects if the nation is to have an educated work force to keep it competitive in the world marketplace. Need is also greatest in specific geographical areas such as the inner city and rural areas. Ironically, it is the most educationally and socio-economically disadvantaged students that are under served. If there is one action we can take guaranteed to help struggling schools and children, it is to provide states and school districts the means to ensure that there is a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. My legislation, Teacher Corps, which I am proud to introduce today with my colleagues, Senators Kennedy and Schumer, who for so long have fought to bring the best possible educational opportunities to all of America's children, is designed to do just that. Its components are based on a definite need and sound research concerning effective mechanisms for meeting that need. Teacher Corps would fund collaboratives between state education agencies, local education agencies and institutions of higher education. The collaboratives would recruit top ranked college students and qualified mid career individuals, who have not yet been trained as teachers, to teach in the nation's poorest schools in the areas of greatest need--both geographically and academically. Districts and universities would work together to only recruit candidates who have an academic major or extensive and substantive professional experience in the subject in which they will teach. The collaboratives would provide recruits a tuition free alternative route to certification which includes intensive study and a teaching internship. The internship would include mentoring, co-teaching and advanced course work in pedagogy, state standards, technology and other areas. After the internship period, the collaboratives would offer individualized follow up training and mentoring in the first two years of full time teaching. Corps members that become certified will be given priority in hiring within that district in exchange for a commitment to teach in low income schools for 3 years. A good teacher can mean the world to any child whether it is through caring or through providing children with the skills they need to open their own doors to the future. Every time I enter schools in Minnesota, I am in awe of teachers' work. That is why it is so tragic to think that there are so many children that do not have access to qualified teachers, at the same time that many people interested in teaching are either not entering the profession or are not staying there once they have qualified. Teacher Corps will help meet the growing need for teachers in low income urban and rural schools, and in high need subject areas such as math, science, bilingual and special education. It will do so because Teacher Corps is rooted in three fundamental parts. Recruitment, retention and innovative, flexible, high quality training programs for college graduates and mid-career professionals who want to teach in high need areas. The first principle is recruitment. As I mentioned before, we may need to hire as many as 2.2 million new teachers in the next decade to ensure that there are enough teachers in our schools. But, overall quantity is not the only issue. Quality and shortages in specific geographic and curriculum areas are equally critical. While there are teacher surpluses in some areas, certain states and cities are facing acute teacher shortages. In California, 1 out of every 10 teachers lacks proper credentials. 58 percent of new hires in Los Angeles are not certified. There are also crucial shortages in some subject areas such as math, science, bilingual and special education. In my home state of Minnesota, 90 percent of principals report a serious shortage of strong candidates in at least one curriculum area. 54 percent of the mathematics teachers in the state of Idaho and 48 percent of the science teachers in Florida and Tennessee did not major in the subject of their primary assignment. Teacher Corps would meet this need because it would recruit and train thousands of high quality teachers into the field to meet the specific teaching needs of local school districts. It would recruit and train top college students and mid-career professionals from around the country, who increasingly want to enter the teaching profession. More college students want to enter teaching today than have wanted to join the profession in the past 30 years. According to a recent UCLA survey, over 10 percent of all freshman say they want to teach in elementary and secondary schools. Second, the design of the program ensures that the needs of local school districts will be considered so that only those candidates who meet the specific needs of that district will be recruited and trained. If, for example, there is a shortage of special education, bilingual, math and science teachers in a particular district, Teacher Corps would only train people with those skills. In setting up collaboratives in this way, teacher corps helps avoid the overproduction of candidates in areas where they are not needed. Finally, Teacher Corps gives priority to high need rural, inner suburban and urban districts to ensure that new teachers will enter where they are needed most. However, it does not help to recruit teachers into high need schools and train them if we cannot retain them in the profession. Teaching is one of the hardest, most important jobs there is. We ask teachers to prepare our children for adulthood. We ask them to educate our children so that they may be productive members of society. We entrust them with our children's minds and with their future. It is a disgrace how little support we give them in return. It is no surprise that one of the major causes of our teacher shortage is that teachers decide to change professions before retirement. 73 percent of Minnesota teachers who leave the profession, leave for reasons other than retirement. In urban schools, 50 percent of teachers leave the field within five years of when they start teaching. To retain high quality teachers in the profession, we must give teachers the support they deserve. Teachers, like doctors need monitoring and support during the first years of their professional life. Teacher Corps offers new teachers the training, monitoring and support they need to meet the profession's many challenges. It includes methods of support that have proven effective in ensuring that teachers stay in schools. The key elements for effective teacher retention were laid out by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future in 1996. Effective programs organize professional development around standards for teachers and students; provide a year long, pre-service internship; include mentoring and strong evaluation of teacher skills; offer stable, high quality professional development. Each of these criteria are included in the Teacher Corps program. Further, Teacher Corps supports people who choose teaching by paying for their training. Through this financial and professional support, Teacher Corps will go a long way toward keeping recruits in teaching. But, it is still not enough to recruit and retain teachers. Quality must be of primary importance. Research shows that the most important predictor of student success is not income, but the quality of the teacher. Despite this need, studies show that as the level of students of color and students from low-income families increases in schools, the test scores of teachers declines. This is wrong. We are denying children from low-income areas, from racial minorities, with limited English proficiency, access to what we know works. Several studies have shown that if poor and minority students are taught by high quality teachers at the same rate as other students, a large part of the gap between poor and minority students and their more affluent white counterparts would disappear. For example, one Alabama study shows that an increase of one standard deviation in teacher test scores leads to a two-thirds reduction in the gap between black/white tests scores. We can not turn our back on this knowledge. We must act on it. We must give low income, minority and limited English proficiency children the same opportunities that all children have and we must do it now. The very essence of Teacher Corps is to funnel high quality teachers where they are needed most. Teacher Corps would help ensure quality by using a selective, competitive recruitment process. It would provide high quality training, professional development, monitoring and evaluations of corps member performance, all of which have been proven to increase the quality of the teaching force and the achievement of the students they teach. Further, by creating strong connections between universities and districts and by implementing effective professional development projects within districts, we are setting up powerful structures to benefit all teachers and students. Mr. President, we have an opportunity to do what we know works to help children who need our help most. Good teachers have an extraordinary impact on children's lives and learning. We need to be sure that all children have access to such teachers and all children have the opportunity to learn so that all children may take advantage of the many opportunities this country provides.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, if there is one thing we all can agree on in education, it is that teacher quality is absolutely critical to how well children learn. Yet, the nation confronts one of the worst teacher shortages in history. With expanding enrollment, decreasing class size and one third of the nation's teachers nearing retirement age, public schools will need to hire as many as 2.2 million teachers over the next decade. The need is greatest in specific subject areas such as mathematics, science, special education and bilingual education, all important subjects if the nation is to have an educated work force to keep it competitive in the world marketplace. Need is also greatest in specific geographical areas such as the inner city and rural areas. Ironically, it is the most educationally and socio-economically disadvantaged students that are under served. If there is one action we can take guaranteed to help struggling schools and children, it is to provide states and school districts the means to ensure that there is a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. My legislation, Teacher Corps, which I am proud to introduce today with my colleagues, Senators Kennedy and Schumer, who for so long have fought to bring the best possible educational opportunities to all of America's children, is designed to do just that. Its components are based on a definite need and sound research concerning effective mechanisms for meeting that need. Teacher Corps would fund collaboratives between state education agencies, local education agencies and institutions of higher education. The collaboratives would recruit top ranked college students and qualified mid career individuals, who have not yet been trained as teachers, to teach in the nation's poorest schools in the areas of greatest need--both geographically and academically. Districts and universities would work together to only recruit candidates who have an academic major or extensive and substantive professional experience in the subject in which they will teach. The collaboratives would provide recruits a tuition free alternative route to certification which includes intensive study and a teaching internship. The internship would include mentoring, co-teaching and advanced course work in pedagogy, state standards, technology and other areas. After the internship period, the collaboratives would offer individualized follow up training and mentoring in the first two years of full time teaching. Corps members that become certified will be given priority in hiring within that district in exchange for a commitment to teach in low income schools for 3 years. A good teacher can mean the world to any child whether it is through caring or through providing children with the skills they need to open their own doors to the future. Every time I enter schools in Minnesota, I am in awe of teachers' work. That is why it is so tragic to think that there are so many children that do not have access to qualified teachers, at the same time that many people interested in teaching are either not entering the profession or are not staying there once they have qualified. Teacher Corps will help meet the growing need for teachers in low income urban and rural schools, and in high need subject areas such as math, science, bilingual and special education. It will do so because Teacher Corps is rooted in three fundamental parts. Recruitment, retention and innovative, flexible, high quality training programs for college graduates and mid-career professionals who want to teach in high need areas. The first principle is recruitment. As I mentioned before, we may need to hire as many as 2.2 million new teachers in the next decade to ensure that there are enough teachers in our schools. But, overall quantity is not the only issue. Quality and shortages in specific geographic and curriculum areas are equally critical. While there are teacher surpluses in some areas, certain states and cities are facing acute teacher shortages. In California, 1 out of every 10 teachers lacks proper credentials. 58 percent of new hires in Los Angeles are not certified. There are also crucial shortages in some subject areas such as math, science, bilingual and special education. In my home state of Minnesota, 90 percent of principals report a serious shortage of strong candidates in at least one curriculum area. 54 percent of the mathematics teachers in the state of Idaho and 48 percent of the science teachers in Florida and Tennessee did not major in the subject of their primary assignment. Teacher Corps would meet this need because it would recruit and train thousands of high quality teachers into the field to meet the specific teaching needs of local school districts. It would recruit and train top college students and mid-career professionals from around the country, who increasingly want to enter the teaching profession. More college students want to enter teaching today than have wanted to join the profession in the past 30 years. According to a recent UCLA survey, over 10 percent of all freshman say they want to teach in elementary and secondary schools. Second, the design of the program ensures that the needs of local school districts will be considered so that only those candidates who meet the specific needs of that district will be recruited and trained. If, for example, there is a shortage of special education, bilingual, math and science teachers in a particular district, Teacher Corps would only train people with those skills. In setting up collaboratives in this way, teacher corps helps avoid the overproduction of candidates in areas where they are not needed. Finally, Teacher Corps gives priority to high need rural, inner suburban and urban districts to ensure that new teachers will enter where they are needed most. However, it does not help to recruit teachers into high need schools and train them if we cannot retain them in the profession. Teaching is one of the hardest, most important jobs there is. We ask teachers to prepare our children for adulthood. We ask them to educate our children so that they may be productive members of society. We entrust them with our children's minds and with their future. It is a disgrace how little support we give them in return. It is no surprise that one of the major causes of our teacher shortage is that teachers decide to change professions before retirement. 73 percent of Minnesota teachers who leave the profession, leave for reasons other than retirement. In urban schools, 50 percent of teachers leave the field within five years of when they start teaching. To retain high quality teachers in the profession, we must give teachers the support they deserve. Teachers, like doctors need monitoring and support during the first years of their professional life. Teacher Corps offers new teachers the training, monitoring and support they need to meet the profession's many challenges. It includes methods of support that have proven effective in ensuring that teachers stay in schools. The key elements for effective teacher retention were laid out by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future in 1996. Effective programs organize professional development around standards for teachers and students; provide a year long, pre-service internship; include mentoring and strong evaluation of teacher skills; offer stable, high quality professional development. Each of these criteria are included in the Teacher Corps program. Further, Teacher Corps supports people who choose teaching by paying for their training. Through this financial and professional support, Teacher Corps will go a long way toward keeping recruits in teaching. But, it is still not enough to recruit and retain teachers. Quality must be of primary importance. Research shows that the most important predictor of student success is not income, but the quality of the teacher. Despite this need, studies show that as the level of students of color and students from low-income families increases in schools, the test scores of teachers declines. This is wrong. We are denying children from low-income areas, from racial minorities, with limited English proficiency, access to what we know works. Several studies have shown that if poor and minority students are taught by high quality teachers at the same rate as other students, a large part of the gap between poor and minority students and their more affluent white counterparts would disappear. For example, one Alabama study shows that an increase of one standard deviation in teacher test scores leads to a two-thirds reduction in the gap between black/white tests scores. We can not turn our back on this knowledge. We must act on it. We must give low income, minority and limited English proficiency children the same opportunities that all children have and we must do it now. The very essence of Teacher Corps is to funnel high quality teachers where they are needed most. Teacher Corps would help ensure quality by using a selective, competitive recruitment process. It would provide high quality training, professional development, monitoring and evaluations of corps member performance, all of which have been proven to increase the quality of the teaching force and the achievement of the students they teach. Further, by creating strong connections between universities and districts and by implementing effective professional development projects within districts, we are setting up powerful structures to benefit all teachers and students. Mr. President, we have an opportunity to do what we know works to help children who need our help most. Good teachers have an extraordinary impact on children's lives and learning. We need to be sure that all children have access to such teachers and all children have the opportunity to learn so that all children may take advantage of the many opportunities this country provides.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I object.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, will the Senator from Nevada yield for a quick question?

Mr. WELLSTONE. He can answer them in a relatively brief fashion, I think. First of all, is it not true that when his party was the majority party in the Senate the minority party would come out with many amendments to a piece of legislation and sometimes we would have 100 amendments? I want to get to the definition of what ``relevant'' means so people following this will know what that definition is. Is it not true that we would have many amendments and we would basically debate these amendments and then after several days of hard work, even if we had to work 14 hours a day, we would go forward and pass that legislation? That is one of the ways you represent people back home. If there is a compelling issue, you offer an amendment to a piece of legislation and you hope to pass it. I remember the amendment on mental health parity that I offered with Senator Domenici. It was an amendment on housing on the veterans appropriations bill. Will the Senator from Nevada not agree with me that is the way the Senate has always conducted its business?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, on this particular piece of legislation that Senator Coverdell introduced, which we have been debating, will the Senator from Nevada not agree with me that the kind of amendment, for example, I wanted to offer to this legislation dealing with the hunger of children, dealing with the poverty of children, dealing with how to deal with the violence in children's lives in their homes would not be considered to be by the definition of ``relevant'' relevant? Yet it affects education and children's lives. There have been hardly any opportunities over the whole last year to come out on the floor with amendments to different pieces of legislation. Is that not true? So it gets to the point where you can't even represent people back in the State as a Senator.