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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I know we are very much involved in this extremely important decision on the question of trade with China, but I do want to take a few moments this morning to address another issue which I think is of central concern to families across this country.
I think it is particularly appropriate that we give additional focus and attention to the priority of education policy as we are coming into the final days of this session of Congress. I think there is a heightened interest in this issue as some 53 million children are going back to school. They have started going back to school in the last 10 days and are going back to school this week. And, fifteen million children are going to colleges, going back to school now, this week and next.
Parents are wondering what the circumstances will be for their children this school year and in the future, and who is going to ensure their children are going to get an adequate education and will move ahead. Parents understand full well that education is key to the future for their children and, obviously, education is key to our country's future as we are moving more and more into a new information-age and technologically-advanced global economy. This is a matter of enormous urgency.
We understand that there is a fundamental responsibility for the education of children in the elementary and secondary high schools of this country at the local and State level and that the role of the Federal Government is much more limited. Approximately 7 cents out of every dollar that is spent locally actually comes from the Federal Government.
In my travels around my State of Massachusetts, in talking to parents, they are interested in a partnership. They are interested in their children doing well. They want support for programs that work, and they are less interested in the division of authority between local and State governments and the participation of Congress in assisting academic achievement.
The backbone of congressional participation in the education of children is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That is an act of enormous importance. It is not only myself who is saying this, but we have the statements of the majority leader, Senator LOTT, who in January 1999 indicated:
Education is going to be a central issue this year. ..... For starters, we must reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That is important.
Remarks to the Conference of Mayors on January 29, 1999:
But education is going to have a lot of attention, and it's not just going to be words.......
Press conference, June 22, 1999:
Education is number one on the agenda for Republicans in the Congress this year.
Remarks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, February 1, 2000:
We're going to work very hard on education. I have emphasized that every year I've been majority leader. ..... And Republicans are committed to doing that.
A speech to the National Conference of State Legislatures, February 3, 2000:
We must reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. ..... Education will be a high priority in this Congress.
Congress Daily, April 20, 2000:
..... Lott said last week his top priorities in May include agriculture sanctions bill, Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization, and passage of four appropriations bills.
Senate, May 1:
This is very important legislation. I hope we can debate it seriously and have amendments in the education area. Let's talk education.
Press Stakeout, May 2.
Question: Senator, on ESEA, have you scheduled a cloture vote on that?
Senator LOTT: No, I haven't scheduled a cloture vote. ..... But education is number one in the minds of the American people all across the country and every State, including my own State. For us to have a good, healthy, and even a protracted debate and amendments on education I think is the way to go.
Those are the assurances we have been given by the majority leader, and we have had 6 days of discussion about elementary education. Two of those days were discussion only. We had a total of eight amendments, seven rollcalls, one voice vote, and three of those seven were virtually unanimous. So we have not had this debate which not only the majority leader has said is important,
but which families believe is important. The reason they believe it is important is because of the substance of education policy that will be included in that debate. I remind the Senate where we are on the expansion of the number of children enrolled in school. In K-12 enrollment, it is at an all-time high. In 1990, 46 million K-12 children were enrolled, and by the year 2000, 53 million children. There are increasing pressures on local communities across the country.
This chart shows that student enrollment will continue to rise over the next century. There are 53 million students enrolled in the year 2000, but if you look at the projections, 94 million are estimated to be enrolled by the year 2100--41 million more students over the next century, virtually doubling the Nation's population in education which will require building schools and hiring more qualified teachers all across this country.
This is a matter of enormous importance to national policy and family policy. We believe we should not give short shrift to debating what our policies may be. We may have some differences on different sides of the aisle, but we should be debating these policy issues.
On the issue of priorities this year, such as bankruptcy--which we debated for 16 days, we had 55 amendments; 16 days on bankruptcy, 55 amendments. As I mentioned, we had eight amendments on elementary and secondary education. Three were unanimous and one vote was by a voice vote. So we really have not met our responsibilities, I do not believe, on debating education policy.
I strongly favor Federal commitment and investment in programs that have been tried, tested, and proven to be effective and that can be implemented at the local level and have a positive impact on the children.
I want to take a moment to bring the Senate up to speed about what is happening in schools across the country. More students are taking the SAT test: In 1980, 33 percent; 1985, 36 percent; 40 percent in 1990; 42 percent in 1995; 44 percent in 2000. More and more of the children in this country are recognizing the importance of taking the scholastic aptitude test. Children are aware they have to apply themselves, as reflected in the number of students taking the test, and that college education is the key to success in America. Also, the results have been positive. Even though more students are taking the SAT, and the students are more diverse, math scores are the highest in 30 years. But, in order to sustain the gains made, children need to continue to have well-qualified teachers, they need an investment in preschool programs, they need afterschool programs, they have to have available to them the latest technologies so they can move ahead in their academic work.
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This is another chart showing more students are taking advanced math and science classes. This reflects 1990 to 2000: Precalculus, in 1990, was 31 percent. It is now 44 percent. Calculus, 19 percent in 1990; 24 percent in 2000. In physics, 44 percent in 1990 to 49 percent in 2000.
We are finding more students are taking college level courses, advanced placement courses, the more challenging courses, and they are doing better and better in these undertakings.
However, our work is far from over. We cannot get away from the fact that there are many others in our country, in urban areas and rural areas, who are facing extraordinary challenges.
Those disadvantaged children are really the ones on which we are focused in terms of the Federal elementary and secondary education programs.
Basically, there are important ways in which we can give some help and assistance to these children. We believe in smaller class sizes, with well-trained teachers, and afterschool programs. We believe in making sure the children are going to be ready to learn, either through the Head Start Program or through helping and assisting local groups to try to give help and assistance to those children as they are preparing, even for Head Start, the ready-to-learn program, which basically was a goal we agreed to--Democrats and Republicans alike--in their conference in Charlottesville about 10 years ago. That is an area in which we have not been able to gain support, although we have a bipartisan proposal that is actually currently pending--would be pending were we to get back to the elementary and secondary education bill.
We believe the success of the STAR Program in Tennessee and also in the State of Wisconsin demonstrates the importance of smaller classrooms. Also, all of the various studies have shown quite clearly the importance of having well-trained teachers.
We can learn from States that have moved ahead in providing adequate compensation of teachers, such as Connecticut, North Carolina, and other States, and that have shown that when you have teachers who are well trained and well paid, you get an enhanced academic achievement for these students.
We support afterschool programs--they have a tremendous impact on helping children to enhance their academic achievement.
We should also make college more accessible to every qualified student through GEAR UP and college tuition help, the excellent proposal that has been advanced by Vice President Gore to provide a tax deduction for tuition for children, for parents whose children are going on to college.
Also, in the area of skills training, we tried to address that in an amendment. We actually were able to get a majority in the Senate to support the restoring of a training program, but we have been unable to get that implemented because there was a point of order made against it. We had to amend a bill which did not make it possible for us to carry that forward into a conference.
All of these are matters of enormous importance. We have been impressed--I have--by the debate and discussion at the national level about the Vice President's proposal to understand that learning has to be a continuum and that skills training has to be a continuum.
I often am reminded of the fact that when I first was elected to the Senate, we had a very efficient shipyard down in Fall River, MA. The workers who worked there, their fathers worked there, their grandfathers worked there. More often than not, the sons wanted to work there. But there has been a change. That yard has been closed. Now what we find out is--not only there but across my own State of Massachusetts and across the country--everyone who enters the job market is going to have, on average, seven different jobs over the course of their lifetime.
We have to be able to have continuing education and training programs accessible and available to young and old alike, so that people are going to be able to upgrade their skills. That is enormously important. It is enormously important not only to the young, but it is enormously important to communities such as mine, Massachusetts, where we have an older workforce--we have a transition from a lot of the older industries into newer kinds of industries--and where the real difference is in the development of skills.
We would have the opportunity to address many of those issues I have very briefly mentioned in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We certainly would be able to address universal preschool, the issues of qualified teachers, and the importance of
skills training that is going to be school based. We could address modern and safe schools. We would be able to address afterschool opportunities, smaller class sizes, and the higher education issues.
Lifelong training would perhaps not be exactly targeted in those programs, but we will have an opportunity to address that, I believe, in the final budget negotiations that are going to be taking place between the two Houses, and with the appropriations. Being able to have a clear indication about where we in the Congress stand on these issues could be enormously instructive in terms of allocating scarce resources.
I just want to say, we are continually frustrated that we have not been able to get this matter back up in the Senate for debate. We note that we were on a two-track agenda just last week, where we did the trade issues during the day and the appropriations in the evening. We would like to suggest that we could do the trade issues, as they are going along, but we are prepared to move ahead to consider the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the evenings. We could consider it this week, next week, until we have reached a conclusion to it. We recognize the importance of it.
If we are looking around for priorities--we heard last week about the importance of a lockbox; and we ought to certainly address that issue before we adjourn--but I daresay for most families, this week is education week as their children go back to school. They want to know what they might be able to expect from the Congress, what kind of partnership should they be able to expect, and we should not just give them silence, which we effectively are giving them.
I welcome the fact that this week we are having Vice President Gore speak on the various aspects of education for a series of days in different parts of the country. I would like to see a national debate on education. I would like to see him out there speaking about it. I would like to have seen Governor Bush speaking about it. I would like to see the engagement of their ideas in the forums of their debates. But we ought to be discussing these issues here on the floor of the Senate. That is something I think is of importance.
Every day we let this go by, every day that we refuse to bring this up, I think we are denying the American people the kind of debate on an issue they care about, which they deserve. We hear both of the candidates talk about education. Let the record just demonstrate that we, on our side, want to get back and debate this issue. We want to take action on it. We are prepared to go forward on it. We do not need phone calls from the Vice President on this. We are prepared to go ahead--and go ahead today, tonight, any other time, on it.
We wish the Governor would call the Republican leadership and say: Look, I am interested in the education issues as well. Why don't you go ahead and have a good debate on that issue and in the Senate. Let me tell you what my positions are. Let's have a debate. Let's let the American people understand. Let's give them a window into this discussion, which is so important for families in this country. Let's not exclude them.
I can imagine, as the Vice President is going around talking about education, there are going to be people saying: What is happening in the Congress? I hope he understands that we, on this side, are prepared to have these matters debated, discussed, and resolved. We wish we could join with our colleagues on the other side to do so.
Historically, the issues on education have never been really partisan. We have some differences in terms of accountability, which the Vice President strongly supports. But we believe we ought to be able to have a debate and discussion in the Senate on this issue. We think we are denying the American people the opportunity.
So I would invite the Governor to contact the Republican leadership here
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We are glad to consider it in the evening time. We have now just about a month left in this session of the Senate. We ought to be resolving the issues on education, on the Patients' Bill of Rights, on prescription drugs, and on the increase in the minimum wage. If we did those four, if we took care of those four issues, I think we could say that this was a Congress of considerable achievement and considerable accomplishment.
Those are central, focused issues about which both of the candidates are talking. But they are speaking all over the country; they are not speaking to us here in the Senate. We have no debate on minimum wage. We are not getting back to the minimum wage or prescription drugs. We aren't getting back to education.
Since we are not going to be able to do that and have it rescheduled, we are going to have to take whatever steps we possibly can on whatever bills that are going to come up in the remaining days. We want to do this well. We want to do it with the understanding of the leadership on both sides. But if we are not going to be able to get focus and attention on these issues, then we are going to have to take whatever opportunity we have, on any of the measures that are coming down the line, in trying to press the people's business in the form of education. And that I commit we will do.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I know my colleague from Maine wants 5 minutes to respond. I ask unanimous consent that after my colleague from Maine speaks, my colleague from California have 5 minutes as in morning business, and that I then be able to introduce the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, first, I thank my friend and colleague from Minnesota for his usual graciousness in allowing me to respond to the comments made by my friend from Massachusetts, Senator KENNEDY.
Let's look at the facts. My colleagues on this side of the aisle have repeatedly said that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is our top priority. We produced a very good bill from the HELP Committee on which the Presiding Officer serves so ably. We produced a bill that provides a substantial increase in Federal funding for education to help improve education and the lives of children all over this Nation.
We also adopted an important, innovative, new approach, one that recognizes that Washington is not the fount of all wisdom when it comes to educational policy. We recognize that schools have different needs, that some need new computers. Others need to hire new math teachers. Still others need to concentrate on providing more programs for gifted and talented students. Schools have different needs. They want to tailor their policies to the needs of the local community.
That is what our bill would do. It would give schools more flexibility in spending Federal dollars while holding them accountable for what counts; that is, results, improved student achievement. We want to get away from the Washington-knows-best approach and let local school boards, teachers, and parents make the decisions about what their children best need.
Unfortunately, our efforts were derailed by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who insisted on weighing down the education bill with issues completely unrelated to education. The majority leader, Senator LOTT, has tried repeatedly to get a unanimous consent agreement that would allow us to return to the education bill that both sides agree is so important. Unfortunately, the latest effort was once again met with demands for unrelated, nongermane amendments that would sink our ability to produce this important legislation this year.
Those are the facts. Our side stands ready to return to the ESEA bill. We believe that is an extremely important priority. We are very proud of the bill we have produced. We believe it would make a real difference in the lives of American children. We would like to go forward. Unfortunately, we have been met with obstacle after obstacle from our colleagues on Senator KENNEDY's side of the aisle.
That is unfortunate. But the American people deserve to know why we have been unable to complete our work in this very important arena.
I yield the floor and again thank my colleague from Minnesota for his graciousness.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, I add my thanks to my fine colleague for allowing me to have this 5 minutes.
I say to my dear friend from Maine that we all seem to be saying we want to bring up the ESEA so we can debate education. Yet the format under which we would be going back to this bill would be a closed format. Those of us who think it is important, for example, that there be school safety, that we be allowed to offer sensible gun laws so we can, in fact, keep these guns away from these kids wouldn't be able to do it. We could not offer an amendment on school modernization. We could not offer an amendment to expand afterschool opportunities, smaller class sizes, more qualified teachers, and accountability for results.
When you say you want to discuss education, yet you shut out the ability for those of us on this side to offer these amendments that, by the way, many people in the country support by majorities of 80 percent, it seems to me you are not offering anything at all.
The interesting point is that my friends on the other side say: Well, you are just trying to delay things. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 1994, PHIL GRAMM on your side offered a gun amendment on the ESEA. All we are asking for is the opportunity to debate this and debate it so that it is relevant to the American people.
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