| Notes |
[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 7 (Wednesday, February 2, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: February 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
GOALS 2000: EDUCATE AMERICA ACT
The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
Mr. DANFORTH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. DANFORTH. Madam President, is an amendment in order?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a first- and a second-degree
amendment pending at this time.
Mr. KENNEDY. If the Senator will yield, I ask unanimous consent that
those two amendments be temporarily set aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered.
The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Amendment No. 1368
Mr. DANFORTH. Madam President, on behalf of myself and Senator
Jeffords, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Missouri [Mr. Danforth], for himself and
Mr. Jeffords, proposes an amendment numbered 1368:
The amendment follows:
At an appropriate place, insert the following:
It is the sense of the Senate that the speech made by Mr.
Khalid Abdul Mohammed at Kean College on November 29, 1993
was false, anti-Semitic, racist, divisive, repugnant and a
disservice to all Americans and is therefore condemned.
Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I have been vaguely aware of the speech
that is the subject of this sense-of-the-Senate amendment for some
time, but I have to say that I just read excerpts from the speech this
afternoon. I do not care to repeat them in this Chamber of the Senate,
but I have and will have a copy in my hands for Senators who will be
voting on this sense-of-the-Senate amendment. I do not want it to be,
however, a total mystery as to what was in the remarks, and therefore I
ask unanimous consent that excerpts from the speech be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the excerpts were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[Excerpts from remarks by Khalid Abdul Mohammad, Nation of Islam
National Spokesman, at Kean College, NJ, November 29, 1993]
Brothers and sisters--the so-called Jew, and I must say so-
called Jew, because you're not the true Jew. You are Johnny-
come-lately-Jew, who just crawled out of the caves and hills
of Europe just a little over 4,000 years ago. You're not from
the original people. You are a European strain of people who
crawled around on your all fours in the caves and hills of
Europe, eatin' Juniper roots and eatin' each other.
Who are the slumlords in the black community? The so-called
Jew . . . Who is it sucking our blood in the black community?
A white imposter Arab and a white imposter Jew. Right in the
black community sucking our blood on a daily and consistent
basis. They sell us pork and they don't even eat it
themselves. A meat case full of rotten pork meat, and the
imposter Arab and the imposter white Jew, neither of them eat
it themselves. A wall full of liquor keeping our people drunk
and out of their head, and filled with the swill of the
swine, affecting their minds. They're the blood suckers of
the black nation and the black community. Professor Griff was
right, when he spoke here . . . and when he spoke in the
general vicinity of Jersey and New York, and when he spoke at
Columbia Jew-niversity (sic) over in Jew (sic) York City. He
was right.
The DeBeers mines, Oppenheimer, our people, our brothers
and sisters in South Africa, hundreds of them lose their
lives. Sometimes thousands in those mines. Miles underground,
mining diamonds for white Jews. That's why you call yourself
Mr. Reubenstein, Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Silverstein. Because you
been stealing rubies and gold and silver all over the earth.
That's why we can't even wear a ring or a bracelet or a
necklace without calling it Jew-elry. We say it real quick
and call it jewelry, but it's not jewelry, it's Jew-elry,
`cause you're the rogue that's stealing all over the face of
the planet earth.
You see everybody always talk about Hitler exterminating 6
million Jews. That's right. But don't nobody ever ask what
did they do to Hitler? What did they do to them folks? They
went in there, in Germany, the way they do everywhere they
go, and they supplanted, they usurped, they turned around and
a German, in his own country, would almost have to go to a
Jew to get money. They had undermined the very fabric of the
society. Now he was an arrogant no-good devil bastard,
Hitler, no question about it. He was wickedly great. Yes, he
was. He used his greatness for evil and wickedness. But they
were wickedly great too, brother. Everywhere they go, and
they always do it and hide their head.
We don't owe the white man nothin' in South Africa. He's
killed millions of our women, our children, our babies, our
elders. We don't owe him nothing in South Africa. If we want
to be merciful at all, when we gain enough power from God
Almighty to take our freedom and independence from him, we
give him 24 hours to get out of town, by sundown. That's all.
If he won't get out of town by sundown, we kill everything
white that ain't right (inaudible) in South Africa. We kill
the women, we kill the children, we kill the babies. We kill
the blind, we kill the crippled, (inaudible), we kill 'em
all. We kill the faggot, we kill the lesbian, we kill them
all. You say why kill the babies in South Africa? Because
they gonna grow up one day to oppress our babies, so we kill
the babies. Why kill the women? They, they . . . because they
lay on their back, they are the military or the army's
manufacturing center. They lay on their back and
reinforcements roll out from between their legs. So we kill
the women too. You'll kill the elders too? Kill the old ones
too. Goddamit, if they are in a wheelchair, push 'em off a
cliff in Cape Town. Push 'em off a cliff in Cape Town, or
Johannesburg, or (inaudible), or Port Sheppston or Darbin,
how the hell you think they got old. They old oppressing
black people. I said kill the blind, kill the crippled, kill
the crazy. Goddamit, and when you get through killing 'em
all, go to the goddam graveyard and dig up the grave and kill
'em, goddam, again. 'Cause they didn't die hard enough. They
didn't die hard enough. And if you've killed 'em all and you
don't have the strength to dig 'em up, then take your gun and
shoot in the goddam grave. Kill 'em again. Kill 'em again,
'cause they didn't die hard enough.
We found out that the Federal Reserve ain't really owned by
the Federal Government. . . . But it ain't owned by the
Federal Government. The Federal Reserve is owned by, you just
touched on it a little while ago. (Jews.) It's owned by the
Jews.
Brother. I don't care who sits in the seat at the White
House. You can believe that the Jews control that seat that
they sit in from behind the scenes. They control the finance,
and not only that, they influence the policy-making.
No white Jews ever in bondage in Egypt for 400 years.
You're not the chosen people of God. Stop telling that lie.
Let's go a little further with this. Many of you put out the
textbooks. Many of you control the libraries. Lie-braries.
NBC, ABC, CBS, you don't see nothin', or makes sure we don't
see. Warner Brothers, Paramount, huh? Hollywood, period.
But [they] also are most influential in newspaper,
magazine, print media and electronic media.
These people have had a secret relationship with us. They
have our entertainers in their hip pocket. In the palm of
their hand, I should say. They have our athletes in the palm
of their hand.
Many of our politicians are in the palm of the white man's
hand, but in particular, in the palm of the Jewish white
man's hand.
The Jews have told us, the so-called Jews have told us, ve
(sic) ve, ve suffer like you. Ve, ve, ve, ve marched with Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Ve, ve, ve were in Selma, Alabama.
Ve, ve were in Montgomery, Alabama. Ve, ve, were on the front
line of the civil rights marches. Ve have always supported
you. But let's take a look at it. The Jews, the so-called
Jews, what they have actually done, brothers and sisters, is
used us as cannon fodder.
Go to the Vatican in Rome, when the old, no-good Pope, you
know that cracker. Somebody need to raise that dress up and
see what's really under there.
Mr. DANFORTH. Madam President, we in the Senate do spend a lot of
time making statements on one thing or another in passing sense-of-the-
Senate resolutions which really are just that, a basic statement of the
views of Members of the Senate. It is not often that we offer
amendments that we express ourselves by way of votes on matters that
are not governmental and are so far from the works of Government as
this speech in question. However, I think it is more that when there is
a public furor that has arisen over what has become a very well-
publicized speech which is plainly anti-Semitic and in addition to its
very strong anti-Semitic character also is anti-Catholic, antiwhite,
anti whatever, I do believe it is important for Members of the Senate
to speak out against bigotry whenever it occurs.
I would like to say that I have just received a copy of a statement
that was read in the House Press Gallery by Congressman Mfume, who is
chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and I would like to read
one paragraph from that statement. The Congressman says:
The Congressional Black Caucus appreciates the official
reply to our letter of 12 days ago and have been advised that
Minister Farrakhan has agreed to convene a press conference
here in Washington, DC tomorrow to address actions to be
taken regarding one of its spokespersons for making what we
consider to be evil and vicious remarks late last year at
Kean College of New Jersey, remarks that I have found since
the beginning to be racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-
Catholic, and homophobic. Nowhere in American life can we
give sanctuary to such garbage. He owes an apology to all
whom he has offended.
I would like to say that I applaud particularly those words of
Congressman Mfume.
I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask consent to cosponsor the
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, the remarks made by Mr. Muhammed at
Kean College are deeply offensive to every American who abhors
discrimination in all its ugly forms.
America's motto is ``E Pluribus Unum''--Out of Many, One. We are at
our strongest when we are united, free from the divisions caused by
bigotry based on race, religion, or gender.
The recent speech at Kean College sought to foster hatred, and to
divide Americans one from the other. It ought to be condemned, and I am
pleased to join Senator Danforth in sponsoring this amendment.
prejudice and free speech
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, the limits of free speech, and civilized
discourse, were sorely tested by the recent hate-filled address of
Khalid Abdul Muhammad at Kean College in New Jersey. But the Framers of
the Constitution had unpopular utterances in mind, when they drafted
the first amendment to the Constitution.
There is never a need to protect popular or majority opinion--but
minority views that would otherwise be stifled by popular outcry.
The speech in question is not protected, however, from well-deserved
criticism of its loathsome premise and the blind hatred and ignorance
that it substitutes for humanity and scholarship.
Speeches designed to inflame audiences, evoke prejudice and denigrate
minorities into scapegoats, have historically contributed to racial,
religious, and ethnic violence not through the strength of argument,
but by pandering to the most vulnerable elements of our society.
I was only a child during the Second World War, but there are
monuments to that dark period of our history in the graveyards and mass
burial grounds in villages whose very names continue to fill us with
horror at the crimes against humanity, that were committed there.
After that war that claimed American lives of every creed and color,
we began to look inward at our own unfinished business. We remembered
how hate and prejudice had led to war, and we began to address our own
history of racial discrimination and the civil rights movement chipped
away at the prejudices that for too long had excused both legal and
social barriers to equal opportunity.
We are fortunate to live in a country that can find strength in its
diversity among regions, peoples and racial, religious and ethnic
backgrounds. We can each take pride in our own uniqueness.
I am offended when prejudice shouts down justice and when hate is
substituted for love of our fellow men and women. But I am more
sorrowed at the effect of such speech on our young people who have no
historical perspective to measure this vitriol.
America is served by people working together to solve our
differences, and not by groups or individuals, who seek to divide us
through ignorance.
The Kean College speech sank under its won absurdity. The truth
prevails over rhetoric. Speeches, no matter how forcefully delivered,
can only be measured in their written context.
Stripped of forceful gestures, inflections and supporter led applause
from the audience, Muhammad's speech is reduced to babble.
It fails the test of being truthful.
Under the brilliance of the first amendment's guarantee of free
speech, these charlatans expose themselves, by their own words.
Muhammad is by no means a benefactor of the first amendment. In the
end, his right to free speech exposed his ignorance of the basic
principles that have guided America well for 200 years.
The first amendment only guarantees your right to speak--it does not
confer wisdom on the speaker.
I commend the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith for its efforts
in bringing these recent remarks into public debate. Its publishing the
offensive remarks verbatim in a full-page New York Times' advertisement
exposed them to deserved ridicule.
I commend the leaders of the African-American community who have
spoken out and disassociated themselves with these remarks. I thank and
commend those African-Americans who have spoken out in the wake of
these remarks.
I include Dr. Bill Gray, Dr. Ben Chavis, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Roger
Wilkins, and Congressmen Lewis, Wynn, Rangel, and Mfume and others as
contributing to this discussion.
Mr. Muhammad had to raise his voice to get attention. But it was the
voices of these members of the African-American community that the
public will remember and respect.
Mr. BRADLEY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. President, like most people in New Jersey and across
this country, I was shocked and angered by the remarks of Mr. Khalid
Abdul Mohammad on November 29, 1993, at Kean College, in New Jersey. It
seems Mr. Mohammad digressed into an ugly, hateful set of stereotypes
and racist remarks which painfully demonstrate that anti-Semitism is
all too alive in New Jersey and in our Nation. Anti-Semitism knows no
boundaries, and vitriolic remarks such as his should be examined
critically and honestly.
The remedy for verbal assaults such as Mr. Mohammad's can only be
open, responsible dialog. Only when the abhorrent statements can be
criticized, renounced, and challenged will they wither in the sunlight
of debate. The Senate will take a vote, and it will condemn the remarks
of Mr. Khalid Abdul Mohammad at Kean College on November 29, 1993.
The Senate should condemn these remarks.
Mr. President, to give you a flavor of what he said, let me give you
just one or two quotes. One, he said:
The so-called Jew, and I must say so-called Jew because
you're not the true Jew. You are a Johnny-come-lately Jew,
who just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe just a
little over 4,000 years ago. You're not from the original
people. You are a European strain of people who crawled
around on your all fours in the caves and hills of Europe
eating Juniper roots and eating each other.
(Mrs. Feinstein assumed the chair.)
Mr. BRADLEY. Madam President, that is an example of the kind of
statement that the Senate should condemn. At another point he said:
We found out that the Federal Reserve ain't really owned by
the Federal Government * * * But it ain't owned by the
Federal Government. The Federal Reserve is owned by, you just
touched on it a little while ago. It's owned by the Jews.
It makes you sick to your stomach. At another point he said:
Brother, I don't care who sits in the seat at the White
House. You can believe that the Jews control that seat that
they sit in from behind the scenes. They control the finance,
and not only that, they influence the policymaking.
Madam President, this is trash out of the Protocols of Zion. This is
the kind of misinformation and the kind of lies that fuel hatreds that
can flow to disaster. The Senate will condemn these words.
A little over a year and a half ago, when the episode and disorder
occurred in Los Angeles, the individual who was marked by that, Rodney
King, in his first public statement made a comment in which he said,
``Can't we all just get along?'' Not a tremendously ambitious hope, not
``Can't we all have adequate housing and a job,'' and this and that,
but ``Can't we all just get along?''
Madam President, the words that were spoken on November 29 by Mr.
Khalid Abdul Mohammad are directly in conflict with the hope expressed
by Rodney King in the wake of his own beating.
Madam President, there is enough pain to go around. There is enough
pain to go around in our country and around the world. We do not need
to inflict pain on each other by words, by words that can be
characterized no other way but as Jew baiting. Just as I would stand on
this floor and characterize words that were aimed at African Americans
in a totally disrespectful and erroneous way as race baiting. And that
is exactly how I would describe the words spoken at Kean College on
November 29.
The words flow from ignorance. The words flow from hatred. The words
are repulsive. And the Senate has justly condemned them.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment?
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Conrad). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, for the benefit of the Members, we
anticipate a rollcall in the next 3, 4, or 5 minutes. In the meantime,
the Senator from Mississippi wanted to make a comment. But we are
anticipating a rollcall on the Danforth amendment in a very few
minutes, for the information of the membership.
Mr. COCHRAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, pending the rollcall vote as described by
the manager, I will make some comments in support of the legislation.
First of all, I want to thank the managers of the bill for including
some language to clarify the intent of this legislation to provide
voluntary standards, guidelines, and challenges before our Nation's
schools to elevate the level of excellence among students in our
country.
Senators will remember that after the historic education summit,
which was held in 1989 in Charlottesville, VA, President Bush described
the importance of these steps to America's future by saying:
We must demand more of our students by imposing higher
academic standards in our classroom. If we are to improve our
standard of living, protect and defend our democratic
freedoms, and strengthen our moral character as a Nation,
nothing is more important than education.
At this same meeting with the Nation's Governors, which included
then-Governor Bill Clinton, a national strategy to expand educational
opportunities was developed. Six national education goals were
identified, and the America 2,000 plan was formulated.
It has become the bedrock for Federal, State, and local education
reform efforts over the last 4 years. Today, the Goals 2000: Educate
America Act, S. 1150, which is the successor to President Bush's
America 2000 plan, deserves our support. Low test scores, high dropout
rates, and insufficient preparation for the work force cannot be
tolerated in our country. They not only present a threat to our
economic future but to individual opportunities to participate fully in
our society.
Two critical parts of S. 1150 seek to address these problems. They
are the development of national academic standards based on the
national education goals for kindergarten through 12th grade students
and the increased integration of technology into the classroom.
To accomplish this, the bill establishes a multistep process for the
development and approval of national academic standards in core subject
areas. Working together, teachers and education experts defined these
standards--what students should know in each subject at each grade
level. Once developed, a bipartisan panel reviews and certifies them.
The national education goals panel, comprised of eight Governors, four
Members of Congress, and two administration officials, gives final
approval to these standards.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement of principles
regarding voluntary national education content standards, which was
unanimously adopted by the national education goals panel, be printed
in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
National Education Goals Panel: Statement on Voluntary National
Education Content Standards
In 1990, the President and Governors agreed on six national
education goals and committed themselves to a decade of
sustained action to meet them. The National Education Goals
Panel was created to measure and support the nation's
progress toward meeting these goals.
A consensus has emerged that to meet Goals 3 and 4 we
Americans must agree on the results we expect from students
in core academic areas, which is what ``content'' standards
define.
The National Education Goals Panel strongly supports the
development of clear, rigorous content standards by States
and local communities, and it believes that voluntary
national standards are essential to this effort. The
following principles will serve as the foundation for
continuing Goals Panel involvement in establishment of these
standards:
Voluntary
The Panel will participate only in the establishment of
voluntary national content standards that may serve as models
and resources for State and local school reform efforts.
The Panel would oppose any federal effort to require States
and local schools to use such national standards.
Academic
The Panel believes that voluntary national content
standards should address only core academic areas, such as
those stated in the National Education Goals.
Voluntary national content standards should not address
non-academic areas such as student values, beliefs, attitudes
and behaviors.
World Class
The Panel will endorse only those national content
standards which, though uniquely American, are at least as
challenging and rigorous as the academic expectations for
students in other countries of the world.
Voluntary national content standards must not be
compromised or watered down for any reason. The Panel
believes that our focus should be on helping each student
reach higher levels of academic achievement.
Bottom-Up Development
National and State content standards must be developed
through a consensus building process that involves educators,
parents and community leaders from schools and neighborhoods
across the country.
For these voluntary national education standards to be
useful, they must be relevant to each community using them.
The Panel has no intention of developing content standards on
its own and would oppose any standards that were not
developed through a broad based, participatory process.
Useful and Adaptable
National voluntary content standards must allow local
educators the flexibility to design their own curriculum
plans within the broad outlines of the standards. Standards
should focus upon a limited set of the most important and
lasting knowledge and skills, so they are useful for
teachers, parents and students, and represent the most
important knowledge, skills and understandings we expect
students to learn.
Voluntary national content standards will not be a
``national curriculum'' but, rather, provide a broad outline
of the kind of knowledge and skills necessary ``for
responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive
employment in our modern economy.'' (Goal 3)
The establishment of national voluntary standards is an
effort that has received strong support from the business
community, Republican and Democrat Presidents, Governors,
members of Congress, local educators and citizens from across
the country.
We believe that, if treated with care and wisdom, these
expectations of what students should know and be able to do,
will empower parents in every community in the nation to
demand more of themselves, their children, their schools, and
their government.
Mr. COCHRAN, That is why I believe that States and local communities
can use national academic standards on a voluntary basis as models to
upgrade academic programs in their schools and to provide more
information to parents about their children's education. I am convinced
that States which use these national standards as models can develop a
more challenging curriculum, one that will encourage students to stay
in school longer and enable them to bring advanced skills to our
rapidly changing and demanding workplace.
I am pleased that the managers of the bill have adopted several
amendments I proposed. Among them is an amendment to underscore that
responsibility for education lies with State and local communities.
Another stipulates that provisions of this bill will not restrict a
State's eligibility for funding under other Federal programs if they
choose not to participate in the activities outlined in this bill. The
Federal role in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act is that of a
partner, with a shared goal of improving the quality of education for
all children.
The National Governor's Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
the Business Round Table, as well as the Chief State School Officers,
and most other State and local education associations, endorse the
bill.
The other aspect of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act I strongly
support relates to technology in the classroom. It includes two
provisions. The first would provide Federal funding for States to plan
for the integration of technology into class-rooms for grades K through
12. The second would establish an Office Of Technology at the
Department of Education. It demonstrates the Federal commitment to
develop a long-range strategy for using technology in the classroom to
improve student learning and achievement.
I am convinced that the integration of technology in elementary and
secondary classrooms will improve students' educational opportunities
and enable teachers to broaden the scope of the curriculum in their
classrooms.
Evidence indicates that creative uses of technologies by skilled
teachers offer the promise to quickly and cost effectively restructure
education. Technologies help teachers create an environment where all
students are afforded rigorous, rich classroom instruction at a pace
that suits their learning style and in a way that gives them a more
active role in the learning process.
For this reason, I have worked with Senators Bingaman and Kennedy and
other members of the Labor and Human Resources Committee to add these
two provisions to the bill. I am pleased to report that funding for
both of these new programs was provided in the fiscal year 1994, Labor/
HHS/Education and related agencies appropriations bill, pending
enactment of the goals 2000 legislation prior to April 1, 1994.
Our Nation will not remain globally competitive without a work force
that has a solid foundation in basic education. Our workers must have
the skills to compete in a constantly changing world. To achieve this
goal, we must be a nation where education is a priority, where families
value learning, where teaching as a profession is honored, and where
all students are afforded an opportunity to participate in rigorous and
challenging educational programs.
S. 1150, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act takes important steps to
make us a nation of learners and the ultimate beneficiaries are our
Nation's greatest resource--our children.
Mr. President, I thank the distinguished managers of the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, if it is acceptable to the managers,
I would like to speak just for a couple minutes on the underlying
amendment.
Mr. President, let me say that this is not the amendment by our
colleague from Missouri, but the underlying amendment.
Let me say I am given to understand there are negotiations going on
right now to try to work out certain differences between the majority
and the minority.
Apropos of the comments by my colleague from Mississippi, let me say,
Mr. President, that there is a concern by a lot of us as to the role
that this Congress is going to play in the future of elementary and
secondary education in this country. I think in my own State of
Minnesota, maybe more than any other place in the country, it is pretty
clear that there are a couple of different courses that we can follow.
One of them is not the course suggested by the junior Senator from
Minnesota, my colleague, Senator Wellstone, or my dear friend and
colleague from Illinois, Senator Simon.
People in Minnesota generally in education have decided that the way
in which to improve the quality is by being able to measure the results
of elementary and secondary education. I laud the goals that are set
out in the amendment of my colleagues from Minnesota and Illinois, but
I would have opposed their amendment had it been kept in its original
form because it really does go against everything we are trying to do
in elementary and secondary education in my State of Minnesota.
The key to change in Minnesota has been giving people not
opportunity-to-learn standards designed in Washington, DC, or the basic
common denominator put together by those who estimate what it takes in
this country, but instead measurement of result, measurement based on
what students actually learn through the process of education.
We did something neat in the city of Minneapolis recently, when we
heard a school superintendent, who was really committed. He represented
a whole lot of resources. He turned out to be simply a person who was
so committed to improving and equalizing student performance in
Minnesota that he ended up tying his own salary to how well the
students in this huge city district were doing. Now, he is out
challenging all of the students to do better than they did before, and
to tell him and the other people in the school system how they can run
the system better.
His name is Peter Hutchinson, and Peter in one way or another has
engaged everybody in the city of Minneapolis now in a crusade for
improved student performance. He has gotten students and teachers,
colleges and community leaders, to sign up on a covenant. This is a
copy of the covenant, and it is a commitment by students, families,
teachers, principals, school staff, superintendents, the school board,
and the community to the education in Minneapolis. It is a set of goals
on which students promise to attend school regularly, work hard to do
their best in class, help to keep the school safe--a whole variety of
goals and objectives set by students, set by the parent or caring
adult, staff person, or superintendent.
For everybody who signs up on this covenant, the superintendent has
promised to sign the covenant, to deliver on his part of the
commitment. So far, I think he has 20,000 people signed up in the city
of Minneapolis, and he is going to have a lot of delivering he is going
to have to do.
But, Mr. President, I suggest that in the city of Minneapolis, people
have decided to change education because they need a change. And it is
a process in which they are determined to judge the quality by the
result. So the notion that we can develop a standard for Minneapolis or
we can develop a standard for any other place in the country better
than they can in their communities, which I think is the underlying
premise under the opportunity-to-learn standards, I reject.
I certainly do hope in the discussion over a compromise amendment
that these wishes expressed by people in our community and the people
in this city can be adequately expressed.
Mr. President, I rise to oppose the amendment offered by my
distinguished colleagues from Illinois and Minnesota.
Although I oppose this amendment, I support its objectives--to
guarantee a greater degree of equity and educational opportunity for
every school and for every child in America.
Our differences, Mr. President, are over how we achieve those common
goals. And, we also differ on who should decide how those common goals
should be achieved.
Mr. President, I believe this amendment represents an important test
of whether the Congress can play a constructive role in support of
State- and community-based education reform.
Our vote on this amendment also represents a critical crossroads in
how we reform elementary and secondary education in America.
We could head down one path I personally believe the President and a
majority of the House and Senate would prefer--a path that responds to
the need of an equal opportunity for every American child, but a path
that also respects America's diversity and the strong direction that
State- and community-based education reform is now taking, a path that
empowers parents, teachers, and local communities and a path that
encourages more educational choices, more diverse learning
environments, and an increased emphasis on rewarding schools and
students that succeed.
Or, Mr. President, we could head down a second path that is promoted
by this amendment--a path that could add billions of dollars in new
obligations to already overburdened States and schools, a path that
could produce an unprecedented level of prescriptive Federal
involvement in individual school districts and schools and a path that
would represent a major setback in the direction that State- and
community-based reform is now taking.
Mr. President, my views on this issue were reinforced during several
meetings I had with educators in Minnesota during the month of January.
One of those meetings was with Minnesota's new education
commissioner, Linda Powell. A second was with the new Minneapolis
superintendent of schools, Peter Hutchinson.
Both these education leaders are strong proponents of change and
improvements in education. They're also deeply committed to narrowing
the huge gaps in student performance levels that are based on race,
income levels, and other factors.
But, both Commissioner Powell and Superintendent Hutchinson are
deeply committed to educational strategies that focus on results--
strategies that reward teachers and schools based on improvements in
what students actually learn.
Following our meeting in January, Commissioner Powell wrote the
following commentary on the opportunity-to-learn standards provisions
of Goals 2000:
Although there have been assurances made that the
opportunity-to-learn standards will not become the framework
for all future authorization of federal education programs,
there is concern that the standards will indeed become the
criteria upon which funding allocations will be made.
Therefore, the key feature, from Minnesota's perspective,
is that the ``opportunity-to-learn standards'' remain
voluntary, not mandated.
That position is not surprising considering the shift that Minnesota
has been making over much of the last decade--away from accountability
that's based on inputs--rules that require so many of this and so many
of that--to accountability that's based on results--on what students
actually learn.
Nowhere is that policy shift more evident than the goals and
commitments of Minneapolis' new superintendent, Peter Hutchinson.
In fact, Peter Hutchinson is so committed to improving and equalizing
student performance in Minneapolis that he is tying his own salary to
achieving those very same goals. If student performance doesn't
improve, he and his colleagues who are now running the district simply
won't get paid.
Superintendent Hutchinson is engaging the entire city of Minneapolis
in this crusade for improved student performance by getting students,
parents, teachers, employers, and community leaders to all sign
something called the Minneapolis Covenant.
And, he is showing his own commitment to these goals by promising to
sign every single covenant he receives. So far, more than 20,000 of
these covenants have been turned in by Minneapolis public school
students, alone.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the
covenant to which I referred.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Education Takes Everyone: The Minneapolis Covenant
Join us on Thursday, January 20, at 5 p.m., Richard R.
Green Central Park School, 3416 4th Avenue South.
Celebrate the commitment of students, families, teachers,
principals, and school staff, the superintendent of schools,
the school board, community and you to education in
Minneapolis.
Come and share the excitement as schools bring Education
Takes Everyone: The Minneapolis Covenant pledges to a special
celebration of commitment with Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton,
Hennepin County Commission Chair Mark Andrew, Peter
Hutchinson, Superintendent, and the children of Minneapolis.
Covenant 1. a formal, solemn and binding agreement. 2. a
written agreement or promise usually between two or more
parties, especially for the performance of some action. It is
a declaration of intent by all parties who sign to help each
other achieve mutual objectives.
These promises are voluntary commitments made by
individuals to themselves and to others.
As a student:
I promise to attend school regularly; work hard to do my
best in class and schoolwork; help to keep my school safe;
ask for help when I need it; and respect and cooperate with
other students and adults.
I need teachers and school staff who care about me; people
who believe I can learn; schools that are safe; respect for
my culture and me as an individual; a family and community
that support me; and time with caring adults.
As a parent/caring adult:
I promise to have high expectations for my child as an
individual; help my child attend school and be on time; find
a quiet place for schoolwork and make sure work is done; help
my child learn to resolve conflicts in positive ways;
communicate and work with teachers and school staff to
support and challenge my child; and respect school staff and
the cultural differences of others.
I need teachers and support staff who respect my role as a
parent/caring adult; clear and frequent communication with
school; respect for my culture, and me and my children as
individuals; and a community that supports families.
As a staff person (teacher, support staff or
administrator):
I promise to show that I care about all students; have high
expectations for myself, students and other staff;
communicate and work with families to support students'
learning; provide a safe environment for learning; and
respect the cultural differences of students and their
families.
I need students who are ready and willing to learn; respect
and support from students, families, other staff and
administration; assistance from staff and administration in
removing barriers which prevent me from doing my best for
students; and respect and support from the community.
As Superintendent:
I promise to believe that all students can achieve; have
challenging expectations for students, families and staff;
remove barriers to improved performance on all levels;
promote education and the Minneapolis Public Schools; listen,
hear and respond to feedback from students, staff and the
community; and tell the truth in love.
I need staff, students, families and community committed to
education and lifelong learning; a staff willing to challenge
old assumptions and look for new ways to solve problems; a
school board that is focused on what students need to
achieve; students, staff and community members to communicate
their needs and listen to one another; and a community that
supports youth and families.
As a member of the School Board:
I promise to do all I can to meet the needs expressed in
this pledge by students, families, staff, superintendent and
the community. I will work to the best of my ability to
create a school district and community where everyone can
keep their covenants with each other.
As a member of the Minneapolis community:
I promise to respect, encourage and support students,
families and teachers; be an active, contributing partner
with the schools; make Minneapolis a safe and exciting place
for students, families and teachers; support learning
regardless of where it occurs; and provide jobs and post-high
school opportunities.
I need educated and responsible workers and fellow
citizens; an educational system that invites community input
and feedback; and opportunities to be involved in producing
educational results.
Mr. DURENBERGER. Both Commissioner Powell and Superintendent
Hutchinson told me during our recent meetings that the last thing they
need to achieve improved student performance is another round of
federally required mandates and rules telling them how to do their
jobs.
Educators in Minnesota want fewer mandates, not more. And, they want
the flexibility to decide themselves how to produce the improvements in
student performance that all of us--including the authors of this
amendment--are so deeply committed to achieving.
Mr. President, concerns about the role of opportunity to learn
standards have been at the heart of the debate over this legislation
since even before it was introduced.
And, the administration, the Nation's Governors, and many Members of
this body in both parties have worked hard to clarify the role that
opportunity to learn standards will play in meeting the objectives of
this bill.
Quite frankly, Mr. President, my preference would be to strike
opportunity to learn standards from this bill entirely. However, I
realize--for too many of my colleagues--that represents a totally
unacceptable option.
With that reality in mind, I have supported the good faith efforts of
Senator Jeffords, Senator Kennedy, and others, to agree on language
that makes it clear that opportunity to learn standards are one of
several strategies that may be used to improve school performance.
I am pleased, Mr. President, that this effort has resulted in a
reasonable agreement that is now embodied in this bill.
It is also now clear that meeting opportunity to learn standards will
not be a requirement for participating in any Federal program.
This amendment, Mr. President, would upset the delicate balance that
now exists between those who believe opportunity to learn standards
have no place in Federal education policy, and those who insist that
they be a part of more comprehensive reform.
Upsetting that balance could make this legislation impossible to get
passed. And, I agree, Mr. President, with those who will argue that
``no bill is better than a bad bill.''
Let us not ignore what is at stake here, Mr. President.
As envisioned by their strongest supporters, opportunity to learn
standards presume that every school, classroom, teacher, and student is
the same.
In the extreme, opportunity to learn standards also assume that a
common set of inputs will result in greater equity and produce a higher
common level of learning for every American student.
These are objectives we all share, Mr. President, but opportunity to
learn standards are the wrong way to go in trying to achieve them.
In addition to their top-down approach to reform, these standards
totally ignore the growing diversity of America's students and
communities and schools.
That diversity, Mr. President, can only be served through many
different teaching and learning environments that each community is
empowered to help design.
One of the biggest concerns I have heard expressed about these
standards, Mr. President, is what they might cost to achieve.
If the Federal Government were to impose uniform opportunity to learn
standards, States and local communities could be burdened with billions
of dollars in new obligations needed to achieve a common set of
conditions.
Conditions like higher and equal funding levels, lower student-
teacher ratios, better trained or educated staff, more computers, new
textbooks, more up-to-date facilities, more volumes in the library.
But, this huge new unfunded mandate is not all.
My single biggest fear of mandatory opportunity to learn standards is
that schools would never be held accountable for improving what
students actually learn.
One national education leader who has helped me understand this
reality, Mr. President, is Al Shanker, long-time president of the
American Federation of Teachers.
Al Shanker's view is that, if America is to compete in the world
economy, we cannot afford to wait until every school meets a common set
of input-oriented requirements.
He makes the same point about tough academic standards that he argues
should be applied to all students, regardless of the disadvantages they
may face.
If we avoid tough standards until all students can meet them, Al
Shanker points out, the rest of the world will pass us by. And, if we
excuse schools that do not yet have all the tools national standards
claim they need to be successful, their students will get left behind.
Shanker made that point forcefully at a hearing last spring sponsored
by the National Governors' Association when he said ``It's totally
wrong to hold the development of content and performance standards
hostage until you solve all of the equity issues, or most of the equity
issues, or even some of the equity issues.''
Mr. President, because of the strength and logic of his arguments, I
ask unanimous consent that a commentary by Al Shanker that appeared
recently in both the New York Times and New Republic magazine be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Let's Suppose
(By Albert Shanker, President, American Federation of Teachers)
For a moment, let's suppose. Suppose the United States were
the only industrialized country that did not participate in
the Olympics., A number of reports informed us that this was
a major disaster. Fewer American kids engaged in sports than
youngsters in other countries, fewer exercised and fewer had
good eating habits. It was clear that the physical well-being
of our nation was at risk.
Legislation was introduced to have the U.S. enter the
Olympics in the year 2000. First, there would be an American
Olympics to select the athletes to represent us. The business
community offered support. High school coaches applauded the
idea. Governors and the President met to proclaim Olympic
Goals: That the U.S. become first in the world in swimming
and diving, basketball, figure skating, the high jump. . . .
The President proposed legislation for a U.S. Olympic
Commission to establish the rules for participation, etc.
Just as Congress was bout to vote on the bill, some members
had second thoughts. They pointed out that community
recreation facilities and schools, where most of the training
would take place, were under local or state control. So it
was wrong for the federal government to be involved in trying
to raise us to Olympic standards. Also, some didn't like the
idea of getting youngsters psyched up to compete with one
another. (Isn't cooperation and teamwork what we need?)
The biggest problem was fairness. Critics said that some of
the kids competing would not have had as many opportunities
to run, jump and swim as others. Some youngsters might not be
able to complete because of poor prenatal care or because
they lacked adequate nutrition and health care as children.
Some might have spent their childhood in dangerous slums,
where they were kept inside for their own safety. They might
never have seen a well-equipped gym or had a chance to learn
a sport. But other youngsters would have had excellent
nutrition and health care, schools with fine athletic
facilities, even swimming pools of their won and private
coaching. On the whole, these youngsters would undoubtedly
perform better than kids who had not had their advantages.
Some members of Congress therefore argued that we should
not start domestic competition until all likely contenders
had had the same opportunities. So the House Physical
Education and Athletic Committee amended the legislation The
U.S. Olympic Commission would not only set standards of
participation; it would also shut down any state or local
competitions in which some contenders hadn't had access to
good prenatal care or nutrition or adequate gyms or swimming
pools. Also, for the first five years, no one could be
declared a winner or loser in any competition. After five
years, Congress would reconsider this ban.
Counterproductive? Yes, but this is how Congress is about
to deal with education. Congress is considering Goals 2000, a
bill that would get us academic standards and assessments
similar to those in other industrialized democracies whose
students routinely outperform ours. The system would include
consequences designed to get kids to work as hard as they do
in these countries because they know that something
important--like getting into college or getting a job--is at
stake. But supporters of ``opportunity-to-learn standards''
say that the new standards and assessments should not count
for anyone until all our children have the same
opportunities.
That's too bad. The Olympics example tells us we'd be
cheating poor kids if we denied them the right to compete
because they didn't have decent gyms. A lot of youngsters who
come from tough neighborhoods have been inspired by the
standards of Olympic competition, and they've overcome
obstacles and created their own opportunities. Something
similar would happen if we challenged disadvantaged
youngsters with clear and high education standards and
assessments they could study for. When held up to high
standards and shown the route to something they really
wanted, a lot of youngsters who now do nothing because
nothing is asked of them would begin working and succeeding--
at the very least, doing better than they do now. And, as the
Olympic example also tells us, there would be a lot of
pressure to make sure that gyms were built and coaches
trained in places where they didn't exist before.
The debate on equity has been wrong. The extreme right
talks as though willpower is all youngsters need to overcome
every obstacle. This has let conservatives off the hook for
improving children's circumstances. the extreme left speaks
only about equalizing circumstances and ignores what
youngsters themselves can do when quality is demanded of
them. In the real world, people participate in the game and
do the best they can--sometimes against great odds. That's
what we have to insist youngsters do as we insist that the
obstacles they face come down.
Mr. DURENBERGER. Mr. President, to repeat what I said earlier, we are
now at a critical crossroads in designing a proper and effective
Federal role in support of State- and community-based education reform.
This Senator would like very much to be able to support a Goals 2000
bill that achieves that objective.
But this amendment heads us in exactly the wrong direction--down a
path that this Senator--and, I believe, the President, the majority of
this Congress, and the American people believe is just plain wrong.
I intend to oppose this amendment, Mr. President. And, I urge my
colleagues to oppose it as well.
Thank you, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Missouri.
Mr. DANFORTH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Bradley and Senator Dole be added as cosponsors of my sense-of-the-
Senate amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Is there further debate on the amendment?
If not, the question occurs on amendment No. 1368, offered by the
Senator from Missouri [Mr. Danforth].
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time
for debate on the pending amendment be limited to 6 minutes, with 4 of
those minutes under the control of the Senator from New Jersey [Mr.
Lautenberg]; that following his remarks the remaining 2 minutes under
the control of Senator Dole, the Republican leader; and that upon the
completion of Senator Dole's remarks, the Senate proceed to vote
without any intervening action on the pending amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for
enabling me to respond to this very worthwhile amendment that has been
proposed by the distinguished Senator from Missouri and by the junior
Senator from Vermont.
It is so appropriate that the Senator from Missouri is the one who
would take the lead in this kind of a recommendation, to renounce the
kind of ugliness and hate that is portrayed in the remarks made by Mr.
Khalid Abdul Mohammad at Kean College in the State of New Jersey on
November 29.
It is particularly appropriate because the Senator from Missouri [Mr.
Danforth], is trained and is qualified and is ordained as a minister.
Even though on occasion there is a disagreement about a particular
matter because of partisan differences or maybe regional differences,
he has always spoken up as a man of principle, a person determined not
to permit emotions or bias to get in the way of logic. I thank him for
it and I am here to support the amendment and to add my name to the
list of cosponsors.
I want to say, Mr. President, that we should never restrict free
speech. But when we know that it is vicious, when we know that it is
designed to separate, when we know that it is designed to punish a
group or an individual, we ought to be prepared for that kind of
vitriol and we ought to have someone standing right behind that person
so that a rebuttal, if necessary, can be offered.
The assertions, the accusations that were made by Mr. Mohammad were
insulting not only to the Jewish community, because they were decidedly
and deliberately anti-Semitic, but it was an insult to any group that
he might have been talking about.
Were this a comment, a speech made about African Americans, I am sure
we would have heard just as vocally from the Senator from Missouri,
just as the Senate is now hearing from me. It is just as ugly, just as
unacceptable in this great society.
Yes, you are permitted to speak and at times even make speeches that
are painful. But the suggestions, the enormity of the disgrace that was
heaped upon the Jewish community by this ugly speech was not repudiated
by Mr. Farrakhan, the leader of this particular movement.
I am glad to see that Congressman Mfume, the leader of the Black
Caucus in the House, has stood up against this. So has Representative
Rangel from New York City. And so has Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Even as they speak of black pride, of black aspirations, even if one
has to turn a cheek sometimes to help a group that may be
disenfranchised or handicapped by discrimination, one cannot accept
this kind of striking out that we heard from Mr. Mohammad.
He is now invited to appear at Trenton State College, in my State of
New Jersey, by a group of students anxious to bring him there, with the
funds for his speech being raised out of the students' college funds.
Once again, we cannot say no, but we can describe our anger and our
distaste for this kind of speech. This is the kind of a speech that
separates our country, that invites anger, that invites assaults, that
invites hatred.
Mr. President, he advocated in the speech the killing of whites in
South Africa, hardly a way to reconcile differences.
So Mr. President, I join with the distinguished Senator from Missouri
in his condemnation of this kind of hatred.
I thank the majority leader for the opportunity to speak on this
matter.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized for 2
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized for 2
minutes.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague, Senator
Danforth, for offering the pending amendment. I had originally intended
to offer an amendment myself, so I am pleased that Senator Danforth has
taken the lead on this important issue.
Anyone who believes that Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam has
undergone a moderate makeover should read the transcript of a recent
speech given by Khalid Abdul Muhammad, the Nation of Islam's national
spokesman.
The speech, given to an audience of students at New Jersey's Kean
College last November, is a hateful spew of anti-Semitic, anti-
Catholic, and racist bombast that is offensive to all decent Americans,
regardless of race and religious background.
According to the Nation of Islam's national spokesman, Jews ``are the
blood suckers of the black nation and the black community,'' who
control the Federal Reserve, our Nation's finances, even the White
House.
He claims that if the white population does not leave South Africa
within 24 hours of majority rule, ``We kill the women, we kill the
children, we kill the babies, we kill the crippled * * * we will kill
'em all. * * *''
Even the Pope does not escape Muhammad's hate-filled insults.
To their credit, African-American leaders such as Jesse Jackson,
Benjamin Chavis, former Congressman Bill Gray, and sitting Congressman
John Lewis have all publicly denounced Muhammad and his racially
divisive remarks.
Unfortunately, the one person who has been strangely silent during
the whole controversy is Louis Farrakhan himself, who allows Muhammad
to continue to act on behalf of the Nation of Islam as national
spokesman. According to news accounts, Mr. Farrakhan believes that the
Government and the Jewish community ``Want to use [Muhammad's] words
against me to divide the house.''
If Mr. Farrakhan wants to enter the political and social mainstream,
then his actions will have to speak louder than the words of some of
his associates. If Mr. Farrakhan wants to participate in healing
America's racial wounds, then he will have to disassociate himself from
those who would use his name and his organization to preach a message
of hate and intolerance.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join with Senator Danforth in
supporting this important amendment.
I think the matter is very clear. I am certain the vote will be
unanimous. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question now
occurs on amendment No. 1368, offered by the Senator from Missouri [Mr.
Danforth].
The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. SIMPSON. I announced that the Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain],
the Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Nickles], and the Senator from Alaska
[Mr. Stevens] are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
who desire to vote?
The result was announced, yeas 97, nays 0, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 19 Leg.]
YEAS--97
Akaka
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boren
Boxer
Bradley
Breaux
Brown
Bryan
Bumpers
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Chafee
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Conrad
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
Danforth
Daschle
DeConcini
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durenberger
Exon
Faircloth
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Gorton
Graham
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Harkin
Hatch
Hatfield
Heflin
Helms
Hollings
Hutchison
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnston
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
Mack
Mathews
McConnell
Metzenbaum
Mikulski
Mitchell
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murkowski
Murray
Nunn
Packwood
Pell
Pressler
Pryor
Reid
Riegle
Robb
Rockefeller
Roth
Sarbanes
Sasser
Shelby
Simon
Simpson
Smith
Specter
Thurmond
Wallop
Warner
Wellstone
Wofford
NOT VOTING--3
McCain
Nickles
Stevens
So the amendment (No. 1368) was agreed to.
Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I ask permission to speak as if in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, I would like to take a cue from my
colleague's remarks and from the sense-of-the-Senate amendment that we
just passed. As you can tell, I am speaking extemporaneously. Events
have a way of catching up with us sometimes, and we do not necessarily
prepare written speeches. But I think it is important to speak to the
issue of this resolution, and to speak to the whole question of the
tenor in our country that gives rise to expressions of racism and
expressions of anti-Semitism.
I think in the first instance that it is important and appropriate
that the Senate take the action that it just did because I think it is
important and appropriate that every American of good sense and good
standing renounce the rantings of a madman, that would spew such venom
and such evil into our public discourse.
Mr. President, I would make the point that we ought to call it
exactly what it is. It is evil. It is evil to talk about killing
people. It is evil to talk about racism, to be racist, to suggest
racism as a course of action or the philosophy that someone can
embrace. Certainly, the statements of anti-Semitism that my colleague
just read and that we have all read at this point constitute such an
evil. We need to renounce it. We need to reject it. We need to have it
purged and expunged from our debate.
Mr. President, I would go a step further. That is to say and to
suggest to everyone that it is not simply enough that we take a
position and make a stand and make a speech saying we renounce anti-
Semitism, we renounce racism, we renounce these statements as they are
made because there are statements made in a lot of different quarters
and on a lot of different occasions by a lot of different people of the
same kind of import and in the same direction. We will not be able, Mr.
President, to wipe out, to eliminate racism, to eliminate anti-Semitism
unless we each and every one of us as individuals, and collectively
undertake to attack the foundation that gives fertile ground to those
kinds of evil expression.
I submit to you, Mr. President, that that is the challenge that we
are all called to in this town, to begin to take on these expressions,
to take on the conduct that gives rise to them, and to say we not only
reject the expressions but we reject the conditions that they are aimed
at. We reject pitting people against one another in a fight for scarce
resources or to suggest to people that their problems are the fault of
someone else. We reject giving people the out of saying that I am
better than you are because of my ethnicity or my race. We reject
giving people the excuse for failure that racism and anti-Semitism so
conveniently provides for all too many in our community.
I submit to you that it is incumbent on each and every one of us to
take a look at the entire picture, to address this issue as part of an
evil that will only be allowed to grow if we do not do what we have to
do to create a climate of opinion in our community, to create an
environment in our community that says that coming together as brothers
and sisters, coming together as Americans, coming together as human
beings united in our humanity is the only route for us to take in this
country and in this world.
We have seen all over the world the sparks of xenophobia, the sparks
of racism, polarizing people and setting up bloody horrible wars in
some parts of the world. We certainly here in America have an
opportunity and an obligation to nip in the bud any such sparks that
would divide us as a people.
Following the call that our President has issued to the American
people, following the call that I think was expressed in the resolution
that we just passed, as Americans, we have an opportunity, indeed an
obligation, given our history to begin to heal such wounds as may
exist, to break down such divisions as may have already been created,
to come together as a humans, and to say that we are supportive, one of
the other, of Americans, and that we are dedicated and we will dedicate
our lives in the fight against racism, in the fight against anti-
Semitism, in the fight against those forces that would divide us, and
set us one against the other in a futile pursuit of the evil such as
was expressed in this speech that Senator Bradley just read on the
floor.
So, Mr. President, again, I hope that I have not rambled, and I hope
that my words are taken in the spirit, in the context of an
extemporaneous speech. But to say that I think that we need to make
certain that we give no truck to the demagogs who would use racism and
anti-Semitism as a way of building on something, that we begin to
remove the very foundations of whatever it is that they think that they
can address, that we begin to attack, aggressively attack the
environment that anyone would for a moment think gives rise or gives
fertile ground to the kind of racism as was expressed in that speech,
and that as Americans we are very clear in coming together and saying
that we have moved into a new age, and that new age says that we are a
people, we are one people, and we are male and female, black and white,
Jew and Gentile, Christian and Moslem, and that in that healthy mix is
built the fabric of American society.
As we come together as Americans we will build on our diversity, we
will use our diversity as the basis from which we grow as opposed to
the cauldron upon which we are pitted one against the other.
That is the approach that I believe that this Senate has adopted
today. That is certainly the approach that I stand for, and I know the
Chairwoman believes in as well. And I hope that the message goes forth
this afternoon loud and clear that that is the only acceptable
approach, and the only acceptable position in these United States, in
this time, and that working together we can build a stronger nation in
which such expressions are absolutely cast outside of the realm of
responsible conversation and discussion.
Mr. MITCHELL addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, several Senators have inquired as to the
schedule for the evening. There are a number of amendments remaining to
be considered on the bill. It is my intention that we will continue in
session. Further rollcall votes will occur unless an agreement to the
contrary is reached and announced. Therefore, Senators should be
prepared to remain for the evening for some time yet to come as we
continue to make progress on this bill.
I thank my colleagues for their patience and cooperation.
Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Feinstein). The Senator from North
Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set the
pending amendment aside so that I might be able to offer an amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Amendment No. 1369
(Purpose: To provide for gun-free schools)
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan], for himself and
Mr. Conrad, proposes an amendment numbered 1369.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
TITLE --GUN-FREE SCHOOLS
SEC. 01. SHORT TITLE.
This title may be cited as the ``Gun-Free Schools Act of
1994''.
SEC. 02. GUN-FREE REQUIREMENTS IN ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY
SCHOOLS.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 2701 et seq.) is amended--
(1) by redesignating title X as title IX;
(2) by redesignating sections 8001 through 8005 as sections
9001 through 9005, respectively; and
(3) by inserting after title VII the following new title:
``TITLE VIII--GUN-FREE SCHOOLS
``SEC. 8001. GUN-FREE REQUIREMENTS.
``(a) Requirements.--
``(1) In general.--No assistance may be provided to any
local educational agency under this Act unless such agency
has in effect a policy requiring the expulsion from school
for a period of not less than one year of any student who is
determined to have brought a weapon to a school under the
jurisdiction of the agency.
``(2) Definition.--For the purpose of this section, the
term ``weapon'' means a firearm as such term is defined in
section 921 of title 18, United States Code.
``(b) Report to State.--Each local educational agency
requesting assistance from the State educational agency that
is to be provided from funds made available to the State
under this Act shall provide to the State, in the application
requesting such assistance--
``(1) an assurance that such local educational agency has
in effect the policy required by subsection (a); and
``(2) a description of the circumstances surrounding any
expulsions imposed under the policy required by subsection
(a), including--
``(A) the name of the school concerned;
``(B) the number of students expelled from such school; and
``(C) the types of weapons concerned.''.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I offer this amendment for consideration
this evening. I understand this legislation deals with America's
schools, with learning, with students, and with our education system.
It is hard to talk about learning and education unless, and until, we
have a safe environment for students in our school systems.
Let me just show you the headline from a Washington Post article
from, January 27 of this year: ``School Shootings Break Out in the
District of Columbia''--school shootings; not just shootings, school
shootings.
I recently visited schools here in the District of Columbia. It is
probably not surprising to anybody anymore; but a decade ago we would
have been shocked if we saw what I did when walking through the front
door of the school. I did not see books or a smiling teacher with an
apple. I saw a metal detector. Why do we need metal detectors at the
front doors of our schools? Because all too often, we are finding that
weapons are coming into our schools.
Shootings are breaking out in the classrooms and in hallways of
America's schools.
I offer an amendment along with my colleague from North Dakota [Mr.
Conrad] called the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994. My colleagues,
Congressman Miller from California and Congressman Durbin, have offered
this bill in the House of Representatives, and I offer the companion
bill here in the Senate.
It is a very simple piece of legislation. It simply says that school
districts who avail themselves of Goals 2000 Funds shall have in place
a policy that says if students bring guns to school, they are subject
to a 1-year expulsion.
Simply translated, all across this country students should
understand, if you bring a gun to school, you are going to be expelled
from school. Schools and guns do not mix. There simply is no place in
America's schools for guns.
This is the Washington Post front page that I described moments ago,
January 27, less than a week ago; ``School Shootings Break Out In
D.C.''
Let us find a way, as a matter of public policy, to tell all students
across this country, and to tell school districts across this country,
that schools and guns do not mix. We want a uniform policy; if a
student brings a gun to school, he or she is expelled from school. That
is what my amendment does.
I could give you more information about some of the tragedy that has
occurred in our schools in recent years. Many of you have recited this
and we have discussed it during the crime bill debate: Between 1986 and
1990, 71 people, including 66 students, were killed by guns in schools;
another 201 were severely wounded in schools; and 242 were held hostage
at gunpoint in schools.
I offer this amendment in the construct of creating a bill on
education that I think has a lot to commend it.
I appreciate very much the wonderful work of Senator Kennedy, and the
work of Senator Jeffords, and so many others who spoke eloquently on
this floor about what we need to do to create goals for education in
this country.
They are on the right track, and have brought to this country a
public policy discussion that is long overdue.
I simply added to it an amendment, and ask for its consideration:
that we decide to separate guns and schools and send a message all
across this country, if you bring a gun to school you are going to be
expelled.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I understand the sense of my good
friend from North Dakota about the use of guns in schools.
We want to try and deal with the problems of violence in schools as
we do violence in communities. Obviously, there should be no place for
guns in the schools of this country.
The tragic circumstance is that in many cases where children have
guns in schools, it is for self-protection. They are not the ones who
perpetrated the violence. Clearly, those individuals who have been
exploited, who have been in some instances beaten and treated harshly,
and who in many cases are extremely young--those individuals feel that
their only way to protect themselves, tragically, is through the
possession of a gun.
We are sympathetic to their plight. I would like to try to see if we
cannot work with the Senator on this issue. I have great respect for
him. It is rarely in this body that I am put in a position of not being
stronger on the issues of guns than my colleagues. But this is one that
I would like to try to see if we cannot work out a process for dealing
with the central thrust of the Senator's amendment. I would also like
to demonstrate some sensitivity for what I saw, really in the last 10
days, when I spent an afternoon with eight police officers in Boston
who were in charge of working with gangs to disband them and to
identify those who were involved in the greatest degree of violence,
and treating them with the appropriate kind of tough law enforcement.
The police officers also were attempting to use some of the
preventative options in the omnibus crime bill, such as trying to wean
young people away from gangs and move them into more productive
lifestyles.
So I have great empathy for the Senator's concerns, and I would like
to try to work with him and see if we cannot accommodate his
objectives.
My only hesitation at this point is putting a mandate for children on
this, which may very well not deal with the problems of violence and
cause some serious injustice to younger people that might put them on a
road towards a more difficult life. So I do not know if the Senator
will permit us to perhaps set it aside and see what we might be able to
work out. I certainly would be willing to do so.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, if the Senator from Massachusetts will
yield, I have no objection to setting it aside for the moment, and will
be happy to visit about it.
May I just respond to two points?
Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.
Mr. DORGAN. As I said, I recently visited a couple of inner-city
schools and there are metal detectors at the front doors. I do not
doubt that there are students who will decide, maybe, to bring a weapon
to school because they feel threatened. But that is precisely the wrong
thing to have happen.
We must find ways to keep all guns out of schools. It is hard to be
moderate on this question. It is hard to be moderate because I have
talked to kids in the schools. I just had a kid say to me a month ago
``You do not understand.'' This is 16-year-old kid who said:
You do not understand. You might look at someone sideways
and that person thinks you smirked at them, and you might get
a bullet after school. You might be the victim of a terrible
crime. You do not understand what this is all about. You've
got to avoid looking at people. You've got to avoid giving
somebody the impression you are giving them the wrong look.
You've got to stay out of trouble. You've got to avoid all
kinds of circumstances.
``It's a tough life,'' he told me.
I do not know how I would react, nor do most of you in those same
circumstances. But I tell you how we should react. No one who wants
protection should be allowed to bring a gun to school for protection.
We certainly ought to weed out those kids who would bring guns to
school to terrorize others.
The Senator from Massachusetts said it well, and no one needs to talk
about his record on the issues. It stands above almost all others in
this Chamber.
I would just say there is a time when you say let us not be moderate
on the issues. Let us make sure that we send a message all across this
country at a time when crime is becoming epidemic and violent crime is
epidemic in America--we must say to kids, ``Do not bring guns to
school. To do so will bear certain consequences.''
I wanted to make those points because I think this is the place to
say it. I would be happy to set this amendment aside and be glad to
visit with Senator Jeffords and Senator Kennedy in the ensuing hours.
By that I mean the amendment will continue to lay before the Senate and
set aside the vote I am talking about.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the amendment being set
aside?
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Madam President, I certainly commend the Senator for
bringing this amendment before us. Certainly we all are deeply
concerned about guns in schools. However, the wording of it disturbs
and it might be something we can work at.
In Vermont I know, for instance, just the other day a kid got a
birthday present when he was on his way to school. All sorts of
problems followed. Most importantly, my philosophy is that this is a
matter the State ought to control itself. We ought not to mandate gun
laws on the States. Therefore, I have a hard time philosophically
agreeing to amendments of this kind.
For instance, I know other practices. In Vermont we bus kids from
long ways. Sometimes they may go hunting in different places after
school, and will end up driving with their friends to hunt deer. This
is certainly not what should be considered at this time.
I feel strongly this ought to be left to the States.
However, I would be glad to work with the Senator with respect to his
amendment to see if we can develop some sort of policy statement.
And, with that, I would withdraw my reservation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, if it is agreeable with the Senator,
then, we would temporarily set it aside and attempt to work with the
Senator to see if we cannot accommodate the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. I am informed it is not necessary to formally
set it aside; that that would just be the case.
Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator has submitted it. I believe we have to ask
consent to set it aside.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. I interpret the Senator has requested
unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the amendment.
Is there objection?
There being none, the amendment is temporarily set aside.
Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Amendment No. 1370
(Purpose: To strike all references to opportunity-to-learn standards)
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask
for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg] proposes an
amendment numbered 1370.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 2, in the table of contents, strike the item
relating to section 218.
On page 4, line 6, insert ``and'' after the semicolon.
On page 4, strike lines 7 and 8.
On page 4, line 9, strike ``(D)'' and insert ``(C)''.
On page 5, strike lines 6 through 9.
On page 5, line 10, strike ``(D)'' and insert ``(C)''.
On page 5, line 18, strike ``(E)'' and insert ``(D)''.
On page 7, strike lines 4 through 8.
On page 7, line 9, strike ``(8)'' and insert ``(7)''.
On page 7, line 15, strike ``(9)'' and insert ``(8)''.
On page 7, line 20, strike ``(10)'' and insert ``(9).
On page 7, line 23, strike ``(11)'' and insert ``(10)''.
On page 8, line 3, strike ``(12)'' and insert ``(11)''.
On page 8, line 5, strike ``(13)'' and insert ``(12)''.
On page 8, line 8, strike ``(14)'' and insert ``(13)''.
On page 17, line 10, strike ``, voluntary'' and insert
``and voluntary''.
On page 17, lines 11 and 12, strike ``and voluntary
national opportunity-to-learn standards''.
On page 22, line 10 insert ``and'' after ``standards,''.
On page 22, lines 11 and 12, strike ``, and opportunity-to-
learn standards''.
On page 22, line 13, strike ``standards,'' and insert
``standards and''.
On page 22, lines 15 and 16, strike ``and voluntary
national opportunity-to-learn standards''.
On page 24, lines 3 and 4, strike ``voluntary national
opportunity-to-learn standards,''.
On page 24, line 6, strike ``213(e)'' and insert
``213(c)''.
On page 29, line 11, insert ``and'' after the semicolon.
On page 29, strike all beginning with line 12 through page
30, line 2.
On page 30, line 3, strike ``(5)'' and insert ``(3)''.
On page 36, beginning with line 23, strike all through page
40, line 5.
On page 40, line 6, strike ``(e)'' and insert ``(c)''.
On page 43, line 24, strike ``content, student performance,
and op-'' and insert ``content and student performance''.
On page 44, line 1, strike ``portunity-to-learn''.
On page 44, line 12, strike ``content,'' and insert
``content and''.
On page 44, line 13, strike ``, and opportunity-to-learn''.
On page 44, line 17, strike ``content, student
performance,'' and insert ``content and student
performance''.
On page 44, line 18, strike ``and opportunity-to-learn''.
On page 44, line 21, strike ``standards,'' and insert
``standards and''.
On page 44, lines 22 and 23, strike ``, and the voluntary
national opportunity-to-learn standards''.
On page 45, line 24, strike ``voluntary national
opportunity-to-learn stand-'',
On page 46, line 1, strike ``ards,''.
On page 46, line 2, strike ``213(e)'' and insert
``213(c)''.
On page 49, strike all beginning with line 9 through page
51, line 7.
On page 59, line 8, strike ``231(d)'' and insert
``231(c)''.
On page 63, strike lines 17 through 20.
On page 63, line 21, strike ``(d)'' and insert ``(c)''.
On page 79, strike lines 6 through 17.
On page 79, line 18, strike ``(e)'' and insert ``(d)''.
On page 79, line 21, strike ``(f)'' and insert ``(e)''.
On page 80, line 7, strike ``(g)'' and insert ``(f)''.
On page 80, line 15, strike ``(h)'' and insert ``(g)''.
On page 80, line 21, strike ``(i)'' and insert ``(h)''.
On page 81, line 1, strike ``(h)'' and insert ``(g)''.
On page 81, line 3, strike ``(j)'' and insert ``(i)''.
On page 82, line 21, strike ``(k)'' and insert ``(j)''.
On page 83, line 10, strike ``(l)'' and insert ``(k)''.
On page 85, line 19, strike ``(j)'' and insert ``(i)''.
On page 88, lines 8 and 9, strike ``comprehensive State
opportunity-to-learn standards,''.
On page 107, line 13, strike ``213(e)(1)(B)'' and insert
``213(c)(1)(B)''.
On page 113, lines 7 and 8, strike ``promote the strategies
described in section 306(d),''.
On page 114, lines 24 and 25, strike ``to promote the
strategies described in section 306(d)''.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
amendment be considered in its present form as it amends a series of
sections of the bill and that it be deemed in order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, this amendment addresses the issues which
have been talked about at some length already today on this bill, which
are the opportunity-to-learn standards. I think that issue should be
reviewed a little bit so everybody understands what we are talking
about.
What this amendment does is essentially eliminate the opportunity-to-
learn standards. Now that does not fundamentally undermine the bill, to
eliminate those standards.
Let us talk about what this bill does. This bill first and foremost
sets out the goals--which were agreed to with a couple of additions at
the Charlottsville Governors Conference, as called by President Bush
and which, of course, then Governor Clinton was the chairman of the
Governors Conference and was a major player in designing those goals,
which goals, everybody agrees, are excellent and very appropriate--and
takes those goals and makes them the goals of the Nation as designed by
this bill, Goals 2,000.
In addition, the bill, in an attempt to address those goals, sets out
a variety of steps. It creates a fund which is available to the States
to try to set up plans for the purposes of designing school systems and
assisting in developing school systems within the States which meet the
goals of the Nation as set forth at the Governors Conference. It has a
section which, as part that effort, deals with assessment and deals
with content. And in the assessment area, which I happen to consider to
be critical, we are talking about assisting the States in designing
methodologies which will allow them to determine where their students
have ended up in the school in proficiency, so that a town in New
Hampshire, third graders can be assessed in relationship to a town in
California or a town in Massachusetts and, hopefully, even in a town in
Japan and a town in Germany and we can get a sense of where we stand.
That is a very important initiative which is appropriate.
But in the effort to accomplish this, of instituting into the Federal
language the goals of the Governors Conference and making sure those
goals are attained, there was sort of a sidetrack that occurred here,
and we went off on a tangent. And what that tangent became known as is
opportunity-to-learn standards.
Earlier in this debate, I pointed out basically the opportunity-to-
learn standards amount to the control over the methodology of manner
which teaching occurs.
We were successful, and I very much, of course, appreciated the
chairman of the committee and the floor manager on the Republican side
accepting a series of amendments which made it clear that in designing
these opportunity-to-learn standards, they would not be mandated on the
States.
But the opportunity-to-learn standards still will exist and they
still will be available for a variety of activities in the area of top-
down management of education. I believe there is a consensus in this
Senate that the best form of education is that education which occurs
and is controlled at the local level, where the local folks have the
decision process in their hands--the teachers, the school boards, the
principals, and the parents. It is essential that, in designing and
addressing our educational system in this bill, we not do something
which is fundamentally going to undermine that in an attempt to
accomplish the goals.
However, by having these opportunity-to-learn standards in this bill,
we do something which I believe fundamentally undermines that local
control over education. The opportunity-to-learn standards are
pervasive. We went over this earlier, but I think it is worth
reviewing. They affect almost all functions of education. They affect
the curriculum, they affect class size, they affect the manner of
education.
Let me just review it again. Opportunity-to-learn standards shall
address the quality and availability of curricula, instructional
material, and technologies; that is, designing the methodology that is
to be used to educate.
It shall address the capabilities of teachers to provide high quality
instruction to meet diverse learning needs.
It shall address the extent to which teachers and administrators have
ready and continuing access to professional development, including the
best knowledge about teaching.
It shall address the extent to which curriculum, instructional
practices, and assessments are aligned to content standards.
And, the catchall phrase, it shall address other factors that the
council deems appropriate to ensure that all students receive a fair
opportunity to achieve the knowledge and skills described in the
voluntary national content standards and the voluntary national student
performance standards certified by the council.
It is a process for developing national standards on a methodology of
teaching. Granted, because of the amendments that we have placed in
here, they will not be mandates on the States, but still they will be
denied this national standard.
It is a standard which I think inevitably will be used at the local
level to try to wrest control from the local level in designing
curriculum.
Why is it needed? It is not needed. That is the whole point. We do
not have to take this step of Federal officiousness in order to
accomplish what the basic thrust of this legislation is and what the
goals were of the Governors Conference and what the goals are of the
President, which is to improve education and reach the national goals.
If we want to reach the national goals, let us leave it up to the
imagination of the local communities to decide how they do it, but let
us give them the standard to determine whether or not they got there
through the assessment process.
So you can eliminate this entire activity, this opportunity-to-learn
activity, which is basically a grand scheme to design a national
curriculum and create a national methodology. You can eliminate this
one section and have absolutely no impact on the substance and the
energy of this bill and you will in fact significantly improve this
bill because you will make it clear beyond question that the goals are
going to be obtained by energizing the local communities--the parents,
the teachers, the principals, and the school boards--and not by having
some Federal group designing a plan that the local communities feel
they must adopt.
And so this amendment, which has to some degree already been debated
because the issue has been raised--and I know my colleague from
Minnesota and my colleague from Illinois wish to go the other way and
make it much more in the amendment which they offered, which has been
set aside, which is now subject to a second degree by the chairman of
the committee, to make these opportunity-to-learn standards much more
of a mandatory event on the States and the communities--they raised the
whole issue and they argued for where it should be mandatory. What I am
arguing for is the fact it should not even be in here and it makes to
sense to have it.
And so, as a result, I have offered this amendment, which I believe
improves the bill substantially, makes this bill a force for
maintaining local control, while obtaining the Goals 2000 as they are
outlined in the bill.
Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Madam President, I rise in somewhat reluctant
opposition to the amendment. I do so primarily because this has been a
very, very difficult area. In fact, I believe it was this area, more
than anything else, which was in much different form, which caused the
defeat of the conference report which came back after the last attempt
to pass similar legislation
However, we have worked tediously since that time to make sure there
would be a compromise and an agreement on the opportunity-to-learn
portions of the bill, so that it could be accepted at least a majority
of the Members of the Senate.
I hope and believe that we have done that. We have turned aside
amendments to strengthen the opportunity-to-learn standards. We are now
turning aside attempts to weaken them. And now, the ultimate is being
offered and that is to strike the whole section.
I think it is important to keep in mind why we are here. This is a
crisis time. It was pointed out to us in 1983. That was more than 10
years ago. Here it is, 10 years later and we are just getting around to
establishing the goals. Time is running out. In fact, it has run out in
a lot of respects. However, we have to deal with the situation as we
see it. The situation, as I see it, is that we do not have time to wait
and see if the local governments will have the ability, without
assistance from a purview or review of national standards and national
ideas and all, to get the minds that are working on this project to sit
down and develop the kinds of standards that are necessary to ensure
that when a child is in school, he or she will receive the education
necessary to attain the goals.
I see nothing evil about allowing groups to get together to establish
recommendations--voluntary recommendations--on
what could be done or should be done in order to meet the goals. On the
opportunity-to-learn standards, opportunity-to-learn means that when
kids get to school, they are going to have a chance to learn. Let me
give an example of some of the problems we are dealing with.
Right now, 31 percent of our schools were built before World War II.
Whether or not those schools are adequate to provide an opportunity to
learn is a very serious question in many, many of our areas. Almost all
of our other schools were built before 1960, or in the 1960's. Thus,
they are over 30 years old.
That is just one example. There are many other examples of real
barriers to the ability to learn. Another, which I think is very
important is the huge disparity between suburban and urban areas on the
utilization of modern technology and computers. Yet we should know what
difference it makes, and what kinds of standards are necessary in order
to provide the kind of education which will equip our young people to
be ready for the next century--or to be ready for this century--with
the ability to get into jobs that will require computer skills.
These are some of the advantages we have been talking about. We have
done everything we can to provide that these are totally voluntary; no
one needs to follow them. They are there only as a result of the study
of those who understand what is necessary in the modern day to share
that information throughout the country, and help in that area. We have
taken out all the requirements that were previoulsy in the bill
requiring the use of these standards, to learn exactly what was going
to be in the standards, and we have left it up to the people who will
be establishing those standards. But they are all voluntary; totally
voluntary. There is nothing at all that requires anybody to follow any
of them.
I think we have done everything we can to make sure this bill
establishes the procedures and goals of providing help to our local
schools so they are able to understand what they must do if they are
going to be able to provide an adequate education or opportunity to
obtain an adequate education. For this reason, I reluctantly will
oppose it.
I just want to say I think we have done everything we can to arrive
at a compromise here which will really not--should not--offend anyone.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, what we have attempted to do in the
legislation, as an important part of the legislation, among other
matters, is to recognize that the real challenge today is to set world-
class standards for our schools. We have come to this conclusion as a
result of extensive hearings and studies that have been done by a wide
variety of different people--thoughtful parents, teachers,
academicians, and others--they recommended we encourage what we call
content standards, or agreements about what a child ought to know.
The second step after content standards is the assessments, the
methods to determine whether children know the material, at a
particular time. This agreement has been generally, again, worked out
over a very considerable period of time and will, I think, really can
help us devise a way of evaluating what children know in a more
effective way than the rote tests that are used in too many of our
schools today. I think this has been a very constructive process.
What we are hopeful of being able to achieve with this legislation is
to urge States to go back a step as we are addressing content standards
to make sure that the States are going to give some consideration to
having all children start off, so to speak, at the same starting line.
We had a discussion about this--Senator Simon, Senator Wellstone, and
I--earlier. They would like to write in these opportunity-to-learn
standards. A number of States, including my own, have developed
approaches which very much move us in the same way that has been
suggested when the opportunity-to-learn standards were initially
proposed.
Vermont has taken a certain way of doing this. My own State of
Massachusetts is involved in this.
In the areas which have the most difficult education challenges,
communities like Brockton, MA; Holyoke, MA; and Chelsea, MA, teachers,
school boards, and parents have been involved in this process and
support this way of helping schools effectively even though it is not
the tight opportunity-to-learn standards. We have worked out a process
in which, so to speak, we can help students start out at the same
starting line.
It is important, I believe, that we have the States work this out--
through their own way, perhaps, and do it in a way which is relevant to
their own situation. We believe--I do, and I think for the most part
the members of the committee do--that addressing the opportunity is a
very important ingredient.
We have taken the position that States must address the issue, but
that they ought to be able to do it in their own way. I think that is
the appropriate course we should take. To abandon any kind of
understanding of that concept I think undermines, in a very important
way, what we are trying to do with the content standards, as well as
the assessments, in terms of children.
Though I understand the Senator's suggestion on this, I hope the
Senate will not accept his amendment. The committee substitute
incorporates a compromise on the question that is widely supported on
both sides of the aisle. There are many approaches to the problem.
While the OTL standards are just one approach, as I mention, they are
nonetheless a valid one and should not be prohibited. It is important
that the Senate continue to require the States to incorporate
strategies for giving all students a chance to learn challenging
academic content. To merely raise the academic standards may make us
feel we are improving schools, but the reality may be, for all we do,
students will be no better off than they are today.
The National Governor's Task Force states:
Our current system systematically deprives many students of
these opportunities. The reasons vary and include low
expectations, conflicting policies, and inadequate or
inappropriate resource allocation.
So just as the reasons vary, so do the solutions. The OTL standards
are a valid approach but some States, like Massachusetts, have
foundation budgets which distribute their funds to schools based not on
how much money they decide they have to spend on education, but rather
on what they have determined are the necessary elements for a good
education. Many approaches are valid, and so I think the issue has to
be addressed.
We have addressed it in the way I have outlined and which later we
will consider again when we deal with the Simon amendment. If the
amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire is accepted, we are taking
that aspect of this whole concept and effectively eliminating it. Maybe
some of the States will go ahead in any event, but we will certainly, I
think, be undermining in an important way what experience has led us to
believe to be an important element of this whole reform strategy.
So I hope the amendment will not be accepted. I understand the
Senator's position, and I respect that position. I acknowledge a number
of States have moved in different ways to address some of these issues,
but I do think that it is important as we are addressing the totality
of this issue that we not accept the Senator's approach.
Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I would like to briefly respond and get to
a vote because I am sure everybody would like to get home this evening.
Let me make a couple of points to respond to both the chairman and the
ranking Republican on the committee who are managing this bill.
I agree with three-fourths of what the chairman said. We want world-
class standards, we want world-class content and we want world-class
goals. What this bill has in it is a definition of world-class goals.
They are goals which were outlined by the Governors, agreed to now by
the Federal Government. We have a couple of additions, which are
positive.
But what we do not need is to have the Federal Government tell the
States and local communities how to get to those goals. The Senator
from Massachusetts has characterized these standards, these
opportunity-to-learn standards as a jumping off point or starting off.
What we are interested in is the finish line. We want to know if a
third grade student in a school in Epping, NH, knows how to multiply,
subtract and add as well as a third grade student in California or in
Illinois or in Massachusetts or in Japan. It is the finish line we are
concerned about, and this bill addresses the finish line under the
assessment standards; whether or not we are getting to the goals which
we have outlined.
But what we should not be telling the teachers and the parents and
the students and the school board in Epping, NH, or in Freemont, CA, or
in Rockville, IL, is how to design their curriculum or what they must
have in place in order to run their educational system, the starting
point as it is defined or the jumping off point.
As the Senator from Vermont said, 31 percent of the schools were
built before World War II. So what? There are a lot of towns in this
country which probably have schools that were built before World War
II. There are a lot of schools which have buildings built before World
War II which have done a heck of a job in renovating those schools.
In fact, there are a lot of buildings built in the seventies which
are not working because they were built under the open concept and wish
they kept the ones built before World War II. That should be up to the
local communities as to whether or not the building built before World
War II still works. It should not be an arbitrary starting line set in
Washington saying any building built before World War II is not
inhabitable by students. Obviously, it is a mistake.
That is the implication of where we are going to end up with these
opportunity-to-learn standards. That is the type of control over
methodology and in the day-to-day life of teaching and education which
are going to occur when you turn over to a Federal bureaucracy the
obligation of designing a national set of standards for methodology in
teaching. It makes no sense in obtaining the goals of this bill. The
goals of this bill are superb.
They were outlined by the Governors and they have been supported by
this administration and they can be obtained by having assessment
standards and content standards as designed in this bill and they will
be undermined by taking control away from the local communities which
is what will occur under the opportunity-to-learn standards.
I present again my case that this is a mistake and that it sets off
on a tangent which is unnecessary to accomplish the goals of this bill
and will undermine the goals of this bill which is to improve education
for our kids.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that the vote in relation to
Senator Gregg's amendment occur at 7:30, with no other amendments in
order to the Gregg amendment or to the language proposed to be stricken
by the Gregg amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Who seeks recognition?
Mr. KENNEDY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Akaka). The absence of a quorum has been
suggested. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we are looking forward to the vote at
7:30 on the Gregg amendment, and then I would hope that we might go to
the Moseley-Braun amendment relating to the school facilities issue. I
do not think that that will take a great deal of time.
We are trying to move through these other amendments. Once again, if
there are Senators who have amendments we hope they will come here so
we will have an opportunity to address them and to work them out if we
can, or otherwise to try and accommodate the Members.
We hope to be able to continue to move along on the legislation. We
have made good progress today even though we have not had a great many
votes, and we know we have some other items to address, but I think we
are moving along in terms of the major issues.
Mr. COHEN, Mr. President, I am extremely pleased that the Senate
Labor and Human Resources Committee has agreed to include language on
health and physical education under the Goal 3 objectives of the Goals
2000: Educate America Act. As you know, when the Senate was expected to
consider the Goals 2000 legislation in the fall of last year, I was
prepared to offer an amendment that would have strengthened the
legislation's language with respect to the importance of health
education. I am glad that the committee's members have agreed with me
that health and physical education are areas that must be addressed if
children are to learn and States are able to meet the national
education goals.
The health issues facing American children have changed dramatically
in recent years. Thirty years ago, child and adolescent health was
threatened predominantly by contagious disease. Today, children and
adolescents are endangered primarily by their own behavior. Poor
health, poverty, substance abuse, sexually transmitted disease, and
unintended pregnancies have all limited the options and dimmed the
features of millions of American children.
Almost 60 percent of the deaths in the United States are attributable
to cardiovascular disease and cancer. Unfortunately, American children
are increasingly engaging in the three behaviors that contribute to
these diseases: tobacco use, improper diet, and insufficient exercise.
For instance, 40 percent of American children aged 5 to 8 are obese,
inactive, or have elevated blood pressure or cholesterol--all risk
factors associated with cardiovascular disease. These problems are
particularly marked in inner-city areas, where children are often
exposed to other factors that threaten their health--crime, drugs, and
inadequate access to health care.
Almost half of our elementary school students have tried smoking--the
No. 1 preventable cause of death in the United States. What is
particularly alarming is that children--especially girls--are smoking
at younger and younger ages. Tobacco addiction is increasingly a ``teen
onset'' disease: 90 percent of all smokers start before they are 21, 60
percent before they are 14, and 22 percent before they are 9.
I am particularly alarmed by the smoking rates for young people in my
home State of Maine. The proportion of young people in Maine who have
tried smoking is 53.1 percent--the highest of any State in the country.
In a recent study, 39 percent of our high school seniors reported
that they had gotten drunk in the previous week, and drinking and
driving remains the No. 1 killer of our Nation's adolescents.
Sexual behaviors established during youth also contribute to
significant health and social problems. With the advent of AIDS, these
behaviors may also prove fatal.
As British essayist Samuel Johnson once observed: ``The chains of
habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken,''
and there is a general recognition that people who learn healthy habits
early in life are more likely to practice them as adults. Conversely,
poor habits--tobacco and other substance abuse, poor nutrition, and
lack of exercise may also have their roots in childhood.
Because these problems do not respond to traditional kinds of medical
treatment, effective health education programs in schools can be
invaluable in helping our children to avoid high risk behavior and
develop healthy habits that will carry over into adulthood.
At the same time that our adolescent health problems have multiplied,
student academic performance has declined. An unacceptable proportion
of adolescents fail to complete high school, and even more young people
are unable to achieve the high level of math, science, and
communication skills they will need to function productively in the
21st century.
Too many young people are joining the growing ranks of the marginally
unemployable every year, constituting a direct threat to our Nation's
productivity and competitiveness.
In the report ``Code Blue,'' the American Medical Association
declared an ``adolescent health crisis,'' proclaiming that:
For the first time in the history of this country, young
people are less healthy and less prepared to take their
places in society than were their parents. And this is
happening at a time when our society is more complex, more
challenging, and more competitive than ever before.
The success of our future economy will demand the full participation
of our entire population, and we must take action now to ensure that
all young people, regardless of income, gender, or background, are
prepared to be healthy, productive citizens.
Quality school health education programs--programs that are
integrated, planned and sequential, and taught by educators trained to
teach the subject--are essential if our children are to develop the
knowledge and skills they will need to avoid health risks and maintain
good health throughout their lives.
However, while health education alone can teach children about good
health, a more comprehensive approach is necessary if we are to
actually reduce health risks and change behavior. For these programs to
be truly successful, in addition to providing information through the
classroom, the school should also be a health promoting environment.
While sound and up-to-date information about nutrition is important,
it is equally important that the food served in the school cafeteria is
consistent with what is learned in the classroom.
In addition to teaching students about the hazards associated with
tobacco use, schools should be smoke-free and should also offer
programs for students, faculty, and staff who want to stop smoking.
Regular physical activity and exercise opportunities should be
available for both students and staff, and the emphasis should be on
lifetime fitness activities such as walking, jogging, or swimming
rather than interscholastic sports.
Finally, it is essential that the school be a safe place, free of
violence, drugs, weapons, or crime.
No one disputes the need to improve the health status of our Nation's
young people. However, many do question whether school is the
appropriate setting for health promotion and education activities.
Some educators argue that teachers are already overloaded, and that
such efforts detract from the schools' primary mission of educating our
Nation's youth. However, a student who is sick, who is malnourished,
who abuses drugs or alcohol, or who has an unintended child to raise is
not in a good position to learn.
Just as America's children must be healthy to be educated, they must
also be educated to be healthy. Our Nation's elementary and secondary
schools have the potential of reaching more than 46 million students
and 5 million faculty and staff each year--approximately 20 percent of
our total population. Further, our schools are a microcosm of society
and present the best opportunity for reaching young people of all
races, nationalities, backgrounds, and income levels.
However, we cannot expect the schools to do the job alone. Schools,
families, communities, and businesses must all join in partnership to
help our young people to develop the intellectual, physical, and
emotional skills they will need to take them into the next century as
healthy, productive citizens in an increasingly competitive global
marketplace.
I believe that the recognition of the importance of health education
in the Goals 2000 legislation is a good beginning to help solve some of
this country's health care problems. We need to educate our youth so
that they know how to remain healthy and fit. It is my sincere hope
that the National Education Standards and Improvement Council certify
voluntary national standards on health and physical education and that
the National Education Goals Panel monitor this country's progress
toward ensuring that all students are healthy and fit.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The court will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. KENNEDY. Objection. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The assistant legislative clerk continued with the call of the roll.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
amendment no. 1370
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on
agreeing to amendment No. 1370, offered by the Senator from New
Hampshire [Mr. Gregg].
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Biden] and
the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Pryor] are necessarily absent.
Mr. SIMPSON. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota [Mr.
Durenberger], the Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain], the Senator from
Oklahoma [Mr. Nickles], and the Senator from Alaska [Mr. Stevens] are
necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
who desire to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 42, nays 52, as follows:
{Rollcall Vote No. 20 Leg.
YEAS--42
Bennett
Bond
Breaux
Brown
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Coats
Cochran
Cohen
Coverdell
Craig
D'Amato
Danforth
Dole
Domenici
Exon
Faircloth
Gorton
Gramm
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Heflin
Helms
Hutchison
Kassebaum
Kempthorne
Lott
Lugar
Mack
McConnell
Murkowski
Packwood
Pressler
Roth
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Thurmond
Wallop
Warner
NAYS--52
Akaka
Baucus
Bingaman
Boren
Boxer
Bradley
Bryan
Bumpers
Chafee
Conrad
Daschle
DeConcini
Dodd
Dorgan
Feingold
Feinstein
Ford
Glenn
Graham
Harkin
Hatfield
Hollings
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnston
Kennedy
Kerrey
Kerry
Kohl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Mathews
Metzenbaum
Mikulski
Mitchell
Moseley-Braun
Moynihan
Murray
Nunn
Pell
Reid
Riegle
Robb
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Sasser
Simon
Specter
Wellstone
Wofford
NOT VOTING--6
Biden
Durenberger
McCain
Nickles
Pryor
Stevens
So, the amendment (No. 1370) was rejected.
Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I would like to correct some statistics
about South Dakota education that my distinguished colleague from
Montana, Senator Burns mentioned earlier today during the debate on S.
1150, Goals 2000: Educate America Act.
South Dakota holds the following national rankings: 3d in SAT scores,
10th in ACT scores, 6th in graduation rate, 42d in per pupil
expenditure; and 51st in teacher salaries. These statistics speak for
themselves; the correlations are obvious.
Second, I would like to let Senator Harkin know that I agree with him
about the importance of school facilities. Some schools in my home
State are not in good condition. Leaking ceilings and drafty classrooms
are an obvious deterrent to quality learning.
I will be introducing shortly legislation to reauthorize Public Law
81-815, School Construction for the Impact Aid Program. I hope that my
colleagues will join me in showing their concern for school facilities.
In listening to today's debate, Mr. President, I was very pleased to
learn from the chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human
Resources, Senator Kennedy, and the ranking Republican of the
committee, Senator Kassebaum, that S. 1150 does not contain OBE.
I, like many of my colleagues, have been hearing from hundreds of my
constituents who oppose OBE. I am pleased to be reassured this bill
does not contain OBE.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article entitled
``Outcome-Based Education'' from the Family Research Council be
inserted in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Family Policy]
Outcome-Based Education--Dumbing Down America's Schools
(By Robert Holland)
Under the Clinton Administration, the idea that the federal
government should pitch a new paradigm for public education
has gathered steam.
Heaven knows, the current education model needs more than a
tune-up. It needs a massive overhaul driven by consumer
choice and competition among schools and genuinely high
academic standards.
Unfortunately, however, the new paradigm many education,
business and government policymakers have in mind is
something euphemistically labeled Outcome--Based Education
(OBE). It is a radical form of restructuring being pushed on
local schools from the top down--from the Clinton Labor and
Education departments, teachers unions, well-heeled
consultants, state departments of education, and even high
corporate councils. OBE is a one-size-fits-all reform, the
antithesis of competition and choice. It encourages New Age
groupthink over the Jeffersonian ideal of individual merit.
the ideology of outcomes
The merchants of OBE begin from an unassailable premise:
that schools should be judged by ``learner outcomes'' rather
than, say, the number of books in the library or percentage
of teachers with master's degrees. Indeed, most parents want
positive outcomes from their children's schooling. They want
evidence that kids learn to read and write and compute, and
know something of our common heritage as Americans. Likewise
lured by the prospect of outcomes, corporate supporters
consider OBE to be an extension of Total Quality Management
(TQM) to public education.
But the outcomes that the gurus of OBE have in mind are
quite different from hard-headed pragmatism or TQM's emphasis
on customer satisfaction. They have less to do with whether
Johnny can comprehend the Federalist Papers or place the
Civil War in the current half-century than with his
acquisition of the desired attitudes on such issues as global
resource inequality, multiculturalism, homelessness,
alternative lifestyles, and environmentalism. Under OBE,
political correctness goes to grade-school.
The new outcomes are supposed to make education
``relevant'' to ``real-life problems.'' Relevance is an echo
from the fractious 1960s, when demands for student powers and
a cafeteria curriculum sent standards of excellence into a
nosedive. Indeed, many of the radicals from that era have
become today's education policymakers.
The high priests of OBE knock the idea of knowledge for
knowledge's sake, the continuation of separate academic
disciplines such as English and history, paper-and-pencil
testing, and competition where some students succeed and some
fail. In assigning a false concept of self-esteem paramount
importance, they deny students the merited self-esteem that
comes from genuine achievement and the self-discipline that
comes from knowing that unyielding standards are in effect,
that failure is a possibility.
OBE is egalitarian, utopian. All forms of ability-grouping
are to be abolished, in favor of the failed experiment of
``mastery learning,'' which assumes that all children can
master the same common standard, if only they are given
virtually unlimited time to do so. Faster students are put in
a holding pattern or asked to tutor their slower classmates
until, in theory, all are on the same page again. This Robin
Hood approach to education has been a colossal flop in
districts like Chicago, that experimented with it years ago.
Even before becoming President Clinton's Secretary of
Labor, Robert Reich was hawking the groupthink model. Under
his leadership, Labor has assumed a lead role in school
restructuring along the industrial ``outcomes'' model.
In a paper commissioned in 1988 by the National Education
Association, Reich (then a political economist at Harvard)
opined that: ``Young people must be taught how to work
constructively together. Instead of emphasizing individual
achievement and competition, the emphasis in the classroom
should be group performance * * * (Students) must also learn
to negotiate--to articulate their own needs, to discern what
others need and see things from others' perspectives, and to
discover mutually beneficial outcomes.'' Ability-grouping, he
added must go because it reduces ``young people's capacities
to learn from and collaboarate with one another.
Thus, Reich concluded, ``Rather than separate fast learners
from slow learners in the classroom, all children (with only
the most obvious exceptions) should remain together, so that
class unity and cooperation are the norm. Faster learners
would thus learn how to help the slower ones, while the
slower ones would be pushed to make their best effort.''
So what are the outcomes of OBE--outcomes that, in some
states, have been projected to become the new graduation
requirements in place of Carnegie units in English, history,
math, and science? Typically, they require students to
acquire attitudes enabling them to: Appreciate diversity;
identify community problems and negotiate solutions
contributing to the public good; use the environment
responsibly; learn to be good citizens of the world; support
and defend civil and human rights worldwide; and develop
skills of negotiating with others to solve interpersonal
problems and conflicts.
Those are some of the several dozen outcomes that have been
advanced in more than 40 states. In truth, the outcomes are
strikingly similar from one OBE state to another. That's
because many state departments of education are buying
national consultants' programs while pretending to be leading
a wholly local school reform drive.
Who decides what the outcomes should be? And by what
criteria will a student's achieving an outcome be decided?
These are subjective calls: The Greenpeace and Mobil
Corporation concepts of responsible use of the environment
differ sharply. Likewise, definitions of ``public good'' and
``diversity'' vary according to one's political philosophy.
If the outcomes of education are to be based on such
subjective criteria, that means some students will be given
remedial instruction for holding ``incorrect'' opinions.
William Spady, one of the most prominent gurus of
``transformation'' (or attitudinal) OBE, gave the following
insight on outcome-devising in an interview in the January
1993 issue of Educational Leadership magazine:
``We start with what the research suggests about the future
and we design down, or design back, from there. This is a
systematic process called Strategic Design: determining as
well as we can from studying the literature and available
data about future trends and conditions what our kids will be
facing out there in the world. Once we get a reasonable
handle on those conditions, we derive from them a set of
complex role performance outcomes that represent effective
adult functioning: to succeed as adults, people have to be
able to do this and that under these and those kinds of
conditions. This emphasis on complex role performance puts
the whole present curriculum content structure up for
grabs.''
Thus, knowledge transmitted through the traditional
academic disciplines would play second fiddle to some
futurists' ideas of what the future might hold. Thematic
learning is central to OBE: the idea is to break the academic
disciplines and to replace them with ``real-life'' education
based on broad themes. That is similar to the demands for
women's studies and ethnic studies being pushed by radical
multiculturalists in the universities, and to the older fads
of progressive education and open classrooms. Bad ideas never
die in education, it seems; they are just recycled under new
labels.
no room to fail
OBEists insist that time--clocks and calendars--should be
irrelevant in education. Given enough time, all students
should be allowed to take tests over and over and over again,
as many times as necessary, until they obtain a passing mark.
Failure is deemed to be a dirty word.
The illogic in calling for real-life education on the one
hand and an end to all time limits on the other was exposed
in a paper presented by the Parent-Teacher Communication
Network in San Marcos, Texas, calling on local school
authorities to stop OBE on the grounds that it had been ``an
educational disaster.'' The paper stated:
``However inconvenient for those of us who might prefer it
otherwise, the real world is based on clocks, calendars, and
deadlines. Any educational system that fails to prepare
students for this aspect of life, especially students at the
secondary level, has failed them miserably.''
Few persons in the nation have more first hand experience
in the folly of no-deadline, no-failure OBE than Cheri
Pierson Yecke, the 1988 Teacher of the Year in Stafford
County, Virginia. By accident, her two daughters provide
before-and-after case studies of OBE implementation.
In August, 1991, the Yeckes moved to Minnesota and enrolled
their children in District 833's schools. They did so without
reservation because they had lived in that district from 1982
to 1984 and had found the schools to be excellent. Unknown to
the family, however, the district had been implementing OBE
during the seven years they had been away. To their
astonishment, they soon discovered that while living in
Virginia their daughters had progressed academically ``light
years'' ahead of their peers in Minnesota.
Younger daughter Tiffany, who had always loved school, was
``in a matter of days begging to stay home.'' Why? ``The work
was far too easy.'' But what was worse, ``[A]ny display of
intelligence was ridiculed in a cruel and demeaning way by
many of the other students. Hard work and self-discipline are
looked down upon, and status is often achieved by non-
performance.''
``The prevailing attitude among many students is, `Why
study? They can't fail me, so who cares?' What sort of work
ethic is this producing in these children? No one fails,
regardless of how little they do. Instead, they receive
`Incompletes,' which can be made up at any time.
``The kids have the system figured out. When there is a
football game or show on TV the night before a test, a common
comment is: `Why study? I'll just take the test and fail it.
I can always take the retest later.'''
Indeed, ``Incompletes'' appear to be the grade of choice.
At semester's end in January, 1992, more than 15,500
Incompletes were recorded in that OBE district's secondary
schools--or about one half of all grades awarded! Imagine
the Yeckes' concern when they moved back to Virginia in
the summer of 1992 only to find that the State Department
of Education was considering a mandatory OBE plan for all
schools.
New forms of testing are critical to implementing OBE. Put
bluntly, the hand that controls the test can control all of
American education. The buzzwords to watch for are so-called
``authentic tests,'' and the ``Three Ps'' of testing:
portfolios, projects, and performances of student work.
Standardized tests, which are knowledge-based, are under
massive assault by the OBEists. The new tests would be far
more subjective, and more amenable to the utopian goal of
equalized outcomes.
The new assessments would delve much more deeply into what
the education bureaucrats call the ``affective'' realm--
feelings, attitudes, emotions. For example, under one
assessment framework, a test for Personal Well-Being and
Accomplishment calls for ``students' completion of affective
inventories''--in other words, summaries of how students feel
about certain issues or situations. Another test of
``Interpersonal Relationships'' asks for ``teacher
observation of student interactions''. (The shy but brilliant
youngster would seem to be at a distinct disadvantage in OBE
classrooms.) Other parts of the testing scheme call on
students to self-report on their ``responsible use of the
environment,'' to keep a journal of their leisure activities,
and to respond to a vignette requiring the analysis of
conflict and a discovery of cooperative resolution.
That's a long way from computing the area of the triangle,
diagramming a sentence, or reciting the Gettysburg Address.
OBEists denigrate current school testing as rewarding
memorization and ``lower-order'' skills. The new assessments
are supposed to determine the student's ability to engage in
``higher-order thinking,'' especially by collaborating in
groups to address socially relevant problems.
One of the leaders in devising new assessment tools is a
private-public partnership at the University of Pittsburgh's
Learning Research and Development Center known as the New
Standards Project. Supported by foundation money and about 16
states, the NSP has as its leaders' stated objective: ``to
develop a radically new approach to the assessment of student
progress that would drive fundamental changes in what is
taught and learned.
The NSP also is a dagger pointed at the heart of
standardized testing. Current tests, say the NSP, are
``designed to sort out those who would enter the elite from
those who would not.'' Thus, the project intends ``to destroy
the primary mechanisms of the sorting system in American
education that have lowered expectations and limited
opportunity for countless people over the years.'' Having one
standard for everyone to meet (and allowing them all the time
they need to meet it) will necessitate the abolition of
tracking or ability-grouping. Students who fall behind would
need not only more time but also ``more financial resources,
a more appropriate curriculum, and better prepared
teachers.''
Thomas Jefferson believed in an aristocracy of merit. OBE
is a blueprint for the opposite: A mediocracy of uniformly
dim bulbs. This is especially troubling considering the fact
that NSP is developing standards for states to use for their
schools in order to receive federal money under Goals 2000.
Perhaps even more ominous is the Labor Department's SCANS
system for assessing pupil and worker ``competencies.'' SCANS
is an acronym for Secretary's Commission on Achieving
Necessary Skills. SCANS has published a series of blueprints,
for which its intentions are not modest. `The nation's school
systems should make the SCANS foundation skills and workplace
competencies explicit objectives of instruction at all
levels,'' a report stated. ``All employers, public and
private, should incorporate SCANS know-how in their human
resources development efforts.''
In ``reinventing education,'' the SCANSers also come up
with a new entitlement to school success. Youngsters have a
``right'' to be educated up to an absolute standard of
performance ``without putting the burden of failure on the
backs of students.'' (Hey, Teach. You can't flunk me. I'm
entitled.) So much for the idea of individual
responsibility.
Ironically, ``responsibility''is one of the ``personal
qualities'' the Labor factotums want educators to rate.
Indeed, SCANS furnishes a prototype student resume that is
offered as a replacement for traditional report cards.
Students would also be rated for their self esteem,
sociability, self-management, and integrity/honesty--and for
their ``workplace competencies,'' such as ``interpersonal
skills'' and ``systems'' thinking. There would be proficiency
levels (but no failing grades) for academic subjects, and
listings of portfolios of student work (typically on trendy
topics such as environmentalism), with the names of each
teacher for the parents to contact.
The SCANS resumes have a place for the students' Social
Security numbers, as well as their names, addresses, and
phone numbers. One report states that the Educational Testing
Service is developing an ``employer-friendly'' system called
Worklink through which these students' assessments could be
shared with employers electronically. Electronic dossiers
surely don't sound very little-guy-friendly. Suppose you were
rated down for integrity/honesty somewhere during your school
career. That could dog you the rest of your work-seeking
life. And why should someone's opinions of your personal
traits be on a computer file? All this smacks of Orwellian
Big Brother government.
Who's Behind OBE?
How did this nation get on such a prescriptive path of
school reform? Perhaps a chronology and a scoreboard of
players are in order.
The National Center on Education and the Economy has been a
central player from the start. Its president, Marc Tucker, is
a professor of education at the University of Rochester (NY).
That city's 32,000-student system began in 1988 one of the
nation's most thorough OBE/TQM restructuring projects. So
far, costs have soared but student achievement has not.
Formed in the mid-1980s, the center grew out of a Carnegie
Foundation grant. Its board included Hillary Rodham Clinton,
then a Little Rock lawyer, and New York Governor Mario Cuomo.
The center set up under the Labor Department's wing a
Commission on Skills of the American Workforce, with Ira
Magaziner as chairman. In 1990 (when Bush was still
President), this commission released a report, ``America's
Choice: High Skills or Low Wages,'' that is the seminal
document in the so-called World Class Education, or OBE,
movement. Although Hillary Clinton was not on the actual
commission, she was made co-chair for implementation, with
Magaziner.
On the basis of an unscientific sampling of opinion, the
Magaziner Commission concluded that most employers are not so
much concerned about literacy and basic math skills as they
are that their workers have a good work ethic and appropriate
social behavior--a good attitude, a pleasant appearance, and
a nice personality. Those are all desirable traits, to be
sure, but should they be the basis of school reform? Should
schools be tools of utilitarian industrial policy as opposed
to places for cultivation of the intellect? Should students
be molded to business ``specs''? And is this what businesses
really want?
The Magaziner Commission recommended specifically that:
The educational system be geared to ensuring that virtually
all students acquire a Certificate of Initial Mastery at age
16. At this time, they would decide between work and college,
as students do in Germany.
The assessment system should let students take and retake
tests as often as needed until they succeeded.
Rather than objective tests, schools go to the Three Ps-
portfolios, projects, and performances. Knowledge-based tests
``sort out'' people too much. Assessments should emphasize
qualities like the ability to work in groups.
Remarkably, parents were mentioned not once in this thick
document. Rather, the report called for the school system to
instill attitudes in children desired by governmental and
industrial elitists.
The Magaziner report had a powerful impact on at least
three powerful bureaucracies: It caused state departments of
education to enlist the help of OBE consultants like Bill
Spady. It influenced the New Standards Project. And it
prompted the U.S. Labor Department to develop its SCANS
competencies. Several states, starting with Florida, have
already begun integrating SCANS into their curricula
Is the federal government shy about intervening in
classrooms? It would appear not. SCANS supplies many
classroom assignments for teachers. For example, to teach,
``interpersonal skills'' in English class, teachers are
advised to have students ``discuss the pros and cons of the
argument that Shakespeare's ``Merchant of Venice'' is a
racist play and should be banned from the curriculum.'' Thus,
instead of evaluating a great piece of writing on its own
merits, students are to consider becoming politically correct
censors.
In science class, SCANS suggests this activity: ``Work in a
group to design an experiment to analyze the lead content in
the school's water. Teach the results to an elementary school
class.'' To teach the competency of ``Resources'' in history
class, teachers are advised to study the Vietnam War from the
standpoint of the war's impact on the federal budget.
Actually, SCANS does not suggest unfashionable studies of
rent control and the rise of homelessness or the connection
between illegitimacy and crime.
Goals 2000 calls for the creation of a new bureaucracy, the
20-member National Education Standards and Improvement
Council (NESIC), members of which would be appointed by
President Clinton.
According to a Department of Education analysis. ``[T]he
Nation needs clear standards of what it will take to provide
all of them the opportunity to meet these standards,
assessments, and opportunity to meet these standards.''
Accordingly, the NESIC would be responsible for ``stimulating
and certifying'' content and student performance standards,
assessments, and opportunity-to-learn standards for the
states.
Thus, NESIC becomes an unelected national school board with
power to determine local school curriculum, textbooks,
technology, and teacher qualifications. The NESIC also would
judge how curriculum, teaching methods, and testing were
being aligned with content standards. It would plug in to the
current projects--ie., NSP and SCANS--in promoting innovative
forms of assessments such as student portfolios.
Goals 2000's creation of a National Skills Standards Board
(NSSB) shouldn't be overlooked either. This new bureaucracy
would develop a ``voluntary'' national system of occupational
skill standards and ways of certifying workers to meet those
standards. In evaluating whether Goals 2000 is compulsory or
voluntary, it also is a good idea to watch what the Clinton
Administration does, rather than simply relying on its
promises. In September, Secretary Riley presented to Congress
a massive plan to ``reinvent'' the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA), the federal government's largest chunk
of aid ($10 billion a year) to K-12 education. ESEA is due
for reauthorization next year, and the Clinton's allies want
a 10-year reauthorization instead of the usual five. More to
the point they want the whole basis of program accountability
geared to state compliance with the standards and assessments
of Goals 2000.
In its September 22 issue, ``Education Week'' summarized
the change this way:
``States that participated in the (national) goals effort
could use those standards to qualify for Chapter 1. Those
that did not would still be required to set content and
performance standards applicable to all students in order to
receive Chapter 1 funds under the Administration's ESEA
plan.''
Bruce Hunter, associate executive director of the American
Association of School Administrators, put it more succinctly:
``It just means what everybody's been saying all along about
the standards being voluntary: Baloney. They're mandatory,
and they're tied to money.''
The 300-page ESEA ``reinvention'' plan spells out these
options:
Requiring all states to adopt challenging curriculum
frameworks and performance standards, applicable to all
students, that would be the basis of accountability in
Chapter 1.
Entering into a compact with the states that have adopted
curriculum, frameworks, and performance standards to give
them increased flexibility in aligning Chapter 1 with larger
reform efforts.
Providing financial and technical assistance to states that
are developing and implementing standards.
``Establishing service delivery guidelines for the quality
of Chapter 1 services in such areas as depth and coherence of
the curriculum appropriateness of instructional materials,
and expertise of staff.''
Plugging the ESEA plan before the House Education and Labor
Committee on September 23, Secretary Riley declared that
Goals 2000 ``would support efforts to align education systems
in school districts and States throughout the nation based on
common ideas about what all our students should know and be
able to do. Systemic reforms--changes in what students study,
how they are taught, and how their performance is measured--
are already underway in schools, school districts, and States
across the country. Federal resources and national leadership
can help sustain the momentum of these critical, sweeping
reforms.'' Then he added this thought:
``A common understanding of what all our children should
know and be able to do should drive changes in all aspects of
teaching and learning. Textbooks, teaching practices, and
tests should all be geared to State content and performance
standards that set forth the knowledge and skills our
students need, and our diverse democracy and our complex
economy demand.''
Secretary Riley, who led a widely-hailed reform of South
Carolina public schools as that state's Governor, no doubt
has good intentions. But this is prescriptive approach, and a
dangerous area for the national government to be seizing
command. Tremendous power is invested in the authority that
selects what children ``should know'' and decrees what in the
way of higher-order thinking, self-esteem, and coping skills
they should ``be able to do.''
Goals 2000 is not trickle-down reform. It is more nearly
based on a totalitarian model that was employed by the
socialist regimes of the East. It tramples the local
educational autonomy that has been at the heart of American
liberty for more than two centuries.
And, what is all the more chilling, it is being put into
place through a collaboration of Big Education, Big
Government, Big Labor, and Big Business without substantive
national debate, a consequence of an abdication of
responsibility by the Big Media.
OBE Can be Stopped
Parents would be well advised to follow the principle of
``buyer beware'' when encountering education bureaucrats
peddling outcome-based education. They should kick the tires
and get behind the wheel and see how this model handles.
Despite scant major-media coverage, some parents are learning
enough about OBE to conclude that it is a lemon.
In New York City, the prospects of stopping the OBEish
``Children of the Rainbow'' curriculum supported by the media
elitists and Manhattan sophisticates seemed bleak. Then a
feisty grandmother, Mary Cummins, went to work and a parents'
revolt toppled the schools chancellor, Joseph Fernandez.
In Pennsylvania, Peg Luksik of Johnstown led a grassroots
coalition of 22,000 that succeeded in getting a bill through
the Pennsylvania House of Representatives that would empower
localities to ignore the state Board of Education's OBE plan.
In Littleton, Colorado voters elected--by almost a 2 to 1
margin--a ``back to the basics'' slate of school board
candidates who promised to scrap one of the nation's vanguard
OBE experiments.
In Virginia, parental protests motivated Governor Douglas
L. Wilder to shelve a ``transformational'' OBE proposal last
September.
And inside the Beltway, Goals 2000 sailed through the House
but then stalled as Senators began to hear from constituents
who opposed the imminent takeover of public education by the
OBE brigade.
Maybe there's hope for democracy yet.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Campbell). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Order of Procedure
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
resume consideration of S. 1150 at 10 a.m. on Thursday, February 3d,
and that at 10:30 a.m. Senator Durenberger or Senator Hatfield be
recognized to offer an amendment in their behalf regarding flexibility
from Federal regulation, with 30 minutes for debate on the amendment
with no second-degree amendments in order thereto.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, Members of the Senate, I congratulate
the managers on the good progress made on the bill today. As was stated
when we began consideration of the bill, it was my hope that we could
complete action on this bill by the close of business tomorrow. I
understand that there remain several more amendments to be considered,
which means that there will likely be recorded votes throughout the day
tomorrow.
There will be no votes prior to 11 a.m. tomorrow and no further votes
this evening.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, let me underscore what the majority leader
has said. I think the managers have done a spectacular job. I think
they are well over half way to finish in a matter of 7 or 8 hours. I
would hope they could conclude action on this bill by 6 o'clock
tomorrow evening. We are working on this side to accommodate the
managers. It is my hope that we can get all that done, squeeze it all
in there, and make it work.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. I thank the
distinguished Senators from Massachusetts and Vermont.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to thank the majority and minority
leaders. We have made good progress even though there were not a great
many votes. Many of the issues we did discuss and were able to work
out. There are a definable number of important measures that are left.
We would like to finish with some of the measures that we left
unfinished earlier today. But we have some amendments by Senator Coats
and Senator Lieberman about private school choice that we will address
tomorrow; a Grassley-Thurmond amendment on psychiatric counseling.
Also, Senator Helms has several amendments that we have yet to deal
with.
There are amendments by Senator Stevens regarding Alaskan natives
which we are working on. Senator Dorgan has a pending amendment with
regard to guns in schools which we are working on; Senator Gorton has
an amendment on the issue of school discipline which we hope to work
out.
There may be other amendments. We are not inviting them. But we would
hope that if there are other amendments that Senators will have
notified Senator Jeffords or me so we can make sure that we are
attending to the interests of the Members. We will proceed through
tomorrow, hopefully reduce the number of amendments, and move toward a
successful conclusion.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I also want to thank the Members. I
think we are making a great deal of progress and, hopefully, within the
next few minutes we will be able to even make further progress. This is
an extremely important piece of legislation.
I commend the Members for their attention to it and their recognition
that this is something that for every day, almost, in delay, it is
setting this measure back further.
So I am hopeful we will be able to continue this evening with some
progress and tomorrow be able to bring it, as the minority leader said,
to completion before 6 o'clock tomorrow evening. I am dedicated to
that. I know the manager for the majority side is and, hopefully, with
the cooperation of the Members we will do that.
I will be here at least for another hour if anyone has any
suggestions or can tell us how they are going to work with their
amendments on my side of the aisle. I will certainly be here in the
morning also.
I yield the floor.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask for the regular order; we had set
aside some of the amendments. There was an amendment earlier that the
Senator from Illinois, Senator Simon, had offered, on which I had
offered a second-degree, No. 1367. Is the clerk familiar with that
particular amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That amendment is a regular order amendment.
If the Senator wishes, that amendment will be restored.
Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that it be restored. I ask that
my second-degree amendment 1367 be withdrawn. Senator Simon has
authorized me to ask that his amendment 1366 be withdrawn.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 1374
(Purpose: To amend the State improvement plan regarding opportunity-to-
learn standards and to provide technical and other assistance regarding
school finance equity)
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf
of Mr. Simon and Mr. Wellstone, and I ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Massachussetts [Mr. Kennedy], for Mr.
Simon and Mr. Wellstone, proposes an amendment numbered 1374.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of
the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 68, line 15, strike ``and (b)'' and insert ``, (b)
and (d)''.
On page 79, line 8, strike all beginning with ``, such
as'', through page 79, line 17, and insert a period.
On page 105, between lines 16 and 17, insert the following:
(a) Techncial and Other Assistance Regarding School Finance
Equity.--
(1) Technical assistance.--(A) From the national leadership
funds reserved in Sec. 304(a)(2)(A) the Secretary is
authorized to make grants to, and enter into contracts and
cooperative agreements with, State educational agencies and
other public and private agencies, institutions, and
organizations to provide technical assistance to State and
local educational agencies to assist such agencies in
achieving a greater degree of equity in the distribution of
financial resources for education among local educational
agencies in the State.
(B) A grant, contract or cooperative agreement under this
subsection may support technical assistance activities, such
as--
(i) the establishment and operation of a center or centers
for the provision of technical assistance to State and local
educational agencies;
(ii) the convening of conferences on equalization of
resources within local educational agencies, within States,
and among States; and
(iii) obtaining advice from experts in the field of school
finance equalization.
(4) Data.--Each State educational agency or local
educational agency receiving assistance under the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1965 shall provide such data
and information on school finance as the Secretary may
require to carry out this subsection.
(5) Models.--The Secretary is authorized, directly or
through grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements, to
develop and disseminate models and materials useful to States
in planning and implementing revisions of the school finance
systems of such States.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we have worked out a compromise. This
amendment makes it clear that every State plan must adopt strategies to
provide every child an opportunity to learn. The language is
streamlined and simplified. We also incorporate provisions for
technical assistance for States that request help as they address the
problem of school finance inequities. This amendment will help to make
sure States do not ignore the issue. But it also will allow States to
take many, many different approaches.
I thank the two Senators for their cooperation. This is a very
important issue. We have tried to deal with it in a fair way. It seems
to me to be a sensible and responsible approach. I thank our colleagues
for their assistance.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I have looked at the compromise that was
reached. I think some of the language which may have been offensive to
our side of the aisle was modified sufficiently. So that in my own
judgment it should not cause any problems in view of the fact that it
would take language which might have indicated a utilization of the
language to interfere with the ability to achieve standards in the
State schools.
So I do not believe that this side of the aisle has any objection. I
have not heard of any.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate on the amendment? If
not, the question is on agreeing to the amendment?
The amendment (No. 1374) was agreed to.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which
the amendment was agreed to.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
amendment no. 1369
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand Senator Dorgan had an
amendment that was offered earlier. Is the Chair familiar with that
amendment that refers to the issue of discipline to students who have
brought guns to schools?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is amendment numbered 1369.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have every intention of trying to work
out a compromise with the Senator from Vermont and other interested
Senators on this issue, particularly with Senator Dorgan as well. We
want to work out some kind of understanding.
amendment no. 1375 to amendment no. 1369
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in the meantime I propose a second-degree
amendment in order to preserve the position of discussion so that we
will have a related matter being considered in the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the second-degree
amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] proposes an
amendment numbered 1375 to amendment No. 1369.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
In the pending amendment, strike all after the first word
and insert the following:
``It is the sense of the Senate that school districts
should adopt policies which provide for serious sanctions
including the possibility of expulsion from school for no
less than one year, for students who bring weapons to
school.''.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, again I thank all of our colleagues for
their cooperation and attention to the debate today. There has been
important progress. We still have some important issues tomorrow to
debate with regard to the role of private schools and choice. We have
addressed those issues on previous occasions. I think Members are
basically familiar with those matters.
We will have an opportunity to debate those matters, and as I
mentioned, there will be some amendments with regard to psychiatric
counseling, and then the Durenberger-Hatfield amendment which I think
will be a welcomed addition. It provides flexibility to the States.
What we have already done in the legislation is provide the Secretary
to permit some wide discretion to States in terms of dealing with a
variety of different rules and regulations to move this whole process
of academic enhancement forward. We have also permitted a great deal of
flexibility at the State level in the development of their own plan to
develop high content standards and also assessments and also propose
flexibility by the waiver of certain of their own regulations which
might inhibit the ability to do reform.
I think there are many reasons to pass this legislation, but I think
one of the important reasons is the very significant additional
flexibility that we give to the States and local school boards in
working through this process.
I must say I think many of us have had an opportunity to visit
schools, as I mentioned in the earlier part of the day that I had when
I visited the Fenway Middle High School. I saw how they have
imaginatively utilized scarce resources to enhance the pupil-teacher
ratio reducing those numbers, and also to improve because of the strong
support from the teachers. They have been able to use some of their
substitute teacher money in a creative way as well to enhance academic
opportunities.
So there are a number of innovations that are taking place that we
want to support beyond the central thrust of this legislation.
Senators Hatfield and Durenberger have been enormously interested in
flexibility. Senator Jeffords has been a strong proponent of that view
as well.
I think we all have learned a good deal about some of the very
innovative efforts that are taking place at the local level.
So we will look forward to continuing this debate. I think for many
of us this is one of the most important pieces of legislation. We are
very hopeful that in short order we will be able to follow on with a
school-to-work program which has had broad bipartisan support and also
has the support of the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association
of Manufacturers, and they have been enormously helpful and
constructive.
We are beginning to see and we would hope the Members would
understand is that there should be enhancement of our Head Start
program, based upon a lot of the recommendations that were made by the
President's Commission that was bipartisan in nature, they made some
very important recommendations on enhancing quality for the young
people already involved in the Head Start program, and our belief is
that some of those enhancements will be made, and also that there will
be some effort to move the attention to young children from zero to 3.
I think we are finding in the earlier kind of interventions a better
opportunity for building self-esteem and skills. So we are moving in
that direction.
We are moving in elementary and secondary schools in Goals 2000, and
then moving into school-to-work. Important initiatives have also been
made with regard to the direct loans programs and the repayment of the
student loans as a percent of income. We have enhanced the opportunity
for those who are financially encumbered and given them greater
alternatives.
We have also passed the national service bill, and part of that
national service is to provide limited funds, small amounts of
resources to children K through 12, to involve them in educational
programs, service programs that are developed by students. We have
talked about those efforts in the past. It is now called the serve-
America program. All this is a part of an overall effort.
We also have some very important initiatives in the technology to try
and ensure that young children are going to be exposed to the range of
different technologies in schools. We have proposed a program so that
there may be loans for schools that are in districts able to afford
them but grants to other schools, and also programs to help the
teachers to more effectively utilize technologies to enhance academic
achievement.
I think any of us who have had the opportunity to work with small
children, as I have at home, and have seen them lap up the geo-safari
programs and spend hours on electronic games know that not only that
type of a game is excellent, but also to see what electronics and
computers can mean for training.
So we are making good progress in focusing on people and particularly
on children.
I thank the Senator and my friend from Vermont for all of his
cooperation in these areas and others. I have great respect for him
because I think the Senator from Vermont has also identified one of the
macro issues which this Nation has to give more attention to, and that
is the issue of the funding and support that we as a country are going
to our educational effort.
The Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Connecticut, Senator
Dodd, as well as other Senators, have really focused our education
committees and the full Labor Committee on that particular issue and we
are grateful to them for reminding our committee of what is happening
with our young people--they are basically falling farther and farther
behind.
We are gratified with the efforts that are being made in these areas,
but we know that as a Nation we are still short changing the young
people in our society.
We look forward to working with Senator Jeffords, who has really been
the leader on the Education Subcommittee on this issue of funding and
the allocation of resources at the local, State, and Federal level to
educate our children.
I also thank my friend and colleague, Senator Pell. Senator Pell was
here at the opening salvo earlier today and has been with us all during
the course of the day, and his counsel is always greatly appreciated
and valued. So I thank him, and all of us look forward to a busy day
tomorrow.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont [Mr. Jeffords] is
recognized.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I want to briefly comment and first
commend the Senator from Massachusetts for outlining the things that
are good about our educational system.
The problem is that the things that are good only affect a small
percentage of our students, and that is why we are still on the
pessimistic side; 13 out of 15 countries that are competitors of ours
in the world market as far as math and science and those critical
areas.
As much as we are doing for those few, we are doing so very, very
little for many. It is now time when we establish the goals to be sure
we find the resources to replicate and duplicate and bring to the
attention of the school districts around this country of those things
which are good and which need to be replicated.
That is not going to be an easy task, but tomorrow I will spend some
time outlining the cost to this Nation of not doing it for the cost of
not reaching these goals far exceeds whatever resources will be
necessary to reach those goals.
Let me just give you a couple of examples to start you off. It is
costing our businesses about $200 billion a year in remedial education.
That is to provide education to repair the damage or the problems that
were created by an ineffective educational system. We lose about $225
billion due to a lack of productivity of those who have been school
dropouts.
We spend about $25 billion a year for incarcerated criminals who are
school dropouts. I can go on and on and on, and I will tomorrow.
But for now, I will leave it at that and just say that we have a long
way to go. But, fortunately, we do have areas in this country that are
going well and that give us that guiding light which will be necessary
to bring this Nation up to a standard which it must have to face this
next century.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The absence of a quorum has been suggested.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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