Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 107th Congress, First Session, Volume 147, Part 7 Page: 8,863
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May 22, 2001
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE
which would siphon money away from
public education, not strengthen it.
We will face amendments to weaken
the link between dollars and results.
We must maintain accountability to
ensure that our children are learning.
Of course, when you have a truly bi-
partisan piece of legislation, no one
gets everything he or she wants. I
would have liked to have seen more at-
tention paid to reducing class size. We
know that smaller class size improves
student learning, especially in the
early years. We need to build more
schools and hire more teachers to get
class size down and to improve the
quality of what is going on in the class-
room.
Schools in my area are bursting at
the seams with thousands of students
going to school in hundreds of trailers.
We have crumbling classrooms and out-
dated facilities. Over 90 percent of chil-
dren in kindergarten through third
grade in my district are learning in
overcrowded classrooms. There are
24,000 children trying to learn in class-
rooms with 25 or more students.
So we need local school districts to
build more schools; and when new
classrooms are built, we need quality
teachers to teach in them.
In my State, we have a staggering
need to hire 80,000 new teachers in the
next 10 years. I actually think that the
teacher shortage is the education issue
of the next decade, and neither party
has paid sufficient attention to it.
Without quality teachers in the class-
room, no other education reforms we
talk about are going to work.
But today, Mr. Chairman, we have a
chance to take an important first step,
a bipartisan step in the right direction.
We can improve American public edu_-
cation in this country together. Vote
for the bill and against crippling
amendments.
Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield
2 minutes to the gentleman from Mis_-
sissippi (Mr. WICKER).
Mr. WICKER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to
enter into a colloquy with the gen-
tleman from Ohio (Mr. BOEHNER),
chairman of the Committee on Edu_-
cation and the Workforce.
The current language of H.R. 1 re-
quires that a school identified for im-
provement must provide all students
enrolled in that school with the option
to transfer to another public school
within the same local educational
agency.
I am concerned that this language
may not provide public school choice
to students in many rural areas. For
example, in my mostly rural congres-
sional district, a school district is
often comprised of a limited number of
schools, sometimes including only a
few elementary schools and one high
school.
With few schools from which to
choose, there is little or no choice
within the same school district and,
therefore, no relief for those students.Mr. Chairman, I am hopeful that as
the legislative process continues, the
bill can include language such as I pro-
posed to the Committee on Rules which
will allow a student trapped in a failing
school to transfer to another public
school, regardless of the school dis-
trict.
Will the chairman continue to exam-
ine this issue during the conference
with the Senate?
Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, will
the gentleman yield?
Mr. WICKER. I yield to the gen_-
tleman from Ohio.
Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I
would be happy to work with the gen_-
tleman from Mississippi (Mr. WICKER)
to address this issue in conference.
H.R. 1, as we know, provides for within
district school choice and then allows
for the establishment of cooperative
agreements with neighboring school
districts, to the extent practical, if
there are no higher-performing schools
in the original district. ,
I understand the gentleman s con-
cerns about meaningful public school
choice in rural areas where choices are
limited, and I can assure the gen-
tleman that I will work in conference
towards giving students at low-per-
forming schools the option of transfer-
ring to another public school outside of
their current school district.
Mr. WICKER. Reclaiming my time, I
thank the gentleman for this assur-
Mr e. KILDEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2
minutes to the gentlewoman from Cali-
fornia (Ms. SANCHEZ).
Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Chairman, I am
pleased to speak in support of this leg-
islation. This bill is proof that friends
on both sides of the aisle, even those
who may not agree often, can come to-
gether in a bipartisanship way to ac-
complish a goal. .
We cannot hold public schools ac-
countable for improving education un-
less we give them the funds to ensure
that they can meet those goals. I be-
lieve that this bill does both.
Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1 authorizes $24
billion in funding for our national kin-
dergarten through 12th grade education
programs, a 29 percent increase over
the current fiscal year, much more
than the funding levels provided by
President Bush's own budget.
The bill doubles title I funds over the
next 5 years to $17.2 billion, and it in-
cludes real support for teacher train-
ing.
I am reminded, 2 years ago when
then-Vice President Al Gore was in my
district and we were talking about
school construction, we asked a young
student about 12 years old what was
the most important thing she was
looking forward to in her classroom
and she said, well, everybody knows,
Congresswoman, that the quality of
the teacher is the most important
thing for a child to learn.I am excited that we are doing some-
thing about teacher training. This bill
also removes provisions diverting funds
from public schools, whatever the new-
est name for them are, including pri-
vate school choice. Vouchers do not
support the vast majority of the stu-
dents in the United States.
I am reluctant to support some parts
of this legislation, but, overall, I am
very proud of the work that my fellow
members of the Committee on Edu-
cation and the Workforce have done.
And I commend both the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. BOEHNER) and the gen-
tleman from California (Mr. GEORGE
MILLER) for having made this bill pos-
sible, because truly without both gen-
tlemen, this would not have gotten
done.
Today, the House has a rare oppor-
tunity to get some real work done, and
I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1.
Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield
3 minutes to the gentleman from Wash-
ington (Mr. NETHERCUTT).
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I
thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
BOEHNER) for yielding the time.
Let me first thank the gentleman for
all the hard work he has done in put-
ting together a truly bipartisan edu-
cation bill.
Mr. Chairman, I would request that
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
BOEHNER) enter into a colloquy with
me.
Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, will
Mr. gN ETHERCUTT. I yield to the
gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. BOEHNER. I would be happy to
do o
Mrs. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman,
reclaiming my time. I come before the
House today to draw the gentleman's
attention and the attention of the
Committee on Education and the
Workforce to the Star Schools pro-
gram. I believe the Star Schools pro-
gram has served students in my dis-
trict and throughout the country very
well.
The Star Schools program is a dis-
tance-learning network which gives
students the opportunity to take class-
es they have never had before.
As many of my colleagues know,
many small, rural and underserved
urban school districts cannot afford to
hire teachers to offer a wide variety of
classes.
In small school districts, distance-
learning programs are often the only
opportunity students have to take ad-
vanced math and science or foreign
language classes necessary to apply to
college. Underserved urban school dis-
tricts are often unable to find or afford
qualified teachers to offer students
unique and upper level courses.
The distance-learning programs offer
a cost-effective way to level the play-
ing field for all students, offering them
the opportunity to take the same class-
es as their peers in larger and better-
funded schools.8863
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United States. Congress. Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 107th Congress, First Session, Volume 147, Part 7, book, 2001; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc31062/m1/22/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.