Date: 2002-10-01
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of H.R. 5091. the CLASS Act. This bill would forgive student loans for teachers and of certain September 11 victims. I support this legislation to provide loan forgiveness for teachers in highpoverty schools and for special ed teachers. This legislation will be a very. very important tool in terms of recruiting and our desire to recruit and our ability to recruit and retain those teachers in highpoverty schools. All Members of Congress are pretty familiar with the challenges that are faced by teachers who are teaching in highpoverty schools and the set of circumstances that they confront. We believe by directing loan forgiveness to these individuals that we will have an opportunity not to have them just come in on a revolvingdoor basis. where they come in for 1 year and then bid out of those systems. but they will stay in those systems for 4 or 5 years. they will provide some continuity to those children. and we will get the results that we desire to have under the Leave No Child Behind Act. I appreciate the opportunity to work with the gentleman from South Carolina and others on this legislation. I will have to say. however. that I wish that we would have been able to support the gentleman from South Carolinas original legislation. which was to provide that this forgiveness would be guaranteed and not subject to a yeartoyear appropriations. That effort we will have to continue to work on. My concern is there teachers will not know that this incentive is really going to be in place on a yeartoyear basis. and it will make our job more difficult in getting highly qualified individuals into highpoverty schools. If it was not subject to appropriations. then we could assure individuals who qualify for it that it would be available over the time that they spent in those schools. We have a similar program and equally important program dealing with child care providers. It is subject to annual appropriations. and so far I think we have only helped 76 people nationwide. That is not the kind of program that we envision for this piece of legislation. but it is also the kind of guarantee that we should be able to provide to teachers that that would not happen in this program. Depending on what happens in yeartoyear budgets within the House of Representatives or in years like this where we do not get budgets. we do not get appropriations bills. what happens to the teachers who have already started teaching for this year? Would they know or not know whether they would be eligible for loan forgiveness? Next year in March in the State of California that my colleague has spoken to. and we are terribly concerned about the teacher shortage and recruitment in these schools. next year in March they will be getting pink slips because of the Federal funding. If we kick over the continuing resolution until March of next year. those teachers will not have the certainty of whether or not this appropriation would be available. That happens. unfortunately. all too often in the Congress. and that is why I would hope that this would be a guaranteed entitlement program for the length of the program. Finally. that part of the problem could be solved if we would. in fact. pass an education budget. if we would pass the education appropriations bill. but we will hear more about that on the topic of the continuing resolution tomorrow when it comes before this House where. once again. we will have to pass a continuing resolution because we have not been able to pass the appropriations bill because of the fight within the Republican Caucus dealing with the Education. Health and Human Services bill that has not been brought to the floor. although we were told in July it would be the first bill brought to the floor when we returned from our August break. Finally. let me just mention a portion of this bill. It is a rather small portion. but I think a terribly important portion in terms of a statement by this Congress. and a very humane statement by this Congress. and a compassionate statement of this Congress. and that is a provision that was added to this bill in committee by our colleague. the gentlewoman from New York . She represents a district in New York that suffered a great many losses from individuals who were killed in the vicious attacks of September 11 on the World Trade Center in New York City. Many people in the district suffered losses of friends in the attack of the Pentagon and the downing of the plane in Pennsylvania. This legislation that was added to the bill is to provide for loan forgiveness to the families of firefighters. police officers and military personnel killed on September 11. The gentlewoman from New York fought for this legislation almost immediately after September 11. and it took a whole year. We tried to offer it numerous times on the floor of the House. It was not allowed to come up. We tried to offer it as amendments. It was not allowed to come up. We were given assurances early on that it would be considered on the floor of the House last year. That turned out to be a hollow promise. It did not happen. Finally. this year the gentleman from Ohio . our chairman. gave his word that the committee would address this legislation. - His word was good. The deal stuck. and because of that guarantee by him and the tenacity and the doggedness of the gentlewoman from New York to make sure that this provision was brought to the Congress so the Congress wourd have a chance to vote on it so these families would get relief because of the economic setbacks that they suffered along with the tragedy they suffered of the loss of a member of their family in that tragedy. I simply want to recognize her for her effort. She was told so many times a lesser person might have gone away and figured out it could not be done. She continued to scheme and to persuade and to work on and to lobby Members of the House and the leadership and the rest to get this done. and I believe now today with the passage of this legislation she is going to realize the success that should have been hers many. many months ago and the benefits that will go to these families now. and I want to thank her. and I know Members of the committee want to thank her. for all of her effort on behalf of these families who suffer the tragedy of Mr. Speaker. I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from New York to manage the bill.