Date: 1998-04-22
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. this evening I would like it go through a number of issues. Wednesday evening is the opportunity for the freshmen Republican class to spend a little time on the House floor and brief our colleagues and. indeed. the rest of the country on some of the activities that we are pursuing throughout America in our respective districts. I know for me out in the Fourth District of Colorado that I represent. which is essentially the eastern plains of the country. I spent the last two weeks over the Easter break working pretty hard. actually. It was not much of a break at all. We did a lot of town meetings and a lot of visits at school sites throughout the district and so on. I wanted to spend a little bit of time toffight just telling my colleagues about some of the activities that I had pursued with the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities that made a site visit out to my district recently. and report back on some of the comments that we received at that subcommittee. It was a subcommittee of the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities. the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations led by the chairman of that committee. the gentleman from Michigan . They came out to the town of Timnath. Colorado. which is a little bit east of Fort Collins. and Timnath is a community that includes an elementary school that we went to visit. -Timnath Elementary School. The school was a unique one and one that I think provided perhaps the best snapshot of education in my district as far as at the elementary level. because this particular community is located just on the outskirts of a bigger city. the City of Fort Collins. but still has a large rural component. So we have an interesting mesh of children from urban as well as rural settings. and of course that is representative of the district overall. We met for a daylong hearing of the subcommittee. again. part of the Crossroads in Education program of the committee which has taken place in several States throughout the country under the leadership of the committee. Let me tell you. Mr. Speaker. about some of the individuals that we heard from. Our focus was asking local leaders about what works and what is wasted in public education today. We heard from Don Unger. who is the superintendent of the Poudre School District in the town of Fort Collins. He cited one of the biggest problems that he is confronted with as a superintendent of a relatively large school district in Colorado. He said that we continue to receive increased Federal mandates. What he focused on. for example. were the changes made in the IDEA bill last summer. which are taking well over 100 hours of staff time with no new resources provided to support this additional mandated requirement. He also spoke about parent and staff litigation against the school district which he said caused a major demand on staff and dollars. These litigations are coming from three areas. he said: the Office of Civil Rights. right to due process under IDEA. and through parental and staff complaints to the State government. He said that some of the things that are working very well are the efforts here in the Congress to consolidate Federal programs. and. in fact. this Congress accomplished that in the last session with a number of education titles that we reviewed and consolidated here. He spoke about some of the literacy programs that we have promoted as a Republican Congress. and commented that they are working very well in his. district. Secondly. we heard from a woman named Pat Chase. She is the president of the Colorado Association of School Boards. and she takes in a perspective in her testimony of the entire State and all of the school boards that she represents. which are 176 in number. of -locally elected school board members. and all very dedicated to education. She says that the efforts in the State to lead local school districts in establishing standards are being received very positively. and have had a very positive impact on local schools. She. once again. hit on the issues of public school mandates. and described the Federal mandates that we are handing down to school districts as being particularly detrimental. She said the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act has been somewhat of a problem that imposes drug and alcohol testing requirements on school bus drivers. and she said that the mandate has the best of intentions. And on a State level and local level it is something that. in fact. Colorado would . H2222 most likely support anyway without the mandate from the Federal level. However. the Federal mandate just being in existence compels States and local school districts to fill out a lot of paperwork. spend a lot of time complying with the Federal mandate. Here is a mandate that is pretty obvious. You want to make sure that the people driving buses and being around kids are free from drugs. and pass the drug tests. And as I mentioned. Colorado is no different than many other States in that it would accomplish this objective on its own. left to its own devices and its own laws. but again the Federal Governments intrusion on something that is rather obvious results in nothing more in Colorado than more paperwork and more headaches for school board members throughout the State. and in the end detracts from getting dollars to classrooms where they are also needed most. We also heard from Dr. Randy Everett. Randy Everett is a urologic surgeon. He and his wife have been very involved in establishing education opportunities for children throughout northern Colorado where they were instrumental in establishing a school that focuses on the Hirsch "Core Knowledge" curriculum or the "Core Knowledge" sequence designed by Dr. E. D. Hirsch. And they started that school as an alternative school. and it resulted in a huge waiting list of parents who wanted to get their children into that kind of an education setting. This school is one that is created around a sequential curriculum. very well ordered. and very logical in terms of one lesson building upon the previous one. It is built around a concept called mature literacy and cultural literacy. which is one step above just basic functional literacy. the whole notion that children should be able to read for meaning and be able to understand all of the historic and scientific and cultural context of things that they read. and the way they understand the world. .A curriculum that is being used throughout the world. certainly throughout the United States with great success. this was the first school that was established in Ft. Collins. Dr. Everett then went on to establish a second school under Colorados charter school law. That school. as well. the Liberty Common School. is one that is enjoying tremendous success in its first year and Dr. Everett was on hand to give us testimony about the success of that institution. We also heard from Mr. Clair Orr. who is an individual from Greeley. Colorado. He serves on the State board of education. was elected to that position from throughout my Congressional District in the Fourth District. He spoke about a number of issues. The huge variances that we have in Colorado. very large school districts. down to small school districts that have in some cases 60 students total. And he spoke very directly. again. about the Federal Government taking on several responsibilities and duties for which it does not pay. And at one point in time our Federal Government mandated a number of requirements upon school districts. and over the years the size of the U.S. Department of Education has been broadened and flattened out. and there are too many programs now. far more than the district is able to fund. We heard from Jane Anderson. a parent at Liberty Common School. Jane Anderson spoke about school choice and the positive impact that that has on parental involvement. Many. many parents. far more parents than seems to be typical are getting involved in education delivery right at the classroom level when empowered by school administrators to do that. and again spoke about how wonderful that seems to work in Colorado. We heard from Bob Selle. a superintendent from east Yuma County school district. RJ2. way off in the eastern part of Colorado. almost out near Kansas. He spoke about. once again. about some of the. about some of the very difficult challenges that rural communities have. They spend a disproportionate amount of money on transportation because they have to transport their children from such far distances to get to some of the rural schools. and spoke about the success of some of the reading programs that the Federal Government helps initiate. One of the most memorable portions of our hearing involved testimony from a teacher. science teacher named Pam Schmidt. She is Colorados 1997 Teacher of the Year and she teaches at Thunder Ridge Middle School in Cora. Colorado. That is in the Cherry Creek school district. a very inspirational teacher. What struck me most about Pams comments and testimony was her desire to see teachers treated like real professionals. That is a term that I use quite frequently. and I asked her about a system that we have today. largely dominated by union politics at the National Education Association and the Colorado regimen being the Colorado Education Association. This union has secured a contract essentially that treats all teachers the same. regardless of their professional abilities and their ability to contribute to an education system and process. in fact. a system that results in the absolute worst teacher in the district being paid the same as the absolute best. She and I agreed that we ought to create a system throughout the country where teachers are rewarded as real professionals. and. in fact. allowing the very best teachers to become wealthy in carrying out the services that they render to children. which if we as a society agree. and I think we mostly would. that this process of public education is of paramount importance. truly then those who are the best and who are those who excel in their profession and field ought to be rewarded financially as well as professionally on that basis. And conversely. those who fail to perform well ought to be persuaded to find a new line of work. That. according to Pam. does not happen in public schools today. The worst teachers seem to be protected most by laws that certainly do not have the best interests of children first and foremost in their intent. We heard from Dan Balcerak. principal of Timnath Elementary School. First of all. let me say he was very gracious. and we certainly appreciated his hospitality in opening up his school for a day to the Congress and to the State of Colorado. Principal Balcerak mentioned that public education serves the needs of a wide variety of students. so teaching methods need to include accommodations for a wide spectrum of learning styles. He spoke. about how local control being the best way to accomplish that. not centralizing curriculum in Washington. D.C.. as many people here in Washington would suggest needs to occur. You find most of those folks over in the U.S. Department of Education and in the Clinton administration. And we assured Dan Balcerak that on the Republican side of the aisle. we are working very hard to liberate public schools throughout the country. and honor the freedom under which they operate best. We heard from Bill Moloney. the Commissioner of Education of the State of Colorado. He spoke about many things that seem to work very well. He said that technology. for example. is having a remarkable impact upon public education. He spoke about the Core Knowledge movement as being very positive. a rigid strategy toward testing and accountability that is occurring in Colorado. pointing out where the real problems are. and allowing professionals to go to work on improving those particular aspects of our school system. And he again spoke about the unfunded Federal mandates. and the real need for this Congress to work forcefully to liberate public schools at the State and local level. and free them from these burdensome rules and regulations that are again largely unfunded. Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to go through that report for the benefit of the Members here and also for those who wonder what it is we do when we take these breaks from Congress. In this case. which is a snapshot of one day. we spent considerable amount of time bringing other Members of Congress from other parts of the country out to Colorado to consider the contributfons and the problems that we are dealing with in a part of my State where the rural areas are. come up against some urban areas. I see the gentleman from South Dakota has joined me here. The gentleman from South Dakota is one of the outstanding leaders of the freshman class. I appreciate him joining us here tonight. I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota to present whatever point he needs to bring to our attention tonight.