Date: 2001-05-23
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman. my colleagues on this side of the aisle have already laid out the situation that we find ourselves in. Passage of this amendment. in fact. breaks the arrangement and the deal that we have with respect to this legislation. Let us look at why we have added the increases that we have in .this legislation. We have added the increases in this legislation because we think they are important to bringing about the reforms that many in this Congress have said. many on both sides of the aisle. but also what clearly this President of the United States has said that he wants to achieve in terms of the results. Yes. that chart that was just held up by the gentleman fromColorado . and earlier held up a number of- times by- the gentleman from Georgia . tells us a story that we are not particularly proud of. But that is because in the past. generally. when we have authorized this legislation. we have. not put in the accountability provisions that are in this bill. So these school districts that have among the highest percentages of poor children of any school districts in the Nation. very often they are also the poorest school districts because they do not have very high assessed evaluations. so certainly they are not receiving the resources that are necessary that they receive. or we would not have this program. because the States have already made the determination to not provide them the equalized funding. But among these. the poorest school districts with the poorest children. as the President will point out. and the poorest performing children. under this legislation. within 4 years they are going to have to have a qualified teacher in every classroom. Today they have teachers on emergency credentials. Today they have teachers on provisional credentials. They are going to have to get those teachers trained. certified and qualified to teach in the subjeQt matter in which they are teaching. That does not come free. They are going to be held accountable. not just for the average. how the average child is doing in the school district. but they are going to be held accountable for every poor child. for every minority child. for every limited Englishspeaking child in that school district. They are going to have to have the results that suggest that they are making the yearly progress. They are going to be held to yearly standards on making that progress according to the standards selected by the States. That is why we need new resources. That is why it is not a question of whether it is 11 percent or not. it is a question of whether or not we are adequately prepared to fund and to provide these kids an opportunity and a first class education. Because even with this effort. almost all of these children will not have the financial resources available to them that many of our children have had available to them in the schools where they have gone. That is Why they are among some of the least performing schools in our system. So let us understand that this is a very different arrangement than what the Congress has done in the past. There is a huge lobby in this town that is against this bill. because they are for the status quo. They a~re not for testing. They are not for accountability. They are just for Federal dollars. And what we have said in this legislation is we are not going there again. We are not going to have this. the first education bill of the millennium. We are not going to have this. when we just put the money on the table. As the gentleman from Michigan says. they just come by and take it. No. if you want to sign up for this. you are going to be held accountable and you have to have first class programs for all of the children. all of the children. and they deserve them. I Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.