Every Child Achieves Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from North Dakota for bringing up a critically important issue. The need for counseling and mental health resources in our schools cannot be overstated. There are so many kids who appear to be slow learners and have problems that can be traced directly to these issues.
I know that teachers aren't trained to be psychologists and psychiatrists. Many of them are struggling just to teach. So I think the resources that the Senator from North Dakota is talking about are absolutely essential, and I hope her amendment prevails. I will be happy to support it.
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we come together every few years to debate education. Why does the Federal Government get into the conversation about grade schools and high schools? Because 50 years ago we created programs sending Federal money to these schools.
In my State, about 5 percent of all the money spent on education comes from Washington. The rest of it comes from State and local sources. Sending this money to schools was part of a program for accountability back in the 1960s. The problems we faced were largely twofold, problems of poverty and the resulting difficulties that children had in school and problems with racial discrimination. So we tried to resolve these by sending resources to States and holding them accountable if they received Federal money to move toward improving test scores and performance for children and breaking down the walls of segregation.
It is 50 years later. We have tried so many different approaches to this, and under President George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, there was a surprising new approach called No Child Left Behind. What was surprising is that a conservative Republican President actually called for a bigger role of the Federal Government when it came to education.
President Bush felt that we should hold schools and teachers accountable, that we should test to make sure they were making progress, and frankly, call them out if they were not. It was a pretty bold and controversial idea. Now we come together years later in an effort to do it differently. This bill before us, the Every Child Achieves Act, basically shifts the pendulum to the other side and says that now we are going to give it back to the States to measure the performance and progress of schools and intervene where necessary.
I think this is a worthy effort. We may find that we have gone too far in moving it all back to the States and away from the multiple tests that face school districts under No Child Left Behind, but we are engaging in this new approach in the hopes that it will be better and fairer and that more kids in America will get a good education. That is generally why I think we are here on this floor.
There is one aspect of it which I think we should still maintain, and that is the question or issue of accountability. Senators Murphy of Connecticut, Booker of New Jersey, Coons of Delaware, and Warren of Massachusetts filed an amendment which I have joined with to insert meaningful accountability measures in this bill, including identifying the 5 percent lowest performing schools--high schools where less than two-thirds of the students graduate--and subgroups of students who are not doing well.
There is a concern on the other side of the aisle, and even from some of my friends and supporters, that we are going back to the Federal accountability standards when schools or subgroups are not succeeding. That is not the case with this amendment. It allows the States to still decide which interventions are warranted, but it makes the information public as to how the schools are doing, particularly those that are really struggling, the lowest 5 percent of schools--high schools where two-thirds of the students are not performing. We should know this, and we should hold the States accountable now that it is their responsibility to intervene to make sure that they achieve this. To ignore it and turn our backs on it is not fair. It is to ignore a half-century commitment by this government with the title I program in particular and other programs in our government to really help the States to improve with Federal resources.
We have gone away from overtesting in No Child Left Behind, but let's not reach the point where we ignore the results. Let's hold States accountable. Let them come up with the interventions as required, but let's do it in a way that is transparent so there is accountability. I support this amendment, and I hope it is called up soon.
Mr. President, there is another amendment that may soon be before us offered by Senator Burr of North Carolina that would make changes in the title I funding program in terms of the allocations to States. Title I is the single largest source of Federal funding for elementary and secondary education. It helps States and districts address poverty and the needs of low-income students.
Senator Burr of North Carolina has created a new formula to send money from Washington back to the States. Not surprisingly, his State does very well with that formula, others not so well. The Burr amendment, which we finally saw in writing last night, would be devastating to low-income students in Illinois. It would reduce my State's share of title I funds by $180 million a year. So 28 percent of all the title I funds now coming into the State would be eliminated by the Burr amendment.
Chicago public schools are struggling. Mayor Emanuel, who is in charge of these schools, is trying to resolve decades' old problems with pensions, trying to put the money into the schools, and faces some extremely difficult choices.
Under the Burr amendment, Chicago's public schools would lose $68 million. It is not just about the city of Chicago. Every district in Illinois that receives title I funds for low-income students would see a cut. North Chicago and East St. Louis are the two poorest school districts in the State. East St. Louis is my hometown and where I was born. North Chicago would see a 24-percent cut of money for low-income students, and East St. Louis would see a cut of 18 percent--one of the poorest towns in my State. Rockford would lose $5 million, a 31-percent cut. Rock Island would see a 43-percent cut with the Burr amendment, and Carbondale and Danville, 27 and 20 percent, respectively. Springfield, my hometown, would lose $2 million or 26 percent of their total funds would be cut because the Senator from North Carolina wants to take more money home to his State.
These types of cuts to Illinois, divvied up among districts in other States, isn't a responsible Federal policy for making sure low-income kids in Illinois get a good education. It isn't responsible, and I have to say to my friend and colleague from North Carolina that he is in for a fight. He may think he has chosen just enough States to get a little more money to get a majority together, but my colleagues, at least on this side of the aisle, realize that tomorrow someone else could come up with a little different formula that would be devastating to their own States. This amendment is the most hurtful and damaging amendment that is before us in this bill as far as my State is concerned.
AMENDMENT NO. 2093
Third, there is an amendment from my friend from Minnesota, Senator Franken, called the Student Non-Discrimination Act, also called SNDA. I urge all of my colleagues to support it. SNDA will provide critical protection for LGBT students by explicitly prohibiting discrimination in public schools based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
A few weeks ago the Supreme Court had a historic decision when it came to same-sex couples having the right to marry. While this decision is a major historic achievement, there is more that needs to be done. Students who are or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender continue to face extraordinary discrimination.
A recent survey showed that 85 percent of these students reported harassment. The survey also found that these students didn't perform well when they were subjected to this harassment. That is no surprise. Research also shows that these teenagers are four times more likely to attempt suicide, and 40 percent of the homeless students and children in America are LGBT.
I support Senator Franken's amendment. Let's end this discrimination.
Finally, I support the amendment offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, which is based on the Strong Start for America's Children Act, to improve and expand high-quality early childhood education for more than 3 million low-income kids. The Casey amendment would help 100,000 kids in low-income families in Illinois get into pre-K. How important is that?
Well, I am a grandfather and proud of it. We have twin grandkids who are 3 1/2 years old. My wife and I spend a lot of time talking with them and reading to them. These kids are doing just great. They have terrific parents and are heading to pre-K in just a few months. They won't even be 4 years old when they enter the pre-K program in the city of Brooklyn, NY. We are excited about it. We know they are going to do well. Their parents, and maybe even their grandparents, have helped them reach that point.
What Bob Casey and his amendment try to do is to extend that opportunity to a lot of families--low-income families that may not have the luxury of being able to spend time with their kids the way other families can. Let's give those kids a fighting chance. Let's give them the pre-K education that gets them off to a good, strong start so they can learn and ultimately earn.
I support the Casey amendment, and I hope my colleagues will too.
I yield the floor.
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