District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2004-Resumed

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004—RESUMED

Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to support the inclusion of the District of Columbia School Choice Program contained within the fiscal year 2004 District of Columbia appropriations bill. I urge my colleagues to defeat any attempt to weaken or remove the program.

I also rise to support the amendment of Senator Feinstein which strengthens that provision in the appropriations bill.

First of all, I applaud the efforts of my friend, the senior Senator from Ohio, Mr. DeWine, for his efforts to expand school choice for the parents and schools of the District. I also applaud the leadership of Senator Gregg moving this issue forward.
I also applaud Senator Feinstein for her courageous support of this program and her very thoughtful amendment to the amendment to the appropriations bill.

My father, a first generation American, used to say that America enjoys more of the world's bounty than any other nation because of the free enterprise system and our educational system. This is true today as it was years ago. It we expect to remain competitive in the world marketplace and maintain our standard of living, this country needs to rededicate itself to the free enterprise and most importantly our educational system.

Some in Congress believe rededicating ourselves to this Nation's educational system means simply throwing more money at the issue, closing our eyes, hoping it will solve itself.

If spending alone ensured a quality education, the District would be one of the best school systems in the Nation. For the school year that ended June 2001, the District spent an average of $10,852 per student. That is the third highest in the Nation. However, the 2002 national assessment of educational progress showed fourth grade students in the District held the lowest scores for writing and tied with Los Angeles for the lowest score in reading. That means 27 percent of fourth graders in the District scored below the basic level in writing, and 69 percent tested below the basic level in reading.

What a dismal message on the state of education for the families who live in the shining city on the hill, the Nation's Capital. What a terrible record to send throughout the country and the world.

We, in Congress, are obligated to do more to help the children in our Nation's Capital. I have often said that the greatest thing one could do for their fellow human being is to help them fully develop their God-given talents so they can take care of themselves, their families, and make a contribution to society. We need to empower families and children with more than just additional funding.

When I was first elected Governor of Ohio in 1990, I pledged to the people that I would draw a line in the sand for this generation of children in Ohio by making their health education my administration's top priority. As I look back, I am proud of that record in Ohio. When I left the Governor's mansion in 1998 for the Senate, Ohio led the Nation in State funding for Head Start. Every eligible child whose parents wanted them in a Head Start Program, early education had a place for them. Many of these Head Start facilities were sponsored by religious organizations and located on the premises of religious organizations.

We were among the Nation's leaders in providing health care for uninsured children. Ohio increased funding for children and family programs by 47 percent while holding State spending to its lowest rate in 30 years. These actions and accomplishments were rooted in the belief that future generations of Ohioans would be served by a government that strived to empower families.

As the Presiding Officer knows, education begins with a family. A parent must be a child's first teacher. It was in this context that Ohio became one of the first States to undertake the challenges of implementing school choice. My colleagues in the Senate know how tumultuous a battle that program faced. It went on for years and finally ended up in the Supreme Court.

At the beginning of the Cleveland scholarship program, we provided 2,000 scholarships to children in grades kindergarten through third grade that would follow them through the eighth grade. Depending on the family's income level, the State paid between 75 and 90 percent of the cost of education. The scholarship amount did not exceed $2,250, which provided a significant portion of the tuition at one of the participating nonpublic schools in Cleveland. The State also provided an equal number of $500 tutoring grants to those students who did not receive scholarships but whose parents felt they needed additional help for their children.

The response to our program was overwhelming. The State received nearly 7,000 applications from Cleveland parents.
More than half of the applicants were from households dependent on welfare, and half were from minorities. It was evident from the sheer number of applicants that parents were demanding options that the Cleveland Scholarship Program provided.

Today, the program has expanded. Effective July 1, 2003, students who had previously received a scholarship are now eligible to receive a scholarship for grade 9 in the 2003-2004 school year. And beginning in the 2004-2005 school year, a student who received a scholarship in the 9th grade will be eligible to receive a scholarship in the 10th grade. We are moving them along. Additionally, the scholarship amount has increased. The capped tuition for the 2003-2004 school year is now $3,000.

From its humble beginnings in 1996, with 2,000 students, and total scholarships of $2.9 million, the program has more than doubled its enrollment. Today it covers some 5,200 students. Additionally, total scholarship amounts have increased to almost $10 million.

Since 1998, Indiana University's Center for Evaluation has been conducting longitudinal studies regarding the Cleveland Scholarship Program. So we have been watching it. We put the money out so we could watch how this thing has progressed.

In its most recent study, the center found that students who have participated in the Cleveland Scholarship Program since kindergarten have achieved significantly higher levels than public school students in reading and language skills.

I would also like to call my colleagues' attention to the results of an evaluation of the Cleveland voucher program that was conducted 2 years after it began by Paul Peterson of Harvard University.

In his study, Dr. Peterson found that parents of voucher recipients were consistently more satisfied with many aspects of their child's education than were parents of students in the Cleveland Public Schools. From the quality of academic programs to school discipline, teachers' skills, class size, and so forth, parents whose children were participants in the Cleveland Scholarship Program showed greater satisfaction and enthusiasm than did parents in the Cleveland Public School System.

The Cleveland Scholarship Program is merely one component of a renewal in our education system that needs to occur. I do not stand before the Senate and claim it is a cure-all for all troubled school districts. I think it is very important. Those of us who are supporting Senator DeWine's and Senator Feinstein's amendment are not claiming this is going to be the cure-all for troubled school districts. What we are saying is that it is another option on the education smorgasbord. And as the
Presiding Officer so eloquently stated, why not look at some other programs that are out there? A business that is not doing very well starts to look at itself saying: What are other things we could be doing? Let's do some research and development. Let's look at some new ideas. Let's try something else.

I must tell you, as chairman of the Governmental Affairs subcommittee with jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, I support this as one of many options. We need to expand our vision. Instead of putting on our blinders, let's look at some other programs. The legislation offers the positive step toward empowering parents in the District by increasing their involvement in their child's education and offering them more choices.

Families in the District of Columbia have limited opportunity for choice in their children's education, and families have wholeheartedly embraced school choice. In 1996, the first charter schools opened in the District. The 39 charter schools operating in the District of Columbia only educate 1 in 7 children in the District. That is 15 percent of the students. Hundreds—hundreds—are on waiting lists.

Additionally, the Washington Scholarship Fund, a private, nonprofit organization, that provides scholarships for economically disadvantaged families, received over 7,500 applications for 1,000 available scholarships. It is clear that the parents of children in the District of Columbia want more options.

When I came to the Senate, I said I would not mandate a scholarship program on any jurisdiction; they had to want it. It is clear to me that the District of Columbia wants this. And it is just as clear that the District is within the responsibility of the Congress. They are our responsibility. We are not mandating every school district in America. We are increasing options for families in the District of Columbia.

Some would contend this is going to be running throughout the United States of America. We are concentrating our attention on our responsibility: the city on the hill, the Nation's Capital—our responsibility. And we are saying we want to give the parents of those children more options.

The most important thing is that this proposal for fiscal year 2004 has been drafted in consultation with and has the approval of Mayor Anthony Williams—I have talked to him about it; he is passionate about it—Council Member Kevin Chavous, chair of the Council's Committee of Education, Libraries, and Recreation; and Ms. Peggy Cooper Cafritz, president of the DC Board of Education. They are for this. They want this for their children. They are asking us for it.

The bill also contains $13 million for charter schools and $13 million for public schools to assist them with requirements under No Child Left Behind for teacher recruitment, training, and similar programs. Combined, the funds for these three programs represent the largest Federal contribution to the District of Columbia in the history of this country.

Unfortunately, the debate is not focused on the $39 million in new funds for the District. Oh, no. It is on the $13 million being considered for the scholarships. The proposed scholarship program would be authorized for 5 years, giving Congress the opportunity to monitor and evaluate the progress of schools and students—5 years. Let's watch it, just as we did in Cleveland with the longitudinal studies. Let's see how it works out. It would be overseen by the District of Columbia and the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Finally, it is a scholarship program that will help the neediest families in the District, the ones about whom the Presiding Officer so eloquently spoke. Eligible students are children attending low-performing public schools and whose household incomes do not exceed 200 percent of the poverty level. We are talking about a relatively small number of students. I think it is something like 2,000 students who would be eligible for the program.

I would like to stress to my colleagues that this is all new Federal money for students in the District of Columbia. Let me repeat: This is all new money. These scholarships are one piece of a larger proposal to address the educational needs in Washington, DC.

Certainly there is a role for Congress to play. We in Congress have increasingly recognized the need for the Federal Government to serve as the State for the District, a necessity considering the unique relationship between the District of Columbia and the Federal Government.

For example, just 4 years ago, I was the chief sponsor in the Senate of the DC Tuition Assistance Grant Program, which was enacted in 1999. This program provides grants for students graduating from DC high schools to attend public universities and colleges nationwide at in-State tuition rates. In other words, we put the students in the District in the same position as if they lived in the State of Tennessee or the State of Ohio. There is a subsidy by the State so they could go on and get higher education.

It also provides smaller grants for students to attend private institutions in the DC metropolitan area and private historically black colleges and universities nationwide. So we have expanded it beyond just public. We now have private and historically black colleges included. This program has been enormously successful.

There is one final point I would like to discuss. Critics of scholarships argue that scholarships are ways for private schools, especially religious schools, to get rich quick. Incredible, just incredible. It is not true. As my colleagues may know, tuition for a student does not cover the full cost of educating a child. The difference currently is made up by private donations.

Many schools in the District run by the Archdiocese of Washington are struggling financially and would not be able to support a large influx of students. The Archdiocese estimates needing an additional $5 million in the first year alone, should the Archdiocese fill all open seats in their schools with students on scholarships. It basically means, if they opened their doors and took advantage of the scholarship program, for them to do that, they would have to go out and find $5 million someplace in order to educate these children.

It is the same thing in the city of Cleveland, with our nonpublic schools. We have hundreds of low-income kids who are not Catholic who are attending Catholic schools. My mother was a volunteer librarian at one of them where 70 percent of the kids were non-Catholic. There was not any proselytizing going on.

The reason they opened their doors is they believed in the two great commandments—love of God and love of fellow man.
They believed the best way they could witness their faith is by reaching out and making a difference in the lives of these children, developing their God-given talents so they can take care of themselves and their families and make a contribution to society.

I will never forget one of those students was a player on the Ohio State football team. He was a big center. He went to the school where my mom was a librarian. I went out there to one of their practices. He almost picked me up, and he looked at me and said: Are you Mrs. Voinovich's son?

I said: Yes, I am.

And he talked about the wonderful experience he had at St. Aloysius and the difference it made in his life so he could go on to high school and get a scholarship to play football.

This is what we are talking about. Why anyone would deny a student in the District the opportunity that students have had in the city of Cleveland and other places throughout the United States is simply beyond me. It is not the end of the world, if this is adopted. That is ridiculous. This is a small experiment to give people an option in their children's education.

Over the years it was argued that the Cleveland scholarship program was unconstitutional. I argued it was constitutional. I am not going to make that argument because the Presiding Officer made it in his presentation just before me, in terms of kids having money. The money goes to them, and then they can go wherever they want to go. That is in the American tradition. That is how thousands of Americans got their college education through the GI bill. The Supreme Court, on June 27, 2002, upheld the Cleveland scholarship program. When they did that, I labeled it a victory for hope. We have seen wonderful successes in Cleveland of children excelling in school, when the doors of opportunity were opened and parents could choose to offer what they believed is the best education. I believe all families deserve those options. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation for the families in our Nation's capital.