Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - March 28, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

By Mr. MARTINEZ (for himself and Mr. Cornyn):

S. 1009. A bill to amend part A of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to improve supplemental educational services, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I am here to discuss a topic of great meaning to American families: educating our children. We all want what is best for our children, and to provide them with the tools they need to succeed in tomorrow's workforce.

Today, I want to concentrate on one particular program that can play a key role in ensuring our children are meeting their educational goals.

I rise, along with Senator John Cornyn of Texas, to once again introduce the Raising Achievement Through Improving Supplemental Education Act, or the RAISE Act for short.

The RAISE Act seeks to improve the Supplemental Educational Services program--a tutoring program under No Child Left Behind--to help it become well-known, widely available, and easily accessible to eligible students. It seeks to broaden eligibility requirements and prioritization of the program to target all low-performing students regardless of income status. The Supplemental Educational Services program--also known as SES--was implemented as part of No Child Left Behind and designed to be an innovative tool to help meet the academic needs of low-income students attending continuously failing schools.

Under the program, low-income parents can elect to have free private after-school tutoring for their children. To pay the providers of this tutoring service, school districts would need only to use a required 20 percent allocation of their Federal funds.

By providing direct tutoring after school, the SES program can help those students who are behind catch up with their peers. This, in turn, also improves the overall performance of the school. But, due to the lack of strong implementation, there have been numerous shortfalls nationwide. This is a troubling development that the RAISE Act seeks to correct.

For example, in the 2005-2006 school year, just 20 percent of the eligible 2 1/2 million students participated in SES programs. That translates into hundreds of thousands of eligible children not being provided with tutoring help. The funding has already been set aside--there are children across the
Nation who could benefit from this after-school tutoring program--but they have to know about it to benefit from it.

Parents and State agencies are reporting that poor communication, delayed notification, and lack of transportation have become barriers to their children participating in the program. Also, there were some conflicts with other, better established after-school programs.

In Florida, we have already implemented SES improvements. As a result, Florida is seeing stronger guidelines, better State oversight, and consequently, higher SES program participation rate.

Many of the provisions of the RAISE Act are modeled after the successes already occurring in my home State. And it is notable that States such as Maryland and Indiana--where similar guidelines have been in place longer--they are seeing a remarkable 64 to 68 percent participation rate in their SES programs.

In our school districts where SES programs are thriving, good communication with both parents and providers has been emphasized, as well as access to on-site tutoring at school facilities.

Another important component of the RAISE Act is eligibility for SES. Currently, SES targets low-income, low-performing students. I think we should be targeting all low-performing students, regardless of income status. By overlooking many middle-class families who do not have the money to put their children into private tutoring or after-school programs, many of those children are falling through the cracks.

How can we ensure that no child is being left behind unless we specifically focus programs on those students who need the most help?

The RAISE Act was developed in consultation with school administrators, State education officials, and non-profit and research groups. This is a nationwide imperative and I urge my colleagues to support this innovative set of reforms.

The RAISE Act aims to help every child in the schoolyard have an equal opportunity for scholastic growth and achievement--this also happens to be the fundamental purpose of No Child Left Behind.

Together, all of us in this Chamber can make the RAISE Act a reality, and improve the academic lives of countless American schoolchildren in need.

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