Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding the right of all citizens of the United States to a public education of equal high quality.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and let me start by thanking the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen). This chairman, I think in the ways most remembered of Julian Dixon, has taken the helm and worked hard, been sensitive to the issues arising here in the capital city. He has been out and about visiting and visibly showing the concern of the Congress for the plight of the city's neighborhoods. I think he most appropriately understands and appreciates the work that the city's leadership, the Mayor and the council and its delegate, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), have done to rescue the city from its fiscal constraints from years ago.

Mr. Chairman, I worked with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) in creating the financial control board, which was modeled after the PICA Board that we instituted in Philadelphia that I sponsored in the legislature then, and it has worked well here in the District. The district is now on its own and has done a tremendous job in righting the ship.

The chairman understands and appreciates the superb leadership that superintendent Paul Vance has brought to the school district and the board of education here in Washington, D.C., and I just want to thank the chairman, thank his staff, particularly Carol Murphy, who has shepherded at the helm the work of the majority staff, and I would also like to thank Rob Nabors on the Democratic appropriations staff and William Miles from my personal staff that have worked on D.C.-related matters.

We come here today with a bill in which there will be a lot of attention on what we disagree on, and we disagree on one item, that of vouchers; but I do not want that to overshadow the fact that this bill, absent that one disagreement, is a very significant accomplishment and it is owed solely to the leadership of the chairman and his capable political skills and bringing to a consensus how we should address a whole host of issues affecting our capital city.

This is, I think without disagreement, in the world's only remaining superpower, the wealthiest country in the world, this is our capital city, and it is a symbol in every important way to world visitors, foreign leaders, and to those who look upon this Nation as to where our priorities are. So it is important work that the Congress does. And as we seek to promote democracy in other places, I know that we hope one day here in the District that American citizens who pay taxes and who are dying on foreign battlefields will have democracy here in the District and be able to have on the floor of this House not just a voice but a vote.

Mr. Chairman, today I commend the chairman for this bill. I think it addresses the critical issues in important ways. He has fought for an allocation that some may have some issues with, but it is representative of approaching what we need to address the District's problems; and I thank him and his staff for their work.

Mr. Chairman, I hope we can enter into the general debate and move through this bill, have a passionate discussion about the question of vouchers but not overlook the fact that we have broad agreement here on the direction of what our fiscal responsibilities are to the District of Columbia.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to thank the gentleman from California for his comments and his work on the committee, and indeed it is because of the leadership that he has brought that a great deal of progress has happened in terms of the waterfront.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Reclaiming my time, it is well known that the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), unlike many other Members, has sought and stayed on this committee and has made a real contribution at the waterfront, and I am aware of his efforts in terms of this particular type of cancer.

I would tell him in terms of the sewer system and the infrastructure in the District of Columbia, there are tremendous needs. I understand the President will be down soon with a $13 billion request to rebuild the sewer system in Iraq with taxpayer money. Maybe there might be a few pennies left that we can do something more to help in our own capital city; but Members should not hold their breath because I am sure we will be told there is not enough money to address these domestic concerns.

The question of vouchers is an important one, and I am going to yield to the Member who has the most to say about this. As the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) said, really there is not a lot of disagreement because if somebody wants this, it should not be outlawed. But the question here in the District of Columbia was there was a referendum. The voters have spoken. They do not want vouchers.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) to address the bill and any particular concerns the gentlewoman wants to beyond that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to make a couple of points. One is that it is true that the mayor has come out in favor of this approach, assuming that there would be dollars for our public schools and charter schools, in what we now call the three-prong approach. The three-prong approach is not what is before us at all, and I sincerely believe the chairman when he says that we hope in conference that we can address that. But the vote before us today is to do nothing additional for public schools, nothing additional for charter schools and solely and singularly take dollars and to provide them to private institutions.

I personally think that private school choice is wonderful and if people want to make private choices, I think they should pay for them privately. This is a public enterprise and we have

to make public choices. If we have got 70,000 children in a school system that lacks fully-qualified teachers, we should take every penny we can find and get them fully-qualified teachers; that if they lack libraries, we should get them libraries, and so forth and so on. We know what we need to make public schools work. They work right outside of the District of Columbia today, in Fairfax County, in Alexandria. They work. You put quality teachers in the classroom, you put a limited class size, you give them updated textbooks, and kids learn. Why do we not do that in the District? Why do we not give to them what we provide to other children rather than give them some unproven, newfangled idea that nobody has any indication will work?

The gentleman who just spoke, my colleague from Florida, Florida just had an embarrassment where they had vouchers going to some outfit who, it is at least alleged, was involved in terrorism activity. When you have these uncontrolled, unregulated vouchers, you can have everything from the David Duke Academy getting dollars to anything that anybody else can dream up.

We need to be careful as we go forward because all we are looking forward to here is for some kind of embarrassment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes, even though I only promised him 2\1/ 2\, to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me just make a couple of comments. A basic understanding of how the city government operates is that the mayor is the executive. City policy is designed by a consensus between the council and a majority and the executive through statute. There is nothing that prevents the D.C. Government at any time from instituting a voucher program if it wants to. There does not exist a political consensus in the District; that is, the legislative body, which we should have great sympathy for as we are a legislative body, does not agree with this policy. So to say, well, you have got the city's support because you have the mayor, ask us if you have the full support of the city government when you actually do not.

It is important that as we say that we come with great concern about the plight of the children in the District and that we want them to have the same opportunity that our children have, let us give them the same opportunity that the constituents of the gentleman from Virginia have. That is, they have quality schools with fully-qualified, credentialed teachers. Let us take these dollars and provide that here in the District. They have schools that have updated curriculums and adequate libraries and school counselors for all of the children who are presented to the schoolhouse door, not taking a few children, siphoning them off and helping them, and forsaking the rest to a District that by his own statement is not living up to what we would hope it would live up to.

So this question of diverting public dollars for a private school and schools is a very important one about what we really believe. If we want to truly help these children, let us do for them what we are doing for other children, and that is provide quality public schools in the District of Columbia so that these children and future generations of them can benefit because we already know that that works. It works right in the gentleman from Virginia's (Mr. Tom Davis) district. It works today. Vouchers have not been proven to work anywhere in the country, and why experiment on the future life chances of these children here in the District?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to enter into the Record a new story from the Florida Naples Daily News which headlines ``Private School with Ties to Terrorists gets State Money'' through a private tuition voucher program.

And I appreciate the comments from the gentleman from Washington State. It is true that the mayor supports dollars for vouchers which I disagree with. It is also true, and I think fair to say, that this is not the proposal that the mayor supports. He supports a three-pronged approach that is not what is going to be before us today, and I sincerely appreciate all the work that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) has done on behalf of the District, but this is not a proposal that the mayor supports nor is it a proposal that the City Council supports. So to say this has the support of the District, I think, is really kind of twisting things slightly.

[From the Florida Naples Daily News, July 18, 2003]

Private School With Ties to Alleged Terrorist Gets State Money

Tampa.--Senate Democrats urged Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday to

cut off payment to a school co-founded by a professor accused

of being the North American leader of a worldwide terrorist

organization.

The school received $350,000 last year through a state

program that pays private school tuition for some students.

A February grand jury indictment against Sami Al-Arian, the

alleged leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and seven

others says the school was used as a base of support for the

organization.

The indictment said the purpose of the organization was

``to assist its engagement in, and promotion of, violent

attacks designed to thwart the Middle East Peace Process.''

It said the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is responsible for 100

murders in Israel and its territories.

Al-Arian, who is being held in jail without bail and denies

any connections to terrorism, co-founded the school in 1992

and served as its director and chairman of its board.

The school's treasurer, Sameeh Hammoudeh, also was indicted

and is being held in jail without bond. He and Al-Arian

allegedly encouraged people who wanted to send money to

Palestinians to write checks to their school. The Palm Beach

Post reported in its Thursday editions.

Last year, the 300-student Islamic Academy of Florida

received more than 50 percent of its revenue from the state

program, Florida PRIDE, which uses corporate donations to pay

for poor students to attend private schools.

``The disclosures that more than $300,000 of this money

went last year to a school suspected of terrorist ties raises

the frightening specter that Florida's taxpayers may be

unwittingly funding extremist organizations intent on the

destruction of our nation and its allies,'' Senate Democratic

Leader Ron Klein and Senator Dave Aronberg wrote in their

letter to Gov. Jeb Bush.

Denise Lasher, spokeswoman for Florida PRIDE, said

officials conducted an independent audit of the school after

the indictment was released and found no misuse of funds and

no connection between the scholarship money and terrorist

activity.

She said the school received more than $300,000 in federal

grants for computers and its free- and reduced-price school

lunch program.

``It was unfortunate that there was someone at the school

accused of doing something

illegal, but that doesn't mean the school has done something

illegal,'' she said Thursday.

But although Florida PRIDE found that all of its

scholarship money was going to the school, Hammoudeh was paid

for his services as school treasurer, and the indictment

states that school supplies and equipment were used in the

Jihad operation. It is unknown whether Al-Arian was being

paid.

Corporations that donate to the program receive a dollar-

for-dollar tax break. The program gave out nearly $50 million

in scholarships last year.

Since the program began, large corporations such as WCI

Communities Inc., Gulf Power Co., Florida Power & Light and

Verizon Wireless have donated to the program, but how much

and to which program is not public information.

Critics of the corporate tax credit scholarship program are

concerned that there is no government oversight of the

schools that take the money. In their letter to Bush, Klein

and Aronberg called for a review of the program and of the

schools.

Under the May 2001 law, the Florida Department of Education

cannot dictate curriculum or monitor how students are

progressing academically.

But Lasher insisted the schools teachers and students and

teachers are top notch academically.

Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, jokingly said in

May that he could start a school for witches under the law

and receive corporate tax credit scholarships.

``The intent of this program was to help poor kids. The

intent was never to make opportunistic entrepreneurs

wealthy,'' said King, who also ordered a study of the

program.

Despite the accountability concerns, Bush remained a

supporter, saying last week that it was a ``proven success,''

based on the students receiving the scholarships.

Ahmed Bedier, spokesman for the Muslim advocacy group

Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Tampa school

is well respected. He noted that the University of South

Florida is also mentioned in the indictment.

But USF, where Al-Arian was a professor and Hammoudeh was

an instructor, is not listed as one of the bases of support

for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Administrators at the Islamic Academy did not return phone

calls Thursday.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. Chairman, could we have an audit of the time? We will not have audits of these private schools.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens).

(Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me say to the gentleman from Virginia that I think it gives some example of the weakness of the proposal when we have to go to, well, they gave some contract and it is being investigated. The Defense Department has given out contracts that have become fraudulent.

So I do not see us privatizing our Nation's defense because of some malfeasance with one particular contract.

Let us not get into anecdotal situations. Let us deal with the reality, which is the public school system is a public good. It is important to the entire community. It is not just about educating one child; it is about what we see as the need to promote values for the entire community.

When you privatize public education, you create very parochial, selfish interests. This school in Florida in which the principals have now been indicted with these terrorist leanings, this is not some joke, this is not some example of a red herring. This is reality, in the news today about what has happened when the State of Florida provided public dollars to private institutions.

There have been similar scandals in other places around the country, and there will be, I guarantee you, because the majority will probably have its way, when this program gets set up there will be scandals here because of this program.

That is not what makes it bad, because some people will use it improperly. What makes it bad is what it says about the public spirit of our actions, which is that we would rather take 2,000 children and siphon them off into private schools, rather than repair a school system that can provide for 70,000 children, which really should be our goal.

We are going to build 1,500 new schools in Iraq at the cost of billions, but here we are scrapping on the floor of the House about $10 million for the District of Columbia, our capital city. It is a question about what our priorities are. I would hope for the District quality teachers, smaller class sizes, updated textbooks. That is what I believe the solution is, not vouchers.

Mr. Chairman, I was going to offer an amendment, but I decided due to the lack of time not to offer it at this time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, just a factual question, on page 9, the language at the bottom where it refers to religiously affiliated schools, is my reading of this to say that this bill would allow for religiously oriented schools to utilize these scholarships that are being provided?

Mr. Chairman, is there some list of which religiously affiliated schools would be eligible?

Mr. Chairman, that is my question. I would not understand that there are any accrediting procedures for religious schools now in the District. And if there are, I would be interested in knowing that.

Mr. Chairman, so it is the gentleman's intention that there would be created, because there is none now, lists of what would be approved, accredited religious schools?

Mr. Chairman, I am not trying to be argumentative.

Well, as I would understand the facts at the moment, that is why I am asking, there is no accrediting process for religiously- affiliated schools K to 12 in the District today, and there is none that is created by your language?

So the gentleman understands that there is a list or that somewhere in this language it gives the Department authority to create such a list?

Which one is it, the former or the latter?

So are there certain religious affiliations that would be acceptable and others that would not?

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and return to my question.

As I understand the language, and I read it, it says that any religiously affiliated school could get dollars under this program and it can be controlled and connected to a religious organization and it can promote its religious purpose; and then it goes on to say it could hire any number of people who follow their religious beliefs and that they deem necessary and that they can include religious references in its mission statement and other governing documents.

All I am trying to determine is whether or not that is completely wide open, or whether there is a list of some type that either already is approved or would be approved of which religiously affiliated entities could operate schools in the District.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, all of the lawsuits on this matter, or at least the vast majority, have been about the Federal prison system, in which the courts have been, I would say, very lenient in determining what is a religion, and all manner of groups with any number of, I think, what most of us would consider problematic beliefs have been determined to be religions for purposes under the definition by the Federal courts. So would that be the same in terms of how this would operate?

I read the list of the educational standards, all related to education, and I think the gentleman has done a good job on that. I am just concerned about this particular issue, and I guess so that the record can be clear, your position is that there is no restriction in the authorizing language as you have written it?

I want to enter into the Record a report from California, not the earlier report I referenced from Florida, of a school that was set up under the laws of California that received millions and millions of dollars to educate children, and it has now been determined that they were funded and founded and set up by a Pakistani terrorist organization.

I want to enter this into the Record, because I think what the concern is here is that if those who believe in witchcraft, those who have antisocial racial views, any number of people who claim to be a religion can set up a religiously affiliated school and benefit through the largesse of this $10 million and pretend that they are educating children, segregate them, as I understand under the gentleman's authorizing language by sex or any other manner, hire only those who believe what they believe, discriminate against anyone else, and determine their own curriculum, that I have a concern about, even if we agree that this was the way to go, that this kind of loophole would be useful to us at this time in our Nation's capital.

[From ABC News I-Team]

Baladullah

Nov. 8.--The ABC7 News I-Team has learned that millions of

your tax dollars are headed this year, to a group that is

connected to an organization founded by a Pakistani

terrorist. You are paying for a new system of charter

schools, started by the members of an Islamic village in the

Sierra foothills called ``Baladullah.'' Dan Noyes has Part

Two of this I-Team investigation.

The ABC7 News I-Team has learned that millions of your tax

dollars are headed this year to a group that is connected to

an organization founded by a Pakistani terrorist. You are

paying for a new system of charter schools, started by the

members of an Islamic village in the Sierra foothills called

``Baladullah.'' Dan Noyes has Part Two of this I-Team

investigation.

Some of these charter schools are here in the Bay Area. We

want to be clear from the

start that this is not a story about the Muslim faith. It is

about one group of people living just a few hours from the

Bay Area, who have ties to a mysterious Pakistani sheik.

The U.S. State Department has listed Pakistani sheik Sayyid

Mubarik Jilani as the founder of a terrorist group that has

committed dozens of crimes across the country--firebombings,

fraud, and assassinations. And in a recruitment tape, Jilani

offers to train any American who will join his cause.

Sheik Jilani: ``We shall be helping Muslims wherever they

are oppressed, and we wish that you'd extend your cooperation

with us in any manner suitable to the cause.''

Jilani also established ``Muslims of America'' to help

spread his version of Islam. Late last year, the group moved

its headquarters to a village in the Sierra foothills called

Baladullah--along with the mobile homes, the airstrip, and

the U-Haul franchise.

Male Teacher: ``We move the decimal point in the divisor.

How many times to the right?''

The compound has a new charter school. It's a way for the

state to provide an alternative form of education, paid for

with your tax dollars.

Sharon Brooks, Assistant Administrator: ``We're teaching

our children because we want them to be doctors and lawyers

and judges and architects. We don't want them to be ditch

diggers.''

Student: ``The administrators would not discuss their

connection to Muslims of America or Sheik Jilani. So, we

asked their attorney about the charter school.''

Doug Hurt: ``It is one small site, it has 25-50 kids at any

given time.''

Dan: ``Is that it?''

Dan: ``How about the eleven other campuses for the

charter?''

Doug Hurt: ``What interest is that of yours?''

This year--under the name ``Gateway Academy''--the village

opened twelve charter schools up and down the state . . .

including one in Oakland and in Sunnyvale. All the schools

are chartered through the Fresno Unified School District,

where officials had expected Gateway to run just a few

schools in the area. All those satellite schools came as a

surprise.

Jill Marmolejo, Fresno Unified: ``They're running along

doing their business and then informing us after the fact, so

we told them in the future, before you open any satellites

you have to get it approved through us.''

Jill Marmolejo says it appears Gateway Academy has done

nothing illegal by opening schools across the state, but it

has put a tremendous strain on Fresno School District

inspectors. They now have to travel hundreds of miles, to

check up on the schools.

Jill Marmolejo: ``We're not specialists in Oakland, we're

not specialists in Pomona, so we're relying on them to do the

right things.''

And to do the right thing with millions of your tax

dollars. Gateway Academy reports it has 1,200 students now,

so they will receive more than $5.5 million this year. And

that's on top of more than a million they spent last year,

setting up the charter schools.

Jonathan Bernstein: ``We have serious concerns about this

group.''

Researchers at the Anti-Defamation League have been

tracking Sheik Jilani for almost 20 years, and now, they are

worried about Baladullah's charter schools. They have no

evidence that your tax dollars are headed from a village in

Tulare County . . . to the terrorist's base in Pakistan. But,

in general, the ADL is concerned about where the charter

school money is going.

Jonathan Bernstein: ``We feel like these funds can land up

in the hands of extremists.''

The lawyer for Baladullah says the people here are not

extremists. And, he denied any direct connection between the

village and Jilani--or even the group the sheik founded,

Muslims of America.

Doug Hurt: ``In that they are Muslims and they live in

America, I would say so, but are they formally connected, is

there an entity, no, not as far as I'm aware.''

But the president and treasurer of Muslims of America list

their home address as Baladullah. And the secretary of

Muslims of America--Khadijah Ghafur--is also the president of

the charter schools. That connection between the schools and

Jilani's group troubles the principal at the branch in

Sunnyvale.

Mazhar Jamil: ``I am surprised. This is the first time I

have heard anything like this.''

Mazhar Jamil has run a school on this site for six years--

he has just signed on with Baladullah's Gateway Academy. But

now, he says he has to rethink that relationship . . .

because of the ties between the schools, the village, and the

sheik.

Mazhar Jamil: ``We have no connection or desire to be

affiliated with anything like that.''

We want to emphasize that Muslims of America has not

appeared on any terrorist watch list. Sheik Jilani has, along

with his group al-Fuqra. Gateway Academy is the only charter

school in the Fresno district that has more than one

location, and most of them are outside the county.

As a result of our reports, Fresno Assemblyman Mike Briggs

plans to introduce a new bill, so that a group can open

charter schools ``only'' in the county where they live.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield for 10 seconds on that point. The gentleman says here in section 9, notwithstanding any other provision of the law, the school could employ, the participating school may employ anybody that they believe----

Mr. Chairman, I have a lengthy statement talking about generally what is in this bill, really basically praising the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) for putting together a very good bill.

I would like to address briefly, though, the Davis amendment that will be coming up before this body a little bit later. I will submit for the Record a Washington Post editorial written by Tony Williams, the elected mayor of the city; Kevin Chavous, elected council member and chairman of the District's education committee; and Peggy Cooper Cafritz, the elected chairman of the school board, all supporting my amendment and the school voucher program. I will also submit for the Record a May 12, 2003, editorial from the Washington Post which sets the record straight on the history of school vouchers in Washington.

Let me just say, the idea that this is an anti-voucher city is something we need to contend with. The vote in 1981 was not on a school voucher program like we have here. It was on tuition tax credits that one could argue hurt the District budget. I think we have solved that here by bringing additional money in, and more money will be coming into the city that would not otherwise come in as a result of the appropriations process I think at the end of this.

So that was a completely different proposal. That vote was in 1981. The Washington Post, a newspaper of some renown in this town, ran a poll in May of 1998 that asked, do you favor or oppose using Federal money in the form of vouchers to help low-income students in the District go to private or parochial schools? In that poll, 56 percent of city residents said they favored the idea. If that is the idea of anti-voucher, I think that we are being misled. City opinion is split on this, but the elected mayor and the elected chairman of the school board have come to us, they are in charge of this, they are entrusted by the voters to focus on this particular issue, and they have said that they need this to help D.C. schoolchildren get the same level of opportunity that the rest of us have for kids in our districts.

Over the years I have worked hard to try to bring this city back. I have worked with my friend, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia

(Ms. Norton), on a number of issues and we have had a number of successes. We have sponsored legislation to bring the city back to financial stability. We sponsored legislation to help the city overcome its unfunded pension liability, a major issue that people said could not be done. We have worked in assisting the economic recovery of this city with tax relief and regulatory relief for our Nation's capital. We have worked together on the D.C. College Access Act which makes college affordable to the District population that basically was discouraged from going because they had no State university system like the rest of us do in our States. I think all of these have helped. But the most difficult problem facing this city is its public school system.

I respect my colleagues who oppose this amendment. They argue that public dollars should be reserved for public schools only. I think philosophically I believe the same thing, but I think they are misguided in this instance when they put the preservation of the institution, a failed institution, ahead of the opportunities for children that could be advanced by this. Ultimately our responsibility is to the kids, not to an institution, not to a failed, dysfunctioning bureaucracy.

What has it produced over the years? They say that we are going to put more money into public schools. We have put more money into public schools. It still has one of the highest dropout rates in the Nation. It has some of the lowest test scores in the Nation. The average SAT throughout the city, combined verbal and math, is under 800. It is a failure. Its school lunch program was just rated by the Physicians Committee on Responsibility and was given an F. They cannot even feed the kids in the public school system. Yet they say, no, that is where we want to send them, that is where they have to go. We are talking about kids whose parents cannot move to the suburbs. They cannot move to Ward 3. They are trapped in an area, in a monopoly system that is not even giving them a decent school lunch. By the way, that same system rated my county a B on its school lunch, rated the city of Detroit an A-minus, but the city of Washington gets an F on its school lunch program.

It is a system that has produced a disproportionate number of rapes, of assaults and robberies to kids in the public school system. Yet they say we want them to go to that school, a public school system, that we will just add more money, which we have done. Over $2,000 a year more is paid on a kid's education in the city than is paid in my county of Fairfax. If money were the answer, we would put money at it and solve the problem. But it is a failed institution. You cannot put, to quote biblically, new wine into old bottles. This is an old bottle and it needs fixing. It is a system that last week was found to have paid $59,000 to a phantom company that does not even exist.

For opponents of this amendment who say more money, it is the same old, same old, same old. If you do the same thing time and time again, you are going to get the same results. President Bush has talked about the soft bigotry of low expectations. We are trying to change that. These kids deserve every bit the opportunity that my kids have. The proof in the pudding here is that no Member of the House to my knowledge has sent their kids to the D.C. public school system in the last decade. The President and the Vice President, living here and given that opportunity to pick any school in the city, chose private schools.

We just want to give the same opportunities to the poorest of the poor. This legislation restricts it to kids from nonperforming schools, low-income. This is going to be, I think, a shock treatment to the public education system. Five years from now I hope we will not need this, I hope the public education will improve, but it is not going to improve without this kind of shock treatment. I urge my colleagues to support the Davis amendment.

[From the Washington Post, May 12, 2003]

Straight Talk on Vouchers

In making her case against a federally funded school

voucher pilot program, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has

repeatedly said that D.C. voters are firmly opposed to the

idea. Thus, she argues, to support vouchers is to oppose home

rule. As the basis for her declaration, Ms. Norton cites the

results of an exit poll conducted in November for the

National School Boards Association. The poll, which she

supplied to this page, showed that 76 percent of the 603

voters interviewed opposed school vouchers. But as is true of

so much that stirs up this city, Ms. Norton's poll is hardly

gospel.

Let's look at the wording of the question posed in the

poll. It asked: ``Do you favor or oppose giving taxpayer-

funded vouchers to parents to pay for their children to

attend private schools even if that means less money for

public school students?'' Note the phrase ``even if that

means less money for public school students.'' That's a

loaded question if there ever was one. What majority would

favor that? It would be just as unfair if voucher supporters

sponsored a poll that asked, ``Do you favor or oppose giving

taxpayer-funded vouchers to parents to pay for their children

to attend private schools if that enables them to transfer

out of an inferior public school with low test scores?''

Imagine the responses to that question.

There is a less prejudicial way to measure public sentiment

on the school voucher question. The Post conducted a poll

based on random interviews with 1,002 D.C. adults in May 1998

that asked the following: ``Do you favor or oppose using

federal money in the form of vouchers to help send low-income

students in the District to private or parochial school?'' In

that poll, 56 percent of city residents said they favored the

idea, compared with 36 percent who opposed vouchers and 8

percent who had no opinion. Ms. Norton may be aware of that

poll as well, since the results and story were published on

May 23, 1998.

The Post's findings are consistent with the results of a

National Opinion Poll on education conducted with 1,678

adults in May 1999 for the nonpartisan, nonprofit Joint

Center for Political and Economic Studies. The center

researches and analyzes issues of concern to African

Americans and other minorities. The center's poll found that

``support for school vouchers among African Americans, which

has fluctuated in past Joint Center polls, grew by 25 percent

since 1998 with 60 percent of African American respondents

favoring school vouchers.'' But beyond polls is the question

of actual demand for school choice. Not only are parents

expressing their strong desire for alternatives, as the

popularity of public charter schools attests, but private

associations that provide scholarship assistance to D.C.

students seeking enrollment in private or parochial schools

also report strong requests for help from D.C. parents.

Shouting that support for vouchers doesn't exist in the

District won't make it so. Neither will over-the-top rhetoric

and personal invective that add little substance to the

debate.

Mr. Chairman, let me just set the record straight here, Mr. Chairman, because they talk about audits of time, there will be no audits of the private schools. That is false. The private schools that participate in this have to go through extensive recordkeeping and comparisons and will go through more when the Department of Education has written their regulations. So that is false.

There are no terrorism schools that currently would be eligible for this money as I read the legislation. So, again, that is just a red herring put up there to try to defend the existing status quo which has produced a failing school system that is depriving tens of thousands of District youngsters the kinds of opportunities that children around the rest of the country get.

I know the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) has an amendment that wants to compare with Fairfax County. Let me make a point. The District of Columbia pays more per student than they pay in Fairfax County or Arlington. If this were a money problem, they would get the money, but they have a school system that when given the money has not been able to produce textbooks on time, was under court order to repair its schools, wasted just last week $59,000 on a phantom contract to a company that does not even exist.

Mr. Chairman, let me again just say how much I have enjoyed working with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) and the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) on a number of other issues. We have a difference on one issue that we will resolve today on the House floor and then we will go on, and we will be working together on other issues tomorrow.

But this is an important issue; it is important I think to all of us. And this is not dollars to private schools; these are dollars to parents. Because what has happened to the District of Columbia over the years, thousands of District residents have moved to the suburbs so their kids could get a decent education that they could not get in the city. Thousands of District residents send their kids to private schools because the public schools in the city have failed them.

Not one Member of Congress, not a member of the city council, currently has their kids in the public schools of the District of Columbia. They are not good enough for our kids, but they are good enough for the people who cannot afford otherwise. This is a chance to equalize opportunity. That is all it is.

It has been requested by those poor families that came before our committee and testified. They said, We have been waiting for years. They said they are going to fix the system, and 9 percent of our school children are reading proficiently in the 4th grade.

That is the problem, and that is what we are trying to fix, not defend a system that is failing our kids.

Mr. Chairman, I raise a point of order against section 119 regarding sole source contracts on the grounds that this section changes existing law in violation of clause 2(b) of House rule XXI and is, therefore, legislation included in a general appropriation bill.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am offering this amendment with the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman Frelinghuysen) and the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner). This creates an historic opportunity for families and students of the District of Columbia. This amendment can make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of low-income children from nonperforming schools in the District. It represents a shot at a better education and, of course in turn, a better life.

The condition of the D.C. public schools, I think, is clearly documented. We have talked about this earlier today in the debate. It has concerned me since the first day I came to Congress as chairman of the District of Columbia Subcommittee. And while we have made strides in so many areas of the city since that time and some in education, the quality of educational opportunities should continue to worry all of us.

One thing is clear, I think both sides agree to this: Too many children in our Nation's capital are not getting the education that they need and that they deserve. Lower-income families concerned about the quality of safety of their children in the D.C. public schools should not have to resign themselves to sending their kids to underperforming schools where students are not adequately motivated to perform.

Over the past decade, Congress has spent considerable time and resources working with the District to reform its education system, but the ability of D.C. schools to meet key performance goals has long been plagued by financial mismanagement and a host of other problems, which means just throwing money at this problem alone is not going to solve it. Despite concerned efforts by local officials to improve the public school system, and there has been some progress, we are not getting the kind of progress in improving academic performance that ought to be available to these kids.

I have traditionally opposed Federal dollars going to private schools because I think Federal dollars ought to be targeted to the public schools. Of course, in this case, we give the dollars directly to the parents who make those choices. But for the District, which does not have a State government to rely on, as we take a look at other voucher programs around the country, cities work in concert with States. The District does not have a State. So I think we have an obligation here to answer the calls from the mayor, the chairman of the school board and the Washington Post and other advocates for D.C. children, and we have to ask this question: Would not more choices funded by new Federal dollars provide a needed alternative for low-income children attending low-performing schools?

Our committee heard testimony on this before we gave authorization authority. The mayor was asked, specifically, if he had this money for vouchers, if he could use it for something else, would he not rather use it for the public school system? He said no. He said we need this alternative as well.

It stands on its own and this is additional money that would not be available to the District of Columbia public schools were it not for this amendment. I have received calls from parents who are frustrated, angry, and distraught by their children's school situation. These parents have attended our hearings. They have danced and wept when our committee approved school choice legislation. But I think it is time to do more than just sympathize. This is a moral imperative.

The school choice debate should not be about politics or interest groups. We should have an honest appraisal of the state of affairs in our public schools and about offering an alternative for students and parents, and what is being proposed is not a mandate. It is a choice. The goal of school choice for the city is addition, not subtraction. We all want the city's education system to improve, and I hope that this is a short-term effort to do something about it. The fact is the monopoly of the D.C. public school system is harming kids, not helping them. It is time to shake up that monopoly.

This amendment expands educational opportunity to city students in underperforming elementary and secondary schools, underperforming schools. Other schools, kids do not get the aid. The choice program would be established through a competitive process, administered by the Department of Education, to ensure that the public or private entity that administers the initiative would be dedicated and capable of carrying out a top-notch program.

And there are reporting requirements, many to be written later by the Department of Education, but the legislation here, I think, has criteria that it sets out that need to be met in terms of going on to college, performance levels, tests, and the like. It would provide scholarships of up to $7,500 to eligible students to cover the cost of tuition fees and transportation expenses. It would be considered assistance to the students, not the schools. In order to assure accountability, an evaluation is conducted that would consider the impact in academic achievement attained by the program.

This legislation is a result of a lot of negotiation and consultation with city officials, elected city officials, with the administration and committees with key jurisdiction in Congress. For the first time ever, the mayor, the elected Democratic mayor of the District of Columbia, has come to the conclusion that `` . . . if done effectively, this program would provide even more choices for primarily low-income families who currently do not have the same freedom of choice enjoyed by their affluent counterparts.''

Enhancing educational quality in the city is a critical component of maintaining the positive momentum we have seen in recent years under the stewardship of Mayor Williams and the Council. It is our duty to provide resources so that the kids can have a brighter future. This is not a panacea, but it is a significant step in the right direction and, hopefully, one that will not be needed indefinitely.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I say to my friends on the other side that we are going to disagree about this, but I think we want the same thing for all these kids, eventually. We will be working together on a number of other issues, but it is my considered judgment, having given a lot of time and thought to this, that this is probably the best thing we can offer, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Yes, that is correct.

Mr. Chairman, they have to be accredited. They have to meet D.C. standards, number one.

Mr. Chairman, the U.S. Department of Education would carry the list, it is my understanding.

Mr. Chairman, that is correct. And regardless of how this comes out, I hope we would work with the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman raised the point of what happened in Florida, and we do not want that to happen. I think that is very clear.

Mr. Chairman, my understanding is that the Department of Education will carry the accredited list at this point, in terms of eligible schools. Not just any school willy-nilly is eligible.

Correct. That is my understanding.

The Secretary of Education is the one I think that would set that standard.

To my understanding, it is not a discrimination based on that, but they would have to meet certain academic performance standards. This was drafted, of course, looking at the court cases in line to make sure this met the requirements.

Mr. Chairman, I am happy to answer the gentleman's question, but let me stop at this time and make sure we can get our advocates up, and maybe we can further this discussion if time permits.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen), the chairman of the subcommittee.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, to my knowledge there is no exclusion of any religion, or inclusion. The Secretary of Education is the one that would be able to come forward with a list and make the determination. As the gentleman knows, there have been a number of court decisions along this line, and we feel this meets the mandate of the courts, and it has to meet a certain level.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, we leave discretion with the Secretary of Education. Let me say there have been a number of title VII cases that do deal with education, and that would be the criteria that the Department would meet. But we did not try to micromanage the criteria. They also have to meet certain educational standards, and that would really be the controlling criteria, is meeting educational standards.

That is correct. We leave that to the Department of Education.

Mr. Chairman, I understand the gentleman's concern. Every school has to meet the nondiscrimination provisions that are currently in the law as well, if that gives the gentleman some level of comfort.

Mr. Chairman, if I could ask the gentleman to let me get through my speakers and then we can continue the colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), one of the leaders on the original underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and one of the authors of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the fiscal year 2004 District of Columbia Appropriations bill totals $7.9 billion. Included in this total are $466 million for Federal payments to various District programs and projects, which I will describe shortly; $1.8 billion in Federal grants to District agencies; and $5.6 billion in local funds for operating expenses and capital outlays of the District government.

This bill, Mr. Chairman, is a product of the hard work of every member of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. It is the culmination of several weeks of hearings, visits to local schools and other city institutions, and meetings with elected city officials and numerous others who have a keen interest in helping the District. I want to thank each of them for their interest in the District and their input into this bill. I especially want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), my ranking member, for his advice, counsel and support. He has been a pleasure to work with.

Mr. Chairman, I believe this bill reflects Congress' commitment to helping our Nation's capital. This is where we all work and many of us live, our home away from home. So we have special reasons to help our capital city.

How grateful I am to so many of my colleagues for their ongoing efforts, prior to my chairmanship, to assist the citizens of this great city, especially its school children to have better lives, and many thanks, as well, to a number of my colleagues who now seek support for a number of new projects to further help the citizens in this budget.

When I became chairman, I wanted to get to better know this city. I did this by listening and learning, visiting children in their schools and touring the many neighborhoods that make up the city. I want to thank Mayor Anthony Williams, Council Chairman Linda Cropp, and School Board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz for the support and advice they have given me.

The Constitution, Mr. Chairman, gives Congress exclusive legislative authority over the affairs of the District, and I take this mandate seriously. The District is in a stronger financial position today than a few years ago. Much of this is due to Mayor Williams and the city council, but we cannot overlook the role Congress has played in the financial recovery as well.

The District still has a long way to go to resolve many personnel and management problems, but I believe that progress is being made. I stand ready to help in any way I can.

Mr. Chairman, the committee has carefully reviewed the District's budget request and, as reflected in the bill, has given the Mayor and City Council's priorities the highest consideration when putting this bill together.

As I mentioned earlier, the bill totals $7.9 billion of which $466 million are Federal payments to various programs and projects. This is $43 million below last year's allocation and equates to an 8.4 percent reduction.

Seventy-seven percent of these funds, or $359 million, is to continue funding of the D.C. courts, the Public Defender Service, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, CSSOSA. These are District functions that the Federal Government assumed financial responsibility for in the National Capital Revitalization and Self-government Improvement Act of 1997.

The remaining 23 percent, or $107 million, are for programs and projects that directly benefit the District. These include: $17 million for the tuition assistance program for the District for college-bound District students; $15 million to reimburse the District for added emergency planning and security costs related to the presence of the Federal Government in the District; $10 million for a D.C. scholarship program; $42.7 million for capital development projects in the District; dollars for the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative; and dollars for public school facility improvements.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I am well aware that the President's request for a school choice program in the District of Columbia, which would provide D.C. school scholarships, has stirred up considerable controversy. Personally, I have supported such scholarships for the District since they were first proposed in 1995 by Members of Congress.

There is excitement that surrounds the very successful charter movement in this city. There are 37 charter schools and 11 more on the drawing boards, more than any other city in the Nation. We have charter schools in this city.

That excitement is also apparent in those parents who strongly advocate for this new educational choice option for their children.

While we are all supportive of the District public school system and the success of the city's charter school movement, many more children can be helped by this new program.

The statistics in the U.S. Department of Education on District student performance on reading, writing, math and other core academic studies are very disturbing. The bottom line is that children in this city will be helped by giving parents more choices for educating their children. Many parents are hopeful that we will act. That is why I am happy that later today we will have an amendment to provide for the authorization of the funding I have included in this bill.

There will be much debate on this issue. And one of the arguments the opposing side will make is that this bill does not provide funding for what is called the three-pronged approach to education which the District leadership wants. While that is true, it is not my intention that this be the case when we come out of conference with the Senate.

Due to the fiscal constraints of this bill, we were only able to provide for the D.C. scholarships; but the Senate bill includes additional funding for both public and charter schools as well.

I support the Mayor's approach and will work with Chairman Young towards a conference allocation that is sufficient to address all three sectors of education in the city.

The timing of this bill, Mr. Chairman, is always of concern to the District, and rightly so, because the city's local funds cannot be spent until we pass the conference report for the bill. I am mindful of these concerns and will do everything within my power to get the District its funds in a timely manner.

In summary, the fiscal year 2000 District of Columbia appropriations bill is fiscally responsible, a balanced bill that deserves bipartisan support.

Lastly, I would like to thank the subcommittee staff, our excellent clerk Carol Murphy, Rob Nabors who works so well with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) and certainly with this chair, and Kelly Wade of my staff for their diligent and professional work on this bill.

I would also like to thank Nancy Fox from my immediate staff and William Miles from the gentleman from Pennsylvania's (Mr. Fattah) staff for their hard work as well.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), the vice chairman of the committee and, in fact, a long-time member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), a valued member of the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to reiterate that Mayor Anthony Williams, the chief elected officer, the mayor of this city, supports this choice option.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), the chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, who I have had the pleasure of working with and who is the architect of this D.C. parental school choice initiative in his bill.

(Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to say for the record that the dollars for this new choice program will be given to the parents so that they can make the choice. They will not be given to the school. And secondly, I need to reiterate this is new money. This is money that came from the gentleman from Ohio's (Mr. Regula) mark. It is not being taken away from the public schools or from the charter schools.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Tom Davis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

In closing, make no mistake about it, Mayor Williams supports what we are doing today. The gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Tom Davis) has referenced the editorial in The Washington Post by Mayor Williams and Councilman Chavous and Peggy Cooper. Let me read from it:

``For those of us involved every day in urban education, there are staggering realities that keep us awake at night. Every child who graduates without basic skills or drops out altogether is on a potential pathway to public assistance, to being alienated from the full benefits of participation in society, or, worse, to a life in the criminal justice system.''

They go on. They say: ``We think that this is an appropriate investment by the Federal Government in the children of the Nation's capital. Without the resources ordinarily provided by a State, the District is more challenged than other cities in its efforts to adequately fund public education and foster innovative reform.

``Our children,'' they go on, ``have endured decades of neglect in public education. But there is hope. We have a reconfigured school board and respected superintendent.''

They say, ``Despite these underpinnings, parents still want more choices. At town meetings, community picnics, hearings and PTA meetings, we hear the same complaints: I cannot find the right setting for my child, or my child is not flourishing in this environment.''

This is a good bill, Mr. Chairman. This is about parental choice, and it is good for the students and children of the District.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, make no mistake about it, this amendment would basically take $10 million in additional funds away from the District of Columbia which it badly needs and $10 million away from an educational system, by all accounts, that badly needs additional money so that children have choices as to where they can go to school.

We know, Mr. Chairman, that the Mayor supports this voucher proposal, the President of the school board, the chairman of the Committee on Education and Libraries and Recreation of the D.C. council.

The Mayor has said on school choice, ``Despite the steady increases in local funding and other efforts to support our public schools, I have learned firsthand from hundreds of parents who feel there are no practical or easy alternatives for their children within the current systems of public education.''

On another occasion, Mayor Williams said relative to school choice, ``I was elected by the people of my beloved city and I took the solemn oath to act in what I think are their best interests, even in the face of conventional political wisdom. Today, I believe I have an obligation to represent all the children of the District.''

Mr. Chairman, in my capacity as chairman, I have met with many parents who have children in the public school system who support this choice program. They are literally desperate to have this new alternative.

The clearest evidence of the excitement for school choice is in the city's charter school movement: 37 charter schools, 11 on the drawing boards. I had a group representing the charter schools in my office just yesterday saying that they had waiting lists for their four charter schools that they run running at 300 children. So I think there is a lot of desperateness on the part of parents to find alternatives.

I make the point again, Mr. Chairman, that the $10 million in the bill are additional funds for the District above the subcommittee's allocation. The gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Regula) agreed to transfer the funding from the Labor-HHS bill, and I am grateful for his support of this initiative and the extra dollars.

Eliminating this funding puts the $10 million for the District in jeopardy of being transferred back to his committee and out of the city hands. For these and other reasons, I ask this amendment be rejected and we give the District leadership what it wants. What the mayor has asked for is these dollars and certainly has asked for additional dollars, and I have made a commitment to work in conference for the other dollars for the District school system, as well as additional dollars for the charter school movement.

Mr. Chairman, I concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, since I was first elected to Congress, I have supported school choice for this city, and now as Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations subcommittee on the District of Columbia, I am excited to be in a position to make this program a reality for the children and the parents of the District of Columbia, working with the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Tom Davis) and the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner).

Mr. Chairman, I ask all Members to support the Davis-Frelinghuysen- Boehner amendment and the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, since I was first elected to Congress, I have supported school choice for this city. And now as Chairman of the DC Appropriations Committee, I am excited to be in a position to make this program a reality for the children and parents of the District of Columbia.

The President requested funding for a Choice Incentive Fund within the U.S. Department of Education, of which a portion of the funds would be used for school choice programs in the District. Thanks to Chairman Regula, I was able to provide $10 million to expand school choice in the District. I am further pleased to report that this proposal has the full support of Mayor Williams, Chairman of the Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation, Kevin Chavous, and President of the School Board, Peggy Cooper-Cafritz.

Throughout the year, I have worked closely with my colleague and friend, Chairman Tom Davis, who chairs the Authorizing Committee that has jurisdiction on this issue, the Government Reform Committee and John Boehner, Chairman of Committee on Education and the Workforce to advance this Presidential initiative.

We agreed to move the school choice initiative forward in our respective Committees. Chairman Davis has successfully moved the DC Parental Choice Incentive Act through his Committee. And in my bill, we have provided the actual funding.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would unite these two initiatives together under one bill bringing us a step closer to making expanded

school choice a reality for those that so desperately want and need it.

While we are all supportive of the District Public School System, and we recognize the great progress of the city's charter schools and transformation schools, we believe that even more students can be helped by the additional option. And we are providing new dollars that add, not subtract, from either the DC public or charter schools funding sources.

What is important here is the quality and value of education for every child in this city. And the statistics from the Department of Education on District continue to show disturbing results in student performance on reading, writing, math and other core academics. The need for significant improvements is clear.

The bottom line is that these children will be helped by giving parents more choices for educating their children. Many parents are hopeful that we will act.

One of the arguments the opposing side will make is that this bill does not provide funding for the three-pronged approach the District wants. While that is true, it is not my intention that that be the case when we come out of conference with the Senate. Due to the fiscal constraints of this bill, we were only able to provide for DC Scholarships, but the Senate bill includes additional funding for both public and charter schools as well. I support the Mayor's approach and will work with Chairman Young towards a conference allocation that is sufficient to address all three sectors of education in the city.

I hope members will join with me and support of the leadership of this great city.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania, who has consistently stood a fervent representative of the national fire community, for bringing this issue to our attention. I understand the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) are working with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) on a stand-alone bill to address this matter and I support his efforts.

Amendment No. 2 offered by Mr. Hefley

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the Federal portion of this bill, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) and I already know, is 8.4 percent below last year's level which is about $43 million. It has made it difficult for to us meet the city's priority.

Actually if we had not received the $10 million from the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Regula), our allocation would have been 10.4 percent below last year's allocation level.

This amendment, well intended, would reduce the Federal funds to the District by another 1 percent or $4.6 million. The District needs every dollar it can get for programs and priorities of the District. And I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) who has worked in such a bipartisan fashion with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) on this appropriation. I want to thank them both for their bipartisanship, bipartisanship without compromising their principles, but also for their sensitivity to home rule and the fact that this is an independent jurisdiction that ought to be able to speak up for itself the way jurisdictions of every Member of this House can.

I am proud how far our city has come under the leadership of Mayor Williams and City Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp and our city council. We have come a very long way from insolvency to a city now that is in better shape than most jurisdictions in the United States because of the prudence of our local leadership.

I want to talk about what this bill is about because this is not our usual D.C. appropriation where I would normally thank the President for funding my tuition access bill, and let me do it anyway, probably the most popular legislation in the District of Columbia because it allows young people to go to any State-supported institution anywhere in the United States; but nobody will remember the D.C. appropriation 2003 for anything but one issue. Members simply have to concentrate on what they are voting on.

This is a bill with a vouchers-only provision. We will hear promises about maybe in the Senate they will have some money. That bill is in huge trouble in the Senate, and of course some money has been put in for public funding when there was an uproar in the city about funding vouchers, and then the pro-voucher officials came forward and said wait a minute, we have a three-sector approach, and we will get some money for the public schools, too.

But everybody understands the public money is a cover for vouchers. It is a way to take the sting out of vouchers. This is one of the most anti-voucher jurisdictions in the United States of America. They have tried it here for 20 years, and this is a jurisdiction which sent me, their Congresswoman, time and again, back here to ask Members to veto their appropriation to keep vouchers from being attached to it until President Clinton could somehow negotiate them off.

So the people of the District of Columbia have not turned around on a dime and flip-flopped and said we want vouchers. All Members need to do is sit in my office and they will know where they stand, because the elected officials, the majority of the elected officials of the school board, the majority of the city council, have written to you to say we do not want vouchers.

What is important for every Member to know and to understand is that this is not only a vouchers-only bill so that is what Members are going to be voting on, but this will be the first time in the United States of America that the Congress of the United States has sent money to private schools, something that huge numbers of Members on the other side of the aisle have crossed to this side of the aisle to vote with us to say we will never do.

There is a reason people do not do it. They do not do it in part because two-thirds of the American people oppose vouchers, if we want to get down to particulars. But this year is the last time we would want them to do it because this is the year when if Members went home for recess, Members heard a bipartisan backlash against a bipartisan bill, the No Child Left Behind bill, because people are now beginning to pay the unfunded mandate for No Child Left Behind, and now Members

are going to vote to send money to private schools with that $9 billion unfunded mandate.

Schools are in the worst crisis that they have been in our country since World War II, the worst funding crisis, according to all of the data coming forward. What do Members have in your own districts on CNN and everywhere else? Slick, expensive ads, national TV, the opening salvo to a new nationwide drive for vouchers in every district, just as that well-funded set of forces have wanted to do for some time.

If Members pass this bill, if Members vote for vouchers, they will send a signal to every private school in the country, every organization of private schools, to every organization of religious schools, that this is the time to bring pressure to get the same kind of private school deal that the District of Columbia got, and Members can expect the same slick ads right in their district.

Mr. Chairman, many Members have heard from our mayor. He is my good friend, and will continue to be my good friend, even on an issue like this. We will continue to work closely on the issues affecting our city. He has pressed this Congress, but he has not successfully pressed the elected officials of the District of Columbia or the people of the District of Columbia.

We have the letter from the council chair and Members have the letter from the parents' association. Perhaps Members saw the hundreds of D.C. residents, led by ministers and rabbis who fanned out all over this Congress on Wednesday to say do not do vouchers in this city. We are not to be your pilot. Do not experiment in the District of Columbia, experiment in your own States. The city has a situation here which is not cost free. We are undergoing $40 million in cuts, another $25 million will go out if 2,000 students exit if the schools are funded on a per-pupil basis. D.C. has a $50 million unfunded No Child Left Behind mandate right now. All of our elected officials should be down here trying to get that money the way Members of Congress have.

The District of Columbia wants Congress to respect their alternatives. We are ahead of virtually every district in this Congress on alternatives. We have our own charter schools, the largest number in the United States per capita. They have long waiting lists. Those are the chosen options of our people by our people. We have 15 transformation schools for the poorest children in the District of Columbia, the first breakthrough in Stanford 9 scores in the history of the city. That breakthrough will no longer occur unless the funding that the city has put in continues. And then, of course, a child in the District of Columbia can go out of boundaries; something that Members' districts have yet to do or have finally been mandated to do, we have been doing for decades.

Members do not want vouchers in their districts. They have been voted down on the floor. I represent this District of Columbia. I am here to tell Members you do not want them in your district, and we do not want them in our district. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, it is not because a huge majority, almost two-thirds of the American people, oppose vouchers; and why would Members think it would be any different in the District of Columbia? It is no different.

Mr. Chairman, Members should not forget where their constituents stand when they cast their vote today. I certainly have not forgotten where mine stand.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment promises to be perhaps the first of three voucher-only votes in this body at this time. The first will be on this bill to remove or strike the funding for vouchers; the second would be the Davis bill, which will try to legislate vouchers onto this appropriation; and, of course, if vouchers remain in the bill, the third would be the vote on the bill itself.

The $10 million in this bill is not a lot of money, and that is really not what this controversy is about. It does not look like a lot until you look at where it comes from and where it is going and what will follow as a result of our vote.

First of all, first let us look at where the money is coming from. This money has come straight out of education. It took a vote in the Committee on Appropriations transferring money from the Labor-Education appropriation over to the District appropriation in order to fund this bill. It came straight out of education for this bill.

So we already see that this is not new money, as has been claimed, that this is money straight out of education, and that is where voucher money always comes from, because there is only one pot of money. Different folks may designate that pot, but there is only one pot of money, and that is where this money is coming from. It is coming from it for the first time, if you vote for this bill and against my amendment.

If you indeed vote to allow vouchers to remain in this bill, it will not go unnoted. I do not know where you were at recess, but I know that every State in the Union is crying about unkept promises for Federal money. The biggest unkept promise is special education, which is taking down education systems in entire States, including the District of Columbia. We promised 40 percent. We have not come close to that.

Then, of course, there is the backlash against the No Child Left Behind bill. That was a bipartisan bill. We are losing folks everywhere because of that unfunded mandate, because there are going to be children that are not going to be able to graduate from high school because the funding to help them prepare for the tests is not there.

As long as there are mandated costs on our States and school districts, it is simply impossible to justify diverting a single dollar of public money to private schools.

Now, I know that there are Members here who voted in committee for vouchers for the District who have never voted for vouchers generally on a Federal bill, because you can do anything on the District of Columbia. You can savage their public schools, as if

your States, I would say to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), did not have such schools in Southern Virginia, as if California, Mrs. Feinstein, did not have the L.A. School District in it. And yet these folks will not vote to have vouchers so that those school districts, sometimes rural, sometimes big city, can have the same treatment as the District of Columbia.

The District of Columbia schools have improved, but you will not find me an apologist for the D.C. government and its problems or for the D.C. school system. I am proud of the fact that scores have gone up for the last 3 years. I am very proud of the transformation schools, where, with extra services for parents and children alike, we now see a breakthrough that no private school and no public school has ever accomplished. These are the poorest children in the District of Columbia. They have the least conscious parents. They have got foster parents, sometimes they have got no parents at all or hardly any parents; yet we have been able to break through because we provided a lot of extra services for the parents and for the children alike.

Private schools and religious organizations will not see a vote for vouchers for the District of Columbia as a vote that can be contained here, and they are going to try to do all they can to make sure it is not contained here. The pro-voucher forces have shown how well-funded they are. They have been into your States, sometimes two or three times, to get on the ballot; and you have turned them back every single time. Not a single voucher referendum in the United States of America has passed. But they keep coming back, because they have got a lot of money, and you see that money on television ads as I speak.

If you want to fund vouchers, do it the way the Washington Scholarship Fund did it. Fund the vouchers through private funds. Do not displace those private funds with public funds.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Virginia is not only a good personal friend, he is a good professional friend, and he has always been a good friend of the District. More often than not we are on this floor arguing on the same side, fighting for what the majority in the District wants, including the majority of the members of the council and the majority of the elected members of the school board. This happens to be an exception, but we are going to keep on working together because we are so close.

It is ironic, I must say to my good friend though, that he has got a legislative rider on here. He made two points of order today. He is regularly on the floor opposing Committee on Government Reform riders, but he has taken this bill to the Committee on Rules in order to allow himself to put a rider on this bill. This bill legislates on an appropriations bill.

But I really want to use my time not to rehash the arguments we have heard, but to make some corrections based on what I have heard.

My good friend from Virginia earlier said during the debate that the District spent more than Arlington and Fairfax, and some others have gotten up to say that we spend more than any other State. I keep hearing that. It keeps being said. It is false.

I want to read from an official schools document: ``Despite differences in student needs, even with Federal funds included, the D.C. public schools spend less per pupil than Arlington or Alexandria, and not much more than Montgomery or Fairfax.''

Remember, Montgomery and Fairfax spend a whole lot of money on children that are not at all disadvantaged, and huge numbers of mine are severely disadvantaged.

The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania said that our schools would actually be better off without these 2,000 children. Actually, we will lose $25 million in combined Federal and local per-pupil funding because schools are funded on a per-pupil basis, and that is in addition to the $40 million that the schools are already being cut this year.

It certainly is not true that we are saying to our children, and I would certainly never say it, Hey, wait until the schools are fixed. Indeed, we applaud the options that are available to our public schools; the largest number of charter schools in the country, the transformation schools, which have seen a breakthrough in test scores that no public or private school has ever done for our most needy children, our out-of-boundary possibilities for our children.

I applaud especially the work of the Washington Scholarship Fund. That is for now. The Washington Scholarship Fund, which with private money as I speak is doing exactly what this bill will do, but probably will not do it if this bill passes, because Federal money will replace their private money that they have been using, much to their credit, to send our children to local private schools.

We want our own choices. That is all we are asking. You take your choices, the ones you have in your districts. Leave us to our own choices. Do not accuse us of giving no choices to our children.

The most important thing I could say at this time, though, would be to correct the notion that the so-called three-sector approach, which developed only after there was great criticism of vouchers in the District of Columbia, somehow amounts to an equivalence of funding for the charter and public schools with vouchers.

Please hear me on this: this Davis bill has 5 years of authorization for vouchers. What happens for the public and charter schools is this year, on a one-time-only appropriation, we throw some money at the public schools in order to ease the way for vouchers.

I was able to get money for our charter schools, a great deal more than this last year, without having to pay a price in vouchers. Next year I guess we will have to come begging at the table because, unlike the voucher money, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) had the opportunity to add public schools in a bill I offered in committee that would have put us on the same footing, but we are not on the same footing. We have got 5 years of vouchers, one-time-only money for the public schools, in this appropriation. That is the most problematic money the Congress ever has to offer.

We have been demonizing the public schools of the District of Columbia. Be my guest. But if you expect that sending our children to private schools will correct their problems, then you need to look at the GAO study of 10 years of experience in all the schools that have used vouchers. What they have found is there is no significant difference between the children using the vouchers in their performance on tests and the children who are in the public schools.

Thirty-seven States have turned down vouchers. If you vote for the Davis amendment, you are voting for a private school voucher and a voucher only. We do not think that that vote will pass silently into the night. We believe that a vote for vouchers anywhere in the country, especially in this economic climate, will be heard and felt throughout the country, and especially in your own districts.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I simply want to close for my side with one word. Opposition to private school vouchers is one of the few bipartisan policy issues remaining in our country today. You will seldom find an issue where almost two-thirds of the American people are in agreement. And what they believe, according to all the data, is that money from the public Treasury should not be siphoned off to private schools. Diversion via the Davis amendment would begin that process for the first time in U.S. history. I ask my colleagues to think about the momentous nature of this vote and to vote against the Davis amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, this committee used to be a drudgery. If you asked somebody to serve on the D.C. committee, you had to pull them out from under the bed to get them to come to work. I would say that thanks to the ranking member, the chairman, and the work that the committee has done over the past few years, it has gotten to be one of the better committees.

I think if one looks at what has been done in a bipartisan way, and, yes, we do have some differences, but in a bipartisan way, with the help of a Mayor that is business-oriented, Mayor Williams, who I think has done a good job, I think we can be proud of the committee and the output of this, with a couple of exceptions.

I have volunteered to stay on the committee all these years I have been in Congress because I have an education background and I had several goals. One was to help the education system in Washington because it had some of the highest cost and lowest productivity. Any Member that would go out into the city will find some very dedicated, very good teachers in Washington, D.C. I know the ranking member and the chairman have both gone out into the community, as I have, and visited some of these schools. You would be amazed at the differences since the committee has started to work.

The Mayor has gone through a pretty tough bureaucracy; and like all bureaucracies, sometimes you cannot get the things done that you want even though you are the leader of a city. So I laud the Mayor for the work that he has done. Even though in some cases very slow, he has plodded through it. He has kept true to his word. He communicates, and I thank Mayor Williams for that.

Another area was the waterfront. But there was a whole area in which pilings had been left from the 1940s that were corroding into the Potomac River. The Anacostia River had the highest fecal count of any river in the United States. It was not just pollution that was killing the fish. There is such a high fecal count because every time it rains that raw sewage goes into the Anacostia River. Fish were dying because of the bacteria. There was so much bacteria it ate the oxygen and the fish suffocated. That is how bad it was. We still need a

national program to help the Washington, D.C. sewage system. Without it, we will not clean up our rivers, and it will be a health hazard to Washington, D.C.; and I look forward to working with my colleagues on doing that as well.

If my colleagues will go down now they will see a marina in progress. Half of it is done, and the other half, all the pilings that were leaching creosote into the water, are gone and the new docks are coming in. Guess what? That is revenue to the city because that is leased land. Instead of being a drain, instead of being a deficit, it will be a revenue producer for the city.

My goal is to make the waterfront like a San Diego, where I live, or a San Francisco wharf and waterfront where people can go down with their families and enjoy the waterfront and water that is clean instead of polluted like it even still is today. And again I want to thank the ranking member.

We differ a little bit on economic scholarships. I personally think my colleagues would be surprised that, yes, I support vouchers, as some call them, or economic scholarships, whatever you want to call them. But I only support them if the community wants them. I do not think the Federal Government should mandate it. The community must itself want them, because in some areas there may be transportation costs far exceeding the cost of moving a child to another area. There may be a certain school that, a private school, that does not take IDEA children. And those costs may be apples and oranges.

In many areas across the country vouchers do work. In my opinion, Washington, D.C. is a classic. I know the gentlewoman opposes it, but the Mayor supports it, the city supports it; and I think the people that in some cases where their children are trapped, where a mother of a child that wants to learn is out there and wants to get out of the quagmire that they live in but yet are trapped in a school that does not produce, they deserve the opportunity. The first goal is to bring that school up to level, I agree, with public education. But in the meantime, let us not let that child get left behind. Let us work with that child.

I think my colleagues know my heart is in the right place, even though they may disagree with me on the issue. But I think it will be a good program.

Mr. Chairman, I again want to thank the ranking member and the chairman and the members on the committee. It is starting to be a very good pleasure to work with this committee.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, Mayor Williams did another thing. The highest incidence for prostate cancer is among African Americans, and the highest incidence in the United States is in Washington, D.C. The mayor worked with our committee and chairman and ranking member, and on a sleet, rain-driven night, we packed the house in a town hall meeting on prostate cancer for African Americans because it had never been done before. The mayor has agreed to do another meeting, and we plan on doing that.

Mr. Chairman, I have good friends on both sides of the aisle and both sides of this position. What does me hurt is the partisanship, some of the partisanship, not from all Members, that I hear from Iraq to the White House politics to the rest of it on an issue.

If we disagree on this issue, that is fine. I personally truly believe that this gives some of our children an opportunity to get out of schools that are crime- and drug-ridden and are being left behind. Not many, if any, Members of Congress, either the House or the other body, have their children in D.C. public schools. Most are in private schools. And yet there are some that would deny poor children, poor families to have the same rights that Members of Congress and other people that are affluent have. I think that is wrong.

The other fallacy is that we are cutting public spending. We are not. Look where we have come from. When many of us dedicated ourselves to improving education, the roofs were so poor they were controlled by the fire department in D.C. Schools had to be delayed. We improved that. We put forth charter schools. We put forth a summer school where we had thousands of children volunteer to go to summer school in D.C., not because they had to, but because they did not want to be left behind. And there is another phase of that that we disagree on. But please do not say we are trying to damage education, because we believe from the bottom of our hearts that this is helping children.

Take a look at the board of education. They had a board of education appointed by Marion Berry where one of the members was in charge of finance and never had an accounting course, never finished high school, but was put there because of a political appointment.

We changed all of that. We have a Mayor, we have a superintendent, we have an active, professional school board, and our schools are improving. Yes, we have got a long way to go, and we have got to work together on both sides of this issue; and I dedicate myself to working with the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) and the ranking member on that. But please do not say that we are trying to damage education. We disagree on the value of this particular amendment. I personally believe in many areas it will work.