Recognizing the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of Western Bohemia by United States Armed Forces during World War II and the continued friendship between the people of the United States and the Czech Republic.

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

I also want to thank her for all of her work on behalf of our Members on this side of the aisle in helping to shape this legislation. And I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) for bringing this bill to the floor in a timely fashion, and to the gentleman from Delaware (Chairman Castle) for all of his work and his dedication to the vocational education programs within our jurisdiction.

I rise today for two reasons: One, I am hopeful that bringing this bill to this floor at this time and all of the statements made by Members on both sides of the aisle as to the successes of vocational education and the various components of vocational education in their districts and in their States will forever put an end to this idea of the administration that it is going to somehow zero out this legislation or that it is going to take this money for some other initiative when Members of Congress recognize in such an overwhelming fashion the importance of vocational education to the students in their districts, to the success of the educational programs, and certainly to their local economies and to their State economies.

That is really the second reason that I rise, and that is to again reiterate the idea that this is not our fathers' or our grandfathers' vocational education. A dramatic transition and a transformation has been made within many of our educational establishments in high schools and community colleges that now provide for the linking and the merging and integration of academic programs and vocational programs and skills-acquiring programs so that students now not only are taking vocational education or participating in vocational education to get a job.

What they are getting is a set of skills that will allow them to get that job but also to have the options to create career paths within that industry or within that vocation, within that sector of our economy. Far different than has been done in the past.

In the integration of the academic skills, again, building upon the research that has been developed over the last decade, and that is that really for people to be proficient, to continue to maintain a middle- class life-style, to be able to continue to maintain their opportunities in employment. The set of skills that they need on the academic side and on the vocational skills side really are equivalent of what one needs to have an AA degree.

So now students are put on that path. They are given the opportunity to relate the academic skills that they need to acquire for the job opportunities, for the career opportunities, and for the academic opportunities in their future lives. And that is a dramatic change from what many people view as vocational education of the past or of their experiences when they were in school.

We now talk to young people. I just recently visited a program at the Serendipity training program in Mr. Diablo High School in my district, where Chevron Corporation just made a major grant to the county schools for the purposes of enhancing these kinds of economic opportunities and educational opportunities for young people. And when we talk to the young people, whether they are participating in the health academies or they are participating in the fire academies or the food service academies or the technical academies, the fact of the matter is they now see themselves having multiple options. For some it is just to simply get a job. A number of students said they were go to become EMTs because they wanted to be able have that work and that work schedule and that income to pay for their college education. Others decided that they would go just to the fire academy and try to get a job. Others thought that they would go to the fire academy and go on to Humboldt State and to the 4-year programs in terms of fire sciences.

So what these students now see are the multitude of opportunities that are available to them, the opportunities for career and advancement and providing for them and their families into the future.

I would hope that we would support this bill. I am disappointed that the Committee on Rules, in its continued abuse of power, simply could not provide for the debate of the amendments that many on this side of the aisle wanted to offer. Again, it is not like the Congress is running at maximum RPMs here day in and day out and there is no time for that debate. It is unfortunate that the Committee on Rules continues that abuse of power, but we will have an opportunity to debate a couple of amendments and then push this bill forward to conference committee, where a couple of its modest shortcomings can be hopefully corrected.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Chairman Boehner and Castle for bringing this bill the floor. The V ocational and Technical Education for the Future Act reflects a bipartisan work product and I am pleased to be able to join the chairman, Chairman Castle and Ranking Member Woolsey in supporting this reauthorization.

Career and technical education has traditionally been a bipartisan effort in Congress and that continues today. Unfortunately, the President, for the fourth year in a row has tried to eliminate this program, and this is a mistake.

Career and technical education programs make high school matter for many young people, offer college students pathways into productive employment and new hope for displaced homemakers and workers reentering the workforce.

Now, is not the time to retreat on our investment in career training. The global economy demands a highly skilled workforce and the Perkins program has been instrumental in building that workforce.

H.R. 366 moves the successful Perkins Act, named after the distinguished Senator from Kansas, to the next level in career and technical education. This program may have started out as second tier education program for students who sought employment after graduation from high school, but today, these programs are changing the face of secondary and

post-secondary education. Perkins equips America's workforce with the skills they need to compete in a global economy.

More and more schools are using career and technical education programs to develop highly challenging and academically sound education systems, combining secondary and postsecondary education elements. H.R. 366 adopts this model.

Successful career tech programs allow academic and vocational teachers to develop curriculum together and teach together so that students can apply academic content in a real world context. In order to make high school matter, learning, must become more meaningful to students. Career technical education programs do this.

H.R. 366 also ensures that students learn the identical challenging academic content as students who are in a purely academic program further reinforcing the goals of No Child Left Behind: that all students should be taught to high standards.

We know that students who are enrolled in career technical programs are less likely to drop out before graduation. Students who graduate from these programs perform better than their academic-only counterparts in math and science. And, students who complete these programs are able to obtain higher salaries than their counterparts.

Mr. Chairman, while I will support this bill, I remain concerned that it fails to address two critical issues: the bill eliminates the separate authorization for the Tech Prep Program and cuts State Administrative funding far below what states need to carry out the new responsibilities that have been added to the bill. These problems can and should be corrected in conference.

The Perkins Act is a critical workforce development tool and the bill before us represents sound education policy. It contains critical improvements in the areas of accountability, integration and coordination and is supported by a range of organizations to include the Association for Career Technical Education, the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical'' Education, the NEA, and the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education.

I want to thank these organizations for their input on the bill and I want to thank our staff for their efforts in bringing this bill together in a relatively short period of time.

I will vote in favor of final passage and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I am, Mr. Speaker, in its present form.

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

Mr. Speaker, as Members have heard, the purpose of this amendment is to make sure that no monies expended under this act will be used to pay for propaganda by members of the media.

Specifically, my motion requires that the prepackaged news stories put together with Federal funds must be disclosed to viewers. This portion of the motion was offered as an amendment to the supplemental by Senator Byrd and was passed 98 to 0.

The motion also prohibits using public funds to pay journalists or media commentators to promote the views of the agency, which directly addresses the Armstrong Williams propaganda fiasco.

The Department of Education Inspector General recently issued a report that I requested that concludes that the Department squandered hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in a contract with Ketchum Communications and a subcontract with media commentator Armstrong Williams.

Specifically, the Inspector General found that Department officials involved in the Armstrong Williams contract made poor management decisions, exercised poor judgment and oversight, and paid for work that did not reach its intended audience, and paid for work that the Department never received. The report notes that the covert editorial comments by Armstrong Williams in support of No Child Left Behind were specifically required by Department work orders, and confirmed by activity reports submitted by Mr. Williams.

In my view, the Federal Government was defrauded out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in this case. An even greater concern is this may not be an isolated case in the Department of Education. The Inspector General is preparing the release of a second report in coming weeks that will review a number of highly questionable activities regarding the use of propaganda by

the Department of Education officials. We must stop this act of the abuse of taxpayer funds.

This motion to recommit is very simple. Members can vote for it and report the bill back to the House, and then we can pass the bill. It is a simple choice. Do we want to use education dollars for the education of our children, or do we want to use it for propaganda? This amendment says we shall not use it for propaganda; we shall not pay news commentators to engage in propaganda on behalf of the Department of Education.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her support. Again, the choice is very simple here: whether or not at a time when education programs are being cut in the Federal budget that we passed last week, whether or not we will now decide not to use these hard-earned education dollars, hard-paid-for education dollars by the taxpayers that we represent to develop propaganda that they shall be restricted to the uses for which this program was passed, and that is the vocational education of our students in this country.

I urge the support of this motion.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act. The bill has received strong support from educators, school administrators, principals, and vocational and technical education advocates around the country. In this bill, we are protecting the role of States and local communities, and we are asking for results in exchange for the money we are already spending at the Federal level.

The gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) wrote a good bill and deserves great credit for his commitment to this issue. He produced a bill that has received bipartisan support in the committee while still fulfilling our principles for reform.

I would also like to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) for their hard work and cooperation in bringing this bill forward today.

This bill will improve vocational and technical education by focusing on academics without expanding the Federal role in education. We streamline bureaucracy and give more money to local communities. H.R. 366 reduces the share of funds going to State administrative activities and targets more funding to the local level. We also streamline funding by consolidating the Tech-Prep program with a basic State grant.

The bill also focuses on success at the local level. Under the bill, local communities will establish achievement targets; and to reward increased academic achievement, States and local communities can receive incentive grants for success. Above all, we maintain local control. The bill continues to move away from the so-called ``School to Work'' model of the past and maintains our commitment to ensuring that States and local communities have the final say when it comes to the educational choices for their students.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly support this legislation, which will help States and local communities strengthen and improve vocational and technical education and help ensure academic success for students. I urge my colleagues today to join me in voting ``yes'' on the bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), the author of the bill and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Education Reform.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), a member of the committee and an educator and someone who knows more about this probably than most Members of Congress.

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

Mr. Chairman, several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have referenced the fact that our fiscally responsible budget may, in fact, require changes to how we fund various education programs. While we will have plenty of time to debate those issues when we get into the appropriations process, I think all of my colleagues realize the Perkins program providing for vocational and technical education around the country is widely popular with Members on both sides of the aisle. I have no doubts, no doubts that the funding called for in the President's budget, the funding that is authorized in this bill will, in fact, happen, just to set the record straight.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), a member of our committee.

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

I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) for their work on this bill; and I want to thank my colleague, and the author of the bill, the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), for his fine work. While there are 435 of us in the Congress, of course everyone would like to make this bill look as though it were theirs and written exactly the way they would like to write it. Clearly, I would like to have that opportunity too, but that is not how the process works. We have a bipartisan bill, and we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

I also want to thank my staff, Krisann Pearce and Whitney Rhoades, for their fine work on this bill. I want to thank Denise Forte and Lloyd Horwich on the Democrat side for their work. As most of my colleagues know, we could not do the fine work that we do without excellent staff on both sides. They have done very good work in helping us get to where we are today.

Vocational education, as my colleague from California pointed out, is not vocational and technical education like it was 20 years ago or even 10 years ago. We all recognize that those in vocational and technical education also need a strong academic background. This program, over the last several reauthorizations, has attempted to move to stronger academics; and we continue that process in the reauthorization that we bring to the floor today. It is one of the reasons why the Tech-Prep program, which used to be separate and in this bill we have merged it with a basic grant, although we preserve the funding, is not quite as significant as it once was, because Tech-Prep was intended to help encourage those in vocational and technical education from outlining a program where they would do 2 years at the local Tech-Prep school and then go on and do 2 years probably at a community college. By improving the academics across the board, I think it is good for all students.

I have two technical schools in my own district, Butler Tech, Butler County Tech and Miami Valley Tech, who offer wonderful programs and wonderful Tech-Prep programs for many of their students. They have articulation agreements with Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, and other community colleges to help put students on a path where they will gain the skills necessary to be able to go out in the workforce and have very productive jobs.

There are two or three million jobs in America today that have gone begging because we do not have employees and people with skills to fill those jobs; and many of them could be filled if, in fact, we have stronger technical vocational programs around the country.

So I would encourage my colleagues to support the underlying bill, and we are about to get into the amendment process, and we will see where that takes us.

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

Mr. Chairman, while I do not object to the gentleman's amendment, I would like to claim the time in opposition.

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

Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment. Clearly those who take technical and vocational education programs ought to have the ability to take those credits and that time that they have invested in that program and be able to move on, if they choose, into, whether it is a 2-year school or a 4-year school.

What we have seen in the past, many students who were in vocational schools, technical schools, and who may have then decided to change their minds, did not have the ability to move on to get that 2-year degree or to get that certificate they may be looking for, or even a 4- year degree. And I think that the articulation agreements that would be permissible under this bill, with the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu's) amendment, are growing from State to State.

I know in Ohio, all of the State-sponsored schools now have an articulation agreement, a transfer of credit policy, as well, which I think will help facilitate students who want to continue their education at various schools. And I think the allowable use of funds in this amendment will, in fact, help students all over the country, and I am pleased to support the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu's) amendment.

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

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

Let me just thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu) for his amendment and thank him for working with us on this language. It is similar language to what is in the Senate bill. The gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu) is a valued member of our committee, and we have worked closely on a number of issues, and we are glad to support this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, while I am not opposed to the amendment, I would like to claim the time in opposition to it.

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

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's amendment. I appreciate her willingness to work with us on her amendment, to put it in a form that we think is acceptable. And while these activities are clearly allowed under the bill, the specific training that is outlined here, I think is, in fact, needed not only in her State of California, but all across the country, as we look at a lot of high skilled jobs that are out there, but yet no one to fill them.

And I think if you look at vocational and technical education in a broader sense is intended to help provide the type of skills necessary in today's economy. We think the gentlewoman has a good amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the motion to recommit.

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

Mr. Speaker, the amendment that the Democrat leadership is talking about would not do a single thing to improve educational opportunities for American students.

The Democrat leadership amendment has nothing to do with the bipartisan legislation that is being debated on the floor today. It is a partisan cheap shot aimed at the administration. It really has no place in this bill.

When USA Today first reported on the Armstrong Williams contract in January, I immediately supported the gentleman from California's (Mr. George Miller) request for an independent investigation by the Education Department's Inspector General.

That investigation has taken place and the Inspector General has concluded that nothing illegal or unethical took place.

Now, what happened with respect to the Armstrong Williams contract was stupid; but passing laws to outlaw stupidity is not Congress' job.

Now, the new education Secretary has taken decisive action to ensure that what happened in the Armstrong Williams case does not happen again. But I think what we see here today is what I said earlier, a partisan cheap shot aimed at the administration. It does not belong in this bill. I urge my colleagues to reject the motion to recommit.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my committee chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), and our full ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), and always my partner, the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), for working together in a bipartisan way the last Congress and this one to bring this bill to the floor.

As I have said, I have my concerns about this bill, even though it is the result of a bipartisan process. I am especially pleased that the majority has brought this bill forward, in light of the President's proposal to eliminate career and technical education. I hope that we will send a strong bipartisan signal today that we in the House believe that career and technical education is critical to our students and to our country's economic future.

But, Mr. Chairman, I do, as I said, have concerns regarding this bill. First, the bill rightly strengthens accountability for State and local programs, but at the same time it cuts by 60 percent the funds that States can use for that very purpose. I support these accountability measures, but if we do not enable the States to administer them, they will be an empty promise.

I also am concerned this bill merges the Tech-Prep program with the basic State grant. I appreciate that our Republican colleagues in the committee have maintained funding for Tech-Prep activities; but as we all know, not sending Tech-Prep funding separately to the States means that eventually States will lose their focus on those very activities we consider so crucial.

Finally, I am disappointed we are not being allowed to debate most of the amendments that my colleagues and I submitted to the Committee on Rules. I support the amendments that we are debating, but there are many critical issues that we are leaving undiscussed. The gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) all offered important amendments on government paying journalists to create propaganda, on dropout prevention, on school construction, and helping out-of-work manufacturing workers. But we are not debating any of those issues today, and I do not understand why.

Finally, we are not debating an issue that has long been important to me and I consider critical to our country's future, that is, the lack of women and girls in science, math, engineering, and technology. My amendment would have helped school districts increase girls' interest in studying in these careers and in these areas. A recent GAO study, Mr. Chairman, found that men still outnumber women in nearly every field in the sciences. In his recent article, ``It's a Flat World, After All,'' and new book, ``The World is Flat,'' The New York Times writer Thomas Friedman explained that America's historical economic advantages have disappeared now ``that the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to Google, and a cheap wireless laptop can join the innovation fray,'' no matter what continent they are living on.

Mr. Friedman's and others' remedy is to attract more young women and men to science and engineering. But it will be impossible for our country to continue to lead the world in innovation as long as more than half our population, women, are steered away, intentionally or not, from studying and working in the fields from where that innovation would come.

Consider this, from Dr. Susan Hockfield, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who recently said that squandered talent, and I quote her, ``is one of the key issues of women in science and engineering.'' All of our children, not just girls, would have benefited if we had been able to debate this issue today, and I am sorry that we are not.

But, again, Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleagues for their hard work on this bill, and I look forward to improving it even more in conference.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis), who is a valued member of the subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), a valued member of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), superintendent of schools for 8 years in North Carolina.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), a member of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), a member of the subcommittee.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), our full committee ranking member and my leader on education and many other issues.

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to say one more time how much I appreciate the bipartisan work that we accomplished on the subcommittee and on the full committee, and I thank both the full Chair, the subcommittee Chair, and my ranking member for making all that possible.

In closing, I want to reiterate my main concerns with the bill, which I hope will be addressed in conference.

First, the bill rightly strengthens accountability for State and local programs, but at the same time, it cuts 60 percent of the funds that the States can use for that very purpose. I support these accountability measures, but if we do not enable the States to administer them, we will be providing empty promises. I offered an amendment in the committee to restore this cut.

I am also concerned that this bill merges the tech prep program with the basic State grant, and I appreciate that our Republican colleagues on the committee have maintained funding for tech prep activities. But as we all know, not sending tech prep funding separately to the States means that eventually States will lose their focus on those activities.

Another area that I am concerned about and I want to reiterate is the issue that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) has just discussed, which is his amendment offered to end abuses like the Department of Education's contract with Armstrong Williams. His amendment simply said that the government cannot hire journalists to create government propaganda and required that if the Department of Education continues to produce prepackaged news pieces, it has to fully disclose that fact in the piece. I am sorry that that language, which is really about government being honest with the people, is not in this bill.

Finally, we must ask ourselves, despite bipartisan support and despite the support of the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) and the gentleman from Delaware (Chairman Castle), where will the appropriators find the funds to support this and other critical education programs that the President wants to eliminate or underfund? For example, this year alone, the President wants to provide our schoolchildren $12 billion less than he promised under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Mr. Chairman, one last comment: this is a good, bipartisan bill, and we must fix the little pieces that are missing in conference.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise to clearly not oppose this amendment, and I claim the time in opposition, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would echo what the gentleman on the other side of the aisle have said about our good and wonderful staffs. I do not know what we would do without them, and I thank them very much, our wonderful staff and the Republican staff.

I want to thank, again, the chairman of my subcommittee, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), for letting me work with him in a bipartisan way on this bill and for offering this amendment. As I noted in my opening statement, I do not think that merging Tech-Prep programs into the basic State grant is good policy, and I would prefer that this amendment allow proportional increases for Tech-Prep funding as overall funding increases, because as things get more expensive, it is pretty hard to flat fund. But I hope we will address this as the bill moves forward.

I need to say, though, that I appreciate the commitment of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) to hold Tech-Prep funding harmless at the fiscal year 2005 level, and I do agree with his amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald) for offering this very important amendment. We hear a lot of talk, especially with every increasing gas prices of the need for alternative automotive fuel technologies.

And we need to do more, because we are not developing the technologies nor the talent to develop the technologies. In fact, several Congresses ago, then Secretary Reich encouraged us to take more interest in high-tech automotive job training, noting then of the severe shortage of workers for the industry, and because cars and trucks are not simply machines, simply machines at that, we have to have a workforce of technicians who understand what is needed, or else we will all be in really big trouble, not just personally, but economically as a country.

This amendment would ensure that regardless of changes in fuel technology, we will have the workforce we need; and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time, and I commend her for her hard work in the reauthorization of this very important bill.

Mr. Chairman, Wisconsin is very proud of the career and technical college system that we have back home. In fact, I have four of the technical schools in the Third Congressional District in western Wisconsin as well as many of their campus satellites. They have been vital components for economic growth and economic development in our region under the fine leadership of Karen Knox; Lee Rasch; Bill Ihlenfeldt, who actually testified before the Education Committee on this bill; as well as Tim Schreiner, David Hilderbrand, Dr. Mark Hurley. Even though the President did not support reauthorization of this legislation, we believe it is an important investment to make, Mr. Chairman.

The single most important factor in determining America's success in the 21st century will be maintaining our ability to be an innovative and creative society. Over the last few years, the world has become a smaller and more integrated place with technology that is leveling the playing field like never before. Competition and collaboration exist now not just between countries and companies but also between individuals. Meeting this challenge requires a new set of big ideas.

Instead of the administration being so eager to dismantle the New Deal, we

should be working together to offer the American people a New New Deal. A New Deal that will enable our people to compete successfully in the 21st century economy with a renewed commitment to worker training programs; an education investment that emphasizes math, science and engineering; research funding in science and medicine; and a comprehensive broadband strategy so every American has access to high- speed Internet hookup.

We believe that economics does not necessarily have to be a zero-sum game; it can be a win-win proposition for everyone involved so long as they have the tools in which to succeed.

One of the unfortunate aspects of this reauthorization bill is the attempt to remove as a separate funded program the Technical Preparation program. I commend my friend from Delaware who is about to offer an amendment later today at least calling for level funding of the Tech-prep program for the next fiscal year. But once you eliminate the separate status of the Technical Preparation program, the fear is that we are going to lose focus and that the institutions will lose focus or, even worse, that the funding stream will become weakened in future years. I would encourage my colleagues to support the amendment that the gentleman from Delaware will be offering to at least provide level funding of this important program.

Technology is driving the innovation. Technology is driving the creativity. Technology and the use of that is going to determine our workers' ability to compete in the 21st century global marketplace. I would hope that the Senate version which keeps the Tech-prep program as a separate funded entity will remain; but at the very least let us support the Castle amendment when it comes up today.

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

I too want to commend everyone on the committee and the staff in regards to the bipartisan process of bringing the vocational education bill to the floor for reauthorization. I think it is pretty self- evident that those of us who do have career and tech colleges in our district understand the true value that they bring in preparing the workforce for the future, and the incredible involvement that they have in our community, the leadership that they provide, the economic development and spin-off opportunities that arise from them.

Just one example: we had before the Committee on Education and the Workforce a little bit earlier this year President Bill Ihlenfeldt, who is president of the Chippewa Valley Tech College in my congressional district in western Wisconsin. They have just launched and broken ground on a new nanotechnology center that they are moving forward on, clearly trying to advance the skills of our workers in the region on what could be the next ``new'' thing in regards to economic opportunities, job creation, cutting-edge

science and engineering, and technological discoveries in this new nanotechnology center.

Every bill, as the chairman of the committee expressed, may not be a perfect bill; but this one is good. It could be better. This amendment makes it a little bit better, and I commend my colleague and friend from Delaware for offering the amendment to clarify the language that at least for the next fiscal year we will be looking at level funding for the Tech-Prep program.

During markup of the legislation in committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and I offered an amendment that would have restored and kept in tact the separate identity as well as the separate funding stream for the Tech-Prep program. We were not doing this just willy-nilly in support of the status quo, but we were doing it in response to those who have worked with the Tech-Prep program, the feedback that we were getting from outside organizations, and the leadership of the tech education system in the country, about the importance of maintaining Tech-Prep as a separate, distinct identity with a separate funding stream, which the Senate bill recognizes and is moving forward on.

They fear, as I do and others who supported the amendment in committee, that by removing it as a separate entity, by merging it into the general grant program, we are going to lose focus, lose attention, lose incentives for these programs to continue to function in the highly successful manner in which they have. I think, hopefully, we will have a chance to come back and address that issue in conference once the Senate completes their work.

But I would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. I would encourage them to support the underlying bill. I think it is an important investment in regards to maintaining our ability to be creative and innovative as a society. Right now, we are just leaving too many students behind. There was a recent report submitted to Congress that showed that because of tuition increases and fees, with the cutbacks in financial aid programs at the Federal and State level, with the eroding value of the Pell grant, that 48 percent of low-income students are not going on to postsecondary education opportunities, whether it is a career or technical college, whether it is a 4-year college or university. In short, we are leaving too many students behind at the exact time when we cannot afford to leave anyone behind.

Just a few weeks ago, under the leadership of the gentleman from California (Chairman McKeon), some of us on the Education Committee had a chance to do an education tour of China. China is getting it. China is trying to propel themselves into the modern economy of the 21st century. This whole globalization that is going on and the trade debates that we have is not so much a race to the bottom with weak labor and environmental standards as it is a race to the top. And China is a country, having just come from there, that is not content at just being good at copying what we make and mass producing it. They want to be good at the cutting-edge research of technology and science and medicine, and they are making major investments in their education infrastructure today that we have never seen before.

They are graduating eight times the number of engineers that we are in our own country. Unless we are willing to accept a fate which may lead us to a less competitive position with countries like China and India that are making this conversion in regards to their education system, we need to recognize the value of a vocational and technical education system, the reauthorization of this bill, the higher education bill, which we will hopefully have an opportunity to bring up later in the year; and offer a new New Deal for the American people, for the workers and the students and our children by holding out hope and a promise that they will be able to develop the skills and the qualities that they need to survive and to succeed in what is a very integrated, competitive playing field throughout the world today.

This, I think, is an important and significant step to making that investment. Hopefully, through the work the Senate and the conference committee later this year will do, we will be able to improve some of the provisions in this bill to make it even better. But this amendment is worthy of support, the bill is worthy of bipartisan support, so that we can at least be moving in the right direction in regards to the global competition that we are all facing, but especially the students who are in the audience here today and the rest of our children, so that they know that they are going to have the ability to compete in a global marketplace.

Again, I commend the leadership on the committee for the work done on this bill, and I encourage support of the amendment and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time; and more importantly, I thank him for his continuing excellent work in heading this committee and dealing with significant legislation to help all of us.

Obviously, I rise in support of H.R. 366, and I also want to thank my comrade in arms at the subcommittee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), for her work on this, and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), who has a continuing interest in education. They are a pleasure to work with, most of the time, and we appreciate that. I think together we produce good legislation, even though there may be small differences on some of the amendments.

The Perkins Act aims to prepare youth and adults for the future by building their academic and technical skills in preparation for postsecondary education and/or employment. The bill we are considering today enhances Perkins by ensuring both secondary and postsecondary students participating in the program are acquiring rigorous academic and technical skills and will have the opportunity to transition into further education and/or successful employment.

The Perkins Act governs widely supported programs at both the secondary and postsecondary level. For example, nearly all high school students complete at least one vocational education course; and approximately 26 percent of students are considered vocational concentrators, those students that focus on a single occupational area. In my home State of Delaware, we have five career and technical high schools that enroll 5,500 of the 29,500 total high school students. At the postsecondary level, the Perkins Act supports a broad array of options primarily at the community college level. In the 1999-2000 school year, over 50 percent of all students enrolled at the less-than- 4-year postsecondary level reported they were majoring in vocational education areas.

Vocational education represents one of the first education laws at the Federal level, with the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act in 1917. H.R. 366 seeks to build on reforms made in past reauthorizations and seeks to enhance this popular program to ensure its success in years to come.

The legislation before us today makes significant reforms to academic achievement and accountability to ensure students have the skills necessary to enter the workforce or continue to an institution of higher learning. As I mentioned, there are five career and technical high schools in Delaware. While all these schools met adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind Act, there is more to be done in academic achievement in these schools and schools across the country. H.R. 366 will improve vocational and technical education by increasing the focus on academics in conjunction with the skill attainment that is incumbent on the program.

The emphasis on academics will be assessed through the act's alignment with No Child Left Behind, as well as enhanced accountability. H.R. 366 strengthens accountability by requiring that locals establish adjusted levels of performance to complement the State adjusted levels of performance already in current law. The State agency will evaluate annually whether the local recipient is making substantial progress toward achieving these goals. The intent is not to penalize those local areas that are facing difficulty in achieving high-quality outcomes for their students, but to create a structure that includes technical assistance, opportunities for program improvement, and sanctions only as a last resort.

One of the unique attributes of vocational technical education programs is their ability to show students a path that could end in a certificate, credential, employment, military, or postsecondary education. The Tech-Prep program currently within the Perkins Act is intended to focus on a well-defined link between high school and at least 2 years of postsecondary education.

Research has shown, however, that funds are rarely, if ever, used to meet this goal. Rather, funds are often used for purposes within the larger vocational technical education program. Therefore, H.R. 366 folds the separate Tech-Prep program activities and funding into the larger State grant to create a more streamlined system. Under the bill, States will still be expected to spend the same amount of money on Tech-Prep activities as they did under the former stand-alone program. To ensure that the intent of the Tech-Prep program is met, the legislation revises the requirements of the program in order to ensure articulation agreements, or two-plus-two agreements, between secondary and postsecondary institutions are implemented.

Along this same track, H.R. 366 requires States to establish model sequences of courses to emphasize further student academic and vocational and technical achievement. Sequences of courses will incorporate a nonduplicative progression of both secondary and postsecondary elements, which would include both academic and vocational and technical content. Local recipients of both the secondary and postsecondary level would adopt at least one model sequence of courses as developed by the State. I believe this also will help drive program improvements by ensuring that States clarify the progression of academic and vocational and technical courses needed for the postsecondary education and training or employment of a student's choice.

While the President has proposed another avenue for high school reform in the Perkins Act, I believe strongly that the reforms in H.R. 366 will go a long way in driving program improvement and ultimate success for high school students across the country. The dialogue surrounding high school reform is growing and the President is right to force it at the Federal level. I commend those States and businesses across the country that are pioneering efforts at the local level and look forward to following these developments.

As a result of the changes in the bill, I believe that H.R. 366 would help States, community colleges, and other postsecondary education institutions and local educational agencies better meet the needs of the students participating in career and technical education. I urge my colleagues to support this education.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jindal).

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Before discussing the amendment, I, too, would like to thank all the staff who worked on this. We sit here and we say nice things about these bills, and I think that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) and I and others in the room who have worked on these bills know that without our staffs they simply would not be done in the same detail, the same execution. But all those on the committee who the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) referred to I particularly thank. They do a great job on our Committee on Education and the Workforce. I am very grateful to them and to my staff who helped with this as well. It is the reason we get legislation, I think, that we can all pretty much agree to on the floor of the House of Representatives.

My amendment before us, Mr. Chairman, is very simple. It would make an important clarification to the underlying bill. As we have heard, H.R. 366 consolidates the funding streams of Tech-Prep and the basic State grant, but still requires States to fund Tech-Prep activities. I have worked with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to draft this amendment that will clarify our intent. This amendment simply explains that Tech-Prep activities are held harmless to the amount that was appropriated to the Tech-Prep program in fiscal year 2005.

Evidence suggests that under current law, the Tech-Prep program has not worked as anticipated and designed. The intent of the program is for high schools and postsecondary institutions to draft agreements that allow for a nonduplicative, seamless transition for students.

The rationale behind consolidating the programs was to streamline the funding stream. We can all agree that Tech-Prep is an important component of technical and vocational education, which is what this amendment is intended to clarify by ensuring Tech-Prep activities are still funded. In order to prohibit the inadequacies of the past, H.R. 366 incorporates program improvements to ensure that Tech-Prep activities will include credit transfer agreements, ensuring that secondary vocational and technical education students can move easily into postsecondary education, a necessary exercise for those students who decide to go on to some form of postsecondary education or training.

I urge my colleagues to support my simple and technical amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I urge the support of the amendment by everybody.

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