Supporting Military Families Act of 2009

Mr. President, I rise along with my colleagues, Senators Collins, Feinstein, Voinovich, Byrd and Ensign to introduce the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, SOAR, which seeks to reauthorize the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, OSP, also known as the DC voucher program. This important initiative offers scholarships to low-income students, especially those from failing schools, to attend better private schools. In doing so, the program gives parents of economically disadvantaged children a choice that's available to the more affluent, including many of us in Congress and in the White House. This program offers DC students a choice that has improved the quality of their education and lives; it is a program that works. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support the reauthorization of this important program.

Since 2003, Congress has supported a tri-sector approach to improving education in the District of Columbia. This has included funding the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides low income students in the District with scholarships of up to $7,500 to attend private schools, as well as new funding for ongoing efforts to reform and improve public schools and public charter schools in the District.

Critics of this program argue that it takes away funds from public schools. This is simply not the case. I remind my colleagues that we intentionally designed the scholarship program to ensure that any funding for opportunity scholarships would not reduce funding for public schools. We provided additional new money for the DC Public Schools and for DC Public Charter Schools. We have not changed the three part-funding design of the initiative. The tri-partite funding is central to the compromise approach that originally brought Democrats and Republicans together in support of the Opportunity Scholarship Program. This bill preserves that important requirement. It is our intent that any funding for DC Opportunity Scholarships will result in continued additional new money in support of public charter and public schools.

This funding mechanism is an important point as it reflects the goal of the Opportunity Scholarship Program: to be supportive of the reforms that are helping to improve education in the District of Columbia. There is absolutely no intention to undermine the public schools--quite to the contrary. But as Ronald Holassie, one of the students receiving a scholarship, told us at a recent hearing on the program before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: ``public schools in the District did not go bad over night and they won't get better over night.'' That's the point: despite having amongst the highest per pupil expenditure for public school districts in the country, the public school students in the District score at the bottom on national tests. Ronald and others cannot wait for reforms to take effect in the worst of DC's public schools. They deserve a good education today and the Opportunity Scholarships respond to that need.

Much progress has been made in improving DC schools over the years but even school Chancellor Michelle Rhee admits that much remains to be done. According to the Washington Post, Chancellor Rhee was asked recently to give herself a grade for her efforts. She said she would give herself a failing grade as long as any children were in schools that were not providing a quality education. That's a modest answer that obscures the progress she has made. DC test scores are up in the most recent study of academic performance. Undoubtedly, we will see additional improvements in the years to come. Chancellor Rhee will continue to have my full support and I am confident that Ms. Rhee will soon be able to claim the ``A'' grade that I believe she already deserves. In the new bill, we have made the connection between the scholarship program and the ongoing reform effort more explicit. Our bill acknowledges an intent to reexamine the program when DC public school students are testing at the national average in reading and math.

The bill also responds to early criticisms of the Opportunity Scholarships with some important changes. It requires all participating schools to have a valid certificate of occupancy and to ensure that teachers in core subjects have an appropriate college degree. It continues to target students from lower income families who are attending those DC schools most in need of improvement but it increases the tuition amounts slightly to levels consistent with the tuition charged at a typical participating school, and adds an inflation adjustment. The new amounts are still well below the per pupil cost of educating a child in the DC public schools. While we have kept the income ceiling for entry into the program unchanged, we have increased slightly the income ceiling for those already participating in the program to ensure that parents are not forced to choose between a modest raise in their income and the scholarship, or marriage and the scholarship.

It is very important to recognize that the Opportunity Scholarship schools are producing impressive results. Opportunity Scholarship students attending private schools showed a five month advantage in reading levels compared to students attending public schools who applied but did not receive the scholarship, in the most recent study of the program conducted by the Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. The study showed significantly higher levels of parental satisfaction with regards to safety and the quality of the school for those in the program. The study has not yet even looked at the effect of the program on graduation rates and attrition though studies of other voucher programs indicate this impact could very well be significant. We will see those results in next year's study.

It is also imperative to put the results of the program in context. Rarely are there statistically significant results with any educational innovations, particularly those targeted at low income students. Of the eleven recent educational innovations studied under the auspices of the Department of Education using the same rigorous testing designs, only three showed any statistically significant achievement results. The Opportunity Scholarship was one of the three. Dr. Patrick Wolf, an education specialist and the lead researcher in the IES study, testified at a recent hearing on the scholarship program that in his professional opinion the results were exceptional and warranted continued study of the program. According to Dr. Wolf, ``by demonstrating statistically significant impacts overall in reading based on an experimental evaluation, the DC OSP has met a tough standard for efficacy in serving low-income inner-city students.''

Academic programs should be evaluated in terms of their impact on students' progress and achievement. In his speech before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce earlier this year, President Obama laid down that marker as a guideline for considering which education programs should be funded. On that basis, it is clear that we should continue to fund the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program--a program that has been good for students, good for parents and even good for public and charter schools in the District. Let us do the right thing for kids in DC and reauthorize the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Mr. President, today I introduce the Zero Tolerance for Veteran Homelessness Act. This comprehensive bill enhances and expands the assistance provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to homeless veterans and veterans at risk of becoming homeless.

It is one of our Nation's great tragedies that on any given night, 131,000 veterans are homeless. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that more than 200,000 veterans experience homelessness each year and that nearly 1/5 of all homeless people in the United States are veterans. These numbers are expected to climb as our servicemembers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan return home to face tough economic conditions.

We know that veterans are often at greater risk of becoming homeless. Some return from deployments to discover that the skills they have honed in their military service can be difficult to transfer to jobs in the private sector. Others struggle with physical or mental wounds of war. Still others return to communities that lack safe, affordable housing.

Our veterans have made great sacrifices to serve our country, and it is especially important to honor our commitment to them. The Department of Veterans Affairs is certainly a part of that commitment, providing benefits, medical care, support, and a sense of community to homeless veterans. However, a number of other federal agencies provide service to veterans, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and this legislation builds on that existing infrastructure.

Many programs through HUD and the VA are already helping homeless veterans with transitional housing, health care and rehabilitation services, and employment assistance. However, a more comprehensive and coordinated approach would strengthen these programs and prevent more at-risk veterans from becoming homeless.

That is why I have joined with my colleagues Senators Bond, Murray, and Johnson to introduce this much-needed legislation. The Zero Tolerance for Veterans Homelessness Act seeks to merge housing programs and support services for veterans from the start so that there is an integrated approach to address their risk of homelessness.

First, this bill would create a new Homelessness Prevention program that would enable the VA to keep at-risk veterans in stable housing and offer increased assistance to veterans who have fallen into homelessness. Specifically, the VA could provide short-term rental assistance, housing relocation and stabilization services, services to resolve personal credit issues, payments for security deposits or utility costs, and assistance for moving costs. These up-front expenses can be the major obstacle that puts low-income or unemployed veterans at risk of becoming homeless. These homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing techniques have been successfully used in numerous communities to significantly reduce family homelessness, and this bill would give the VA resources to put these strategies into practice.

Second, this bill would authorize additional housing vouchers through the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing, VASH, program. This collaborative program provides homeless veterans with vouchers to rent apartments in the private rental market, as well as case management and clinical services at local VA medical centers. In this way, veterans receive the supportive housing they need to recover and thrive.

The HUD-VASH program has grown in recent years. Twenty thousand vouchers were funded in the last two appropriations cycles, and 10,000 more will likely be funded-in Fiscal Year 2010. However, more homeless veterans could benefit from this important resource. As such, the Zero Tolerance for Veterans Homelessness bill authorizes up to 10,000 additional vouchers each year to reach a maximum of 60,000 vouchers by 2013.

Third, this legislation would make it easier for non-profits to apply for capital grants through the VA's grants and per diem program to build transitional housing and other facilities for veterans. This would streamline the process for non-profit organizations to be able to use financing from other sources to break ground on new housing construction. This is particularly important in the current economy, when non-profits are stretched and have to be more creative than ever to fund new capital projects.

The Zero Tolerance for Veterans Homelessness Act would also create a Special Assistant for Veterans Affairs within HUD. The Special Assistant would ensure that veterans have access to HUD's existing programs and work to remove any barriers. The Special Assistant would also serve as a liaison between HUD and the VA, helping to connect and coordinate the services the two departments provide.

Additionally, this legislation recognizes the need to measure progress of efforts to combat homelessness. It establishes a new Homeless Veterans Management Information System, to be developed by the VA, in consultation with HUD and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. This data collection system will be used to provide annual reports to Congress on the number of homeless veterans and they types of assistance they receive. This information will help illustrate how programs are performing and inform future policy.

Finally, the bill would require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in consultation with other agencies, to analyze existing programs and develop a comprehensive plan with recommendations on how to end homelessness among veterans. Establishing a plan with appropriate benchmarks will enable the VA to more easily track progress towards this important goal.

This bipartisan bill also complements a bill that I am cosponsoring with Senator Murray to enable programs at the VA and the Department of Labor to better serve homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children.

Only by working together, across the federal government and in partnership with non-profits and local housing authorities, will we be able to comprehensively help homeless veterans and reach those in danger of becoming homeless. We owe it to our veterans to ensure that they and their families have safe, affordable places to live and to provide the services and benefits they have earned. The nation's brave veterans deserve nothing less.

I hope my colleagues will join in supporting this important, bipartisan legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Lieberman and my Senate colleagues in introducing legislation to reauthorize the District of Columbia's pilot scholarship program for 5 more years.

This important program currently provides scholarships to 1,700 low- income children who attend 49 private schools in the District. The scholarships of up to $7,500 help these students pay for tuition and transportation expenses to school.

However, if the program is not extended soon, children will not be able to continue their education at the schools of their choice.

This legislation would:

Extend the life of the District of Columbia's pilot scholarship program for five more years.

Increase the program's funding to $20 million for fiscal year 2010 and as may be necessary the following four years to allow new students to participate in the program and provide a higher scholarship.

Increase the scholarship amount to $9,000 for children in kindergarten through 8th grade, and $11,000 for youngsters in high school--this amount is still lower than the $15,500 cost of educating a public school student in the District and will help low-income families afford the high cost of private school tuition.

Protect low-income families whose children are already in the program from ``earning out'' of it by setting the maximum income level for them at 300 percent of the Federal poverty level, about $63,000 for a family of four.

However, it maintains the current income eligibility requirement for students to enter the program of 185 percent of poverty, $41,000 for a family of four.

It would improve evaluation by assessing students' college admission rates, school safety, and the reasons why parents choose to participate in program to better learn about its impact on children's lives and their families.

It would give priority for awarding scholarships also to students whose household includes a sibling or other child already participating in the program.

When students entered the program 5 years ago, they were performing in the bottom third on reading and math tests.

Students are now improving academically--despite the many challenges that these children face outside the classroom living in some of the District's toughest neighborhoods.

The most recent evaluation from this past April by the Education Department's Institute of Education Sciences found that although math test scores have not increased so far, there are significant gains being made in reading test scores.

Specifically, pilot program students scored 4.5 points higher in reading on the SAT-9 national standardized test with a total score of 635.4 when compared to the District's public school students' score of 630.9.

This means students are making gains in reading test scores by the equivalent of 3 months of additional schooling, and moved to the 35th percentile on the SAT-9 from the 33rd percentile where they were before entering the program.

These youngsters still have much more catching up to do, but they are improving and this is important.

I believe the results of the more comprehensive evaluation of student performance that will be released next spring are critical.

Next year's evaluation will also include important data on the program's impact on students' college enrollment and how the District's public schools are changing in response to the pilot program.

I would like to share two examples of how the program has helped to change the lives of the District's most disadvantaged youngsters and give them a chance to succeed.

Shirley-Ann Tomdio is the 8th grade Valedictorian at Sacred Heart Middle School, located in the District's neighborhood of Columbia Heights.

The scholarship allowed Shirley-Ann to attend Sacred Heart School for the past four years since 5th grade.

She will be attending Georgetown Visitation in September for high school.

She wants to go to college and become a surgeon.

Shirley-Ann said at her 8th grade graduation speech this past June:

The D.C. OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] is important

to me because without it I wouldn't be able to receive the

best education possible. It should continue so that my

brother, sister, and other students get the same chance.

Every child should get the chance to go to a good school.

Oscar Machado is a graduate of Archbishop Carroll High School where he was on Honor Roll.

Oscar is attending Mount Saint Mary's University in Maryland in the fall and plans to major in biology. He received three college scholarships that will cover nearly all of this tuition.

He was in the pilot program for 4 years.

At Archbishop Carroll High, he was President of the Robotics Team where he used pre-engineering skills to build robots, and also played the saxophone in the school band.

When speaking of his experience as a D.C. Opportunity Scholarship recipient Oscar said:

The scholarship was great. It gave me the opportunity to

attend a school I otherwise couldn't have attended.

Oscar hopes that the same opportunity should be available to other students.

We should listen to students like Oscar and Shirley-Ann, and continue to provide this important program to the District's neediest children.

I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to pass this legislation.

Mr. President. I have sought recognition to urge support for the legislation I just introduced, the Liability for Aiding and Abetting Securities Violations Act of 2009. My legislation would overturn two errant decisions of the Supreme Court--Central Bank of Denver v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, 511 U.S. 164, 1994, and Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., 522 U.S. 148, 2008, by amending the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to authorize a private right of action for aiding-and-abetting liability.

The Act's main anti-fraud provision, Sec. 10(b), makes it ``unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly,'' to commit acts of fraud ``in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.'' Nearly fifty years ago the Court implied a private right of action under Sec. 10(b). The result was that investors could recover financial losses caused by violations of 10(b) and the companion regulation issued by the SEC commonly known as ``Rule 10b-5.''

Until Central Bank, every circuit of the Federal Court of Appeals had concluded that Sec. 10(b)'s private right of action allowed recovery not only against the person who directly undertook a fraudulent act-- the so-called primary violator--but also anyone who aided and abetted him. A five-Justice majority in Central Bank, intent on narrowing Sec. 10(b)'s scope, held that its private right of action extended only to primary violators.

When Congress debated the legislation that became the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, PSLRA, then-SEC chairman Arthur Levitt and others urged Congress to overturn Central Bank. Congress declined to do so. The PSLRA authorized only the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, to bring aiding-and- abetting enforcement litigation.

It is time for us to revisit that judgment. The massive frauds involving Enron, Refco, Tyco, Worldcom, and countless other lesser- known companies during the last decade have taught us that a stock issuer's auditors, bankers, business affiliates, and lawyers--sometimes called ``secondary actors''--all too often actively participate in and enable the issuer's fraud. Federal Judge Gerald Lynch recently observed in a decision calling on Congress to reexamine Central Bank that secondary actors are sometimes ``deeply and indispensably implicated in wrongful conduct.'' In re Refco, Inc. Sec. Litig., 609 F. Supp. 2d. 304, 318 n.15, S.D.N.Y.

2009. Professor John Coffee of Columbia Law School, a renowned expert on the regulation of the securities markets, has even laid much of the blame for the major corporate frauds of this decade on the ``acquiescence'' of the ``outside professionals''--especially accountants, securities analysts, and corporate lawyers--responsible for ``preparing, verifying, or certifying corporate disclosures to the securities markets.'' Coffee, ``Gatekeeper Failure and Reform: The Challenge of Fashioning Relevant Reforms,'' 84 Boston University Law Review 301, 304, 2004.

The immunity from suit that Central Bank confers on secondary actors has removed much-needed incentives for them to avoid complicity in and even help prevent securities fraud, and all too often left the victims of fraud uncompensated for their losses. Enforcement actions by the SEC have proved to be no substitute for suits by private plaintiffs. The SEC's litigating resources are too limited for the SEC to bring suit except in a small number of cases, and even when the SEC does bring suit, it cannot recover damages for the victims of fraud.

Last year's decision in Stoneridge made matters still worse for defrauded investors. Central Bank had at least held open the possibility that secondary actors who themselves undertake fraudulent activities prescribed by Sec. 10(b) could be ``held liable as . . . primary violator[s].'' Stoneridge has largely foreclosed that possibility. A divided Court held that Sec. 10(b)'s private right of action did not ``reach'' two vendors of a cable company that entered into sham transactions with the company knowing that it would publicly report the transactions in order to inflate its stock price. The Court conceded that the suppliers engaged in fraudulent conduct prescribed by Sec. 10(b), but held that they were not liable in a private action because only the issuer, not they, communicated the transaction to the public. That remarkable conclusion put the Court at odds with even the Republican Chairman of the SEC.

My legislative response would take the limited, but important, step amending of the Exchange Act to authorize a private right of action under Sec. 10(b) (and other, less commonly invoked, provisions of the Act) against a secondary actor who provides ``substantial assistance'' to a person who violates Sec. 10(b). Any suit brought under my proposed amendment would, of course, be subject to the heightened pleading standards, discovery-stay procedures, and other defendant-protective features of the PSLRA.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce The Supporting Military Families Act of 2009.

The sacrifices made by our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard are matched only by those made by their families. When a loved one is serving abroad, and in cases where he or she returns wounded, it can take an immense emotional toll on a family.

But it does not have to take an equally staggering economic toll.

The bill I introduce today clarifies and improves upon provisions included in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, which provided important benefits for family members of our brave service men and women.

More than 20 years ago, I began the effort to bring job protection to hard-working Americans so they wouldn't have to choose between the family they love and the job they need. This effort, after more than seven years, three presidents, and two vetoes, eventually led to the enactment of the Family Medical Leave Act, FMLA, which provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave for eligible employees so they may care for a newborn or adopted child, their own serious illness, or that of a loved one. Since its passage, I have worked to expand this Act to cover more workers and to provide for paid leave, so that more employees can afford to take leave when necessary.

We must also ensure that we care for the health and well-being of our war heroes, many of whom return from deployment with serious injuries and illnesses. Two years ago, I introduced legislation to provide up to 6 months of FMLA leave for primary caregivers of servicemembers who suffer from a combat-related injury or illness. The FMLA currently provides three months of unpaid leave to a spouse, parent, or child acting as a caregiver for a person with a serious illness. However, some of those injured in service to our country rely on other family members or friends to care for them as they recover, and many of these injuries take longer than 3 months to heal from. That is why, following a recommendation of the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, headed by former Senator Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, I offered this legislation. It was included in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, along with another provision providing exigency leave for servicemembers' families, which allows the families of deployed servicemembers to take leave to manage their family or personal affairs.

These two provisions were important steps toward giving our servicemembers and their families the support they need during extremely challenging times. The legislation I introduce today builds on those efforts and will accomplish three things. First, a number of service-related illnesses and injuries may not manifest themselves until after a servicemember has left the military, including traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder. This bill extends the annual 26 weeks of unpaid leave to family members of veterans for up to five years after a veteran leaves service, if the

veteran develops a service-related serious injury or illness that he or she needs time to recover from. Second, this legislation extends eligibility for exigency leave to those deployed to a foreign country, and not only in support of a contingency operation, in order to provide the benefit to all of those families who struggle with the challenges of a deployment. Finally, the DOL regulations limited access to exigency leave to Reserve and National Guard members only. This was not the intent of the initial legislation, and this bill extends exigency leave to cover all active duty members who are deployed to a foreign country.

I am pleased that my colleagues Senators Kennedy, Lieberman, and Murray are joining me in introducing the Supporting Military Families Act of 2009.