Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, according to the Washington Post this morning, the President and his Education Secretary will announce tomorrow that the Department of Education will begin a process to grant waivers to States from the provisions of No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind, of course, is a law that was passed with bipartisan support in 2001 and 2002 by Congress. We are in its ninth year of its implementation.

It needs to be fixed, and Congress needs to act to fix it. Republican Senators and Members of the House have already offered legislation that will begin to do that, which I will talk about in a minute. But my purpose in coming to the floor is to talk about the waiver requests the Secretary of Education may begin to approve. My request of the Secretary and of the President is that as they establish a waiver process and as they begin to approve waivers, they show restraint and not take unto themselves responsibilities that are the responsibilities of Congress.

The truth is, the Secretary has the States over a barrel. We have about 100,000 public schools in America, and as he has correctly said, about 80 percent of them, under the current law,

are going to be deemed as failing schools soon.

The President and the Secretary and we Republicans would like to take the responsibility for determining which schools are succeeding or failing and put that back in the hands of the States. We would like to take the responsibility for determining which teachers are highly qualified and put that back in the hands of the States. That is a part of the legislation we introduced last week.

Substantially, those ideas are ideas the President and the Secretary either have advanced or agree with. So we have a lot of agreement about this. But the Secretary has the States over a barrel. Most Governors want a waiver. Almost every State, from Missouri to Tennessee to Georgia, will be asking for a waiver.

What I hope the Secretary will do is to look at the applications, and if those applications submitted by the States for exemption from the requirements of No Child Left Behind, if they would enhance student achievement, then approve them. If they would not advance student achievement, then deny them.

But the restraint I am asking for is that the Secretary not use this occasion, when the States are over a barrel, to become a national school board and begin to impose on the States those requirements that Congress would not do through legislation and that States ought to be deciding for themselves. This is the request of the States themselves.

The States have been working over the last 10 years in very good ways to take steps forward together. They have created common standards. They have created tests to measure performance against those standards. The chief State school officers are in the middle of creating an accountability system. A lot of progress has been made in what I like to call the holy grail of elementary and secondary education: finding a way to reward outstanding teaching by connecting it to student achievement. This is something Tennessee became the first State in the country to do when I was Governor in 1983 and 1984 and which many school districts in many States are trying to do now.

So the difference of opinion I have, potentially, with this Secretary and this President on what to do about No Child Left Behind may seem very small. Let me compliment the President and let me compliment the Secretary in this way. They stuck their necks out and have taken some positions to help make better schools that are not popular with their natural constituents.

I admire that. I respect that. They have advocated a number of changes in the schools; for example, getting rid of the adequate yearly progress provision, moving out of Washington the responsibility for deciding whether schools are succeeding or failing; changing the highly qualified teacher provision so States can figure that out through their own systems.

All those are things we agree on, Republicans and Democrats. Where we may disagree, and the reason we have not advanced ahead with bipartisan legislation on No Child Left Behind, is what I would call the difference between Washington mandates and approving State requests or one might even say, the difference between a national school board and giving States the responsibility for making their own decisions.

Here is an example of what I mean. There is agreement, as I said, that this process called adequate yearly progress for a lot of schools should not be decided here. We will read in the paper that such and such school is not succeeding or it is failing. It is a good idea for Tennessee or for Missouri or for California to set performance targets to replace adequate yearly progress. But those performance targets ought to be in the States' application and not be required and defined by the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, which could turn it into a national school board.

A growth model, the idea of giving States and school districts credit for making progress, sort of an A for effort, to go along with an A for achievement, that is a good idea. President Bush, in his administration, began to permit that exemption from No Child Left Behind.

But superintendents ought not to be flying to Washington from Nashville and Denver and different parts of America and asking anybody in Washington to approve their growth model or even be required to have one if they have some other way to decide whether schools are succeeding or failing.

Let me take another example that I have a very deep interest in. Teacher and principal evaluation systems related to student achievement. Tennessee became the first State in 1984 to pay teachers more for teaching well. Up until then, not one State paid teachers one penny more for teaching well. In my office this morning were the two Principals of the Year from Tennessee and three representatives of the Tennessee Education Association. Four out of the five were voluntary participants in our Master Teacher Program or Career Ladder Program and were telling me how grateful they were for that.

But let me tell you this, it was a controversial and difficult effort. It was opposed massively by the National Education Association, whose members this morning were thanking me for the program, because it is not easy to determine, in a fair way, how to reward outstanding teaching, particularly if we are going to relate it to student achievement and particularly if we are going to relate it to performance pay.

The best way to do that is to encourage States and encourage school districts to try different ways of doing it and hope they succeed and borrow ideas from one another. This is what the Teacher Incentive Fund has done for the last few years as a part of No Child Left Behind. I fully support that program and hope we will continue giving money to help school districts who want to try different forms of performance- based pay.

But to require a student-teacher evaluation in order to get a waiver from No Child Left Behind runs the risk of school districts all over the country--100,000 schools--being supervised by a national school board.

I have had very good conversations with well-meaning superintendents and others in school districts who say: But Congress has to make us do it or we will not do it. I do not buy that. I do not think you can make schools better from Washington, DC. We can create an environment in which they might succeed. Schools are similar to jobs. We have a national responsibility for them, but we cannot create them here. We can create an environment to make it easier and cheaper to create jobs, private sector jobs. We can create an environment to make it easier to create better schools.

Then, the next thing someone would say is: There is no harm in just saying in a Federal law or in a requirement for a waiver that we must have a growth model or we must have a performance standard or we must have a teacher-principal evaluation program. What is wrong with that?

Here is what is wrong with it. That is not the end of it. Because there is the habit then, every time I have seen it--one time when we passed a law saying the Secretary of Education could not do it, of creating regulations to interpret what the Federal Government means by growth models, performance standards or teacher-principal evaluation systems, a lot of well-meaning staff members and other people and peer review groups then decided what a teacher-principal evaluation system related to student achievement looks like. That is going to be very hard to do since nobody knows what it looks like. That would be akin to telling people--requiring them to drive cars before the car was invented.

We have had several good experiments around the country that are identifying good teaching, rewarding performance, relating it to student achievement and relating it to better pay. But it has been very hard to do. No one is absolutely sure how to do it.

The worst thing we could do at this time with teacher and principal evaluations related to student achievement, even though I believe it is the holy grail of school reform, is to impose any version of it from Washington.

I am simply asking the President and the Secretary to show restraint tomorrow. I have a lot of admiration for this Secretary and respect for the President's positions on kindergarten through the 12th grade education. Many of the ideas in the legislation advanced by Republican Senators last

week to fix No Child Left Behind were suggested by Secretary Duncan. He has gone out of his way to work with Republicans, as well as Democrats. He has been an energetic, able Secretary, and I support most of his ideas.

For example, he supported the idea--we agreed to it, Democrats and Republicans, Senate and House--that instead of reauthorizing this big law, we would fix it. Then we identified nine areas we tried to fix. The Secretary was comfortable with that, and so were Democratic colleagues and Republican Senators. We set a new, realistic, challenging goal to help all students succeed. We agree on that: Instead of a goal that would require 80 percent schools to be labeled as failing, we will have a new goal that says students will be college and career ready when they graduate from high school.

We agreed we should free 95 percent of schools from the Federal requirement of conforming to a federally defined adequate yearly progress mandate. What that simply means is, instead of Washington deciding whether a school in Nashville is succeeding or failing, that decision will be made by the State of Tennessee. The State of Tennessee will be able to do it a lot better today than it could in 2001, because since then we have had common standards adopted by 44 States--tests of those standards adopted by about the same number. We have chief state school officers agreeing on the principles of accountability systems-- these are the performance targets, growth models, and other such things. In the case of Tennessee, they won the Race to the Top competition, which I also support.

The third thing is that the Federal Government will help States fix the bottom 5 percent of their schools--that is 4,500 schools picked by the States. The Secretary agrees with that, and we Republicans agree, and I believe our Democratic colleagues agree.

We agree on requiring States to have high standards that promote college and career readiness for all students. We agree on encouraging the creation of State and school district teacher and principal evaluation systems to replace Federal highly qualified teacher requirements. But for us that means allowing States--if they choose to do it--to use title II money to pay for it. We are not going to require it or define it. We are going to let it flourish.

We believe in continuing the necessary reporting requirements. This may be the greatest contribution of No Child Left Behind since 2002. It requires reports on how schools are doing by subgroup, not on the average. So we can find out if African-American children or Hispanic children are doing as well as other children. We have this great volume of information now from school districts all over the State, so that we have, in effect, better report cards.

We believe on the Republican side--and I think there is agreement, in principle, at least, on the Democratic side--that we should allow school districts to transfer Federal funds more easily to meet their needs and to consolidate Federal programs.

We believe in empowering parents. In my office this morning, one of the State Principals of the Year from Tennessee was from Powell Middle School in Knoxville. Their enrollment is up this year, from 920 to 1,060, because parents were choosing to take their children out of schools that weren't succeeding, and they were permitted to transfer them to another school--in this case, the Powell Middle School, where they could succeed.

That is my request of a Secretary I admire and a President whose K-12 education policies I respect: Please show restraint. Just because you have every State over a barrel, doesn't mean you should be tempted to use this opportunity to become a national school board. Step back, look at the applications for waivers. If they enhance student achievement, say yes; if they don't, say no.

Then one last point. Someone might say, and they'd be exactly right, that the real reason the Secretary is granting waivers is because Congress hasn't done its job. We're in our ninth year of No Child Left Behind and we should have fixed it 4 years ago when the law expired. It has just continued, according to the provisions of the original law. We have substantial agreement in the Senate, except for these accountability provisions, these differences over whether we are creating a national school board. We should come to a conclusion about this. We should get a result. We shouldn't create a situation where every Governor has to come to Washington to get a waiver from standards that don't work anymore. That is our job. The Secretary has the power to grant waivers, but he should do it in a limited way and Congress should get to work fixing No Child Left Behind so there is no need for waivers. I call on our Democratic colleagues, with whom we have met dozens of times, to redouble our joint effort to get a result.

This is not a case where we don't want President Obama to succeed, as some have suggested. We want him to succeed, because if the President succeeds on K-12 education, the country succeeds. We substantially agree on how we need to fix No Child Left Behind. We still have a few differences of opinion. The Secretary's regulatory action should not do what the Congress ought to be doing. I respectfully suggest that he should show restraint and we should get to work.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank my friend of 40 years, the Republican leader, for being here for these remarks I am about to make. I thank my colleague, Senator Corker, and several other of my Republican colleagues for, on very short notice, coming to the Senate floor for these brief remarks.

Next January, following the annual retreat of Republican Senators, I will step down from the Senate Republican leadership. My colleagues have elected me as Republican conference chairman three times, and I will have completed 4 years or the equivalent of two 2-year terms at that time. My reason for doing that is this, stepping down from the Republican leadership will liberate me to spend more time trying to work for results on issues I care the most about. That means stopping runaway regulations, runaway spending, but it also means confronting the timidity that allows health care spending to squeeze out support for roads, support for research, support for scholarships, and other government functions that make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs.

I wish to do more to make the Senate a more effective place to address serious issues. For 4 years in our caucus, my leadership job has been this: to help the leader succeed, to help individual Republicans succeed, to look for a consensus within our caucus, and to suggest a message. I have enjoyed that. However, there are different ways to offer leadership in the Senate, and I have concluded, after 9 years, this is now the best way for me to make a contribution.

It boils down to this: Serving in this body, as each one of us knows, is a rare privilege. I am trying to make the best use of that time while I am here. For the same reason, I plan to step down in January from the leadership, I will not be a candidate for leadership in the next Congress. However, I do intend to be more, not less, in the thick of resolving issues, and I do plan to run for reelection in the Senate in 2014.

These are serious times. Every American's job is on the line. The United

States still produces about 23 percent of the world's wealth, even though we only have about 5 percent of the world's people. All around the world people are realizing there is nothing different about their brains and our brains and their using their brain power to try to achieve the same kind of standard of living we have enjoyed in the United States.

As a result of this, some have predicted that within a decade, for the first time since the 1870s, the United States will not be the world's largest economy. They say China will be. My goal is to help keep the United States of America the world's strongest economy.

There are two other matters that are relevant to the decision I am making that I would like to address. The first is this: When I first ran for the Senate in 2002, I said to the people of Tennessee--and they were not surprised by this--that I will serve with conservative principles and an independent attitude. I intend to continue to serve in the very same way.

I am a very Republican Republican. I grew up in the mountains of Tennessee and still live there in a congressional district that has never elected a Democrat to Congress since Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States. My great-grandfather was once asked about his politics. He said: I am a Republican. I fought for the Union, and I vote like I shot.

I have been voted five times by Tennessee Republicans to serve in public office. I have been elected three times by Senate Republicans as conference chair. If I could get a 100-percent Republican solution of any of our legislative issues, I would do it in a minute. I know the Senate usually requires 60 votes for a solution on serious issues, and we simply cannot get that with only Republican votes or only Democratic votes.

Second, by stepping down from the leadership, I expect to be more, not less, aggressive on the issues. I look forward to that. The Senate was created to be the place where the biggest issues producing the biggest disagreements are argued out. I don't buy for 1 minute that these disagreements create some sort of unhealthy lack of civility in the Senate. I think those who believe the debates in our Senate are more fractious than the debates in our political history simply have forgotten American history. They have forgotten what Adams and Jefferson said of one another. They have forgotten that Vice President Burr killed former Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton. They have forgotten that Congressman Houston was walking down the streets of Washington one day, came across a Congressman from Ohio who had opposed Andrew Jackson's Indian policy and started caning him, for which he was censured. They have forgotten there was a South Carolina Congressman who came to the floor of the Senate and nearly killed, by hitting him with a stick, a Senator from Massachusetts. They have forgotten that another Senator from Massachusetts, named Henry Cabot Lodge, stood on the floor and said of the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson: I hate that man. They forgot about Henry Clay's compromises and the debates that were held during the Army-McCarthy days. What of the Watergate debates? What of the Vietnam debates?

The main difference today between the debates in Washington and the debates in history are that, today, because we have so much media, everybody hears everything instantly. If one would notice, most of the people who are shouting at each other on television or the radio or the Internet have never been elected to anything.

It would help if we in the Senate knew each other better across party lines. To suggest we should be more timid in debating the biggest issues before the American people would ignore the function of the Senate and would ignore our history. The truth is, the Senators debate divisive issues with excessive civility.

I have enjoyed my 4 years in the Republican leadership. I thank my colleagues for that privilege. I now look forward to spending more time working with all Senators to achieve results on the issues I care about the most--issues that I believe will help determine for our next generation what kind of economy we will have, what our standard of living will be for our families, and what our national security will be.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank the Republican leader. I am deeply grateful for his comments, with one single exception. I have great confidence in Derek Dooley. He is a fine

football coach at the University of Tennessee. They are playing very good football, and I intend to be at my usual seats at the Georgia game in 2 weeks.

Mr. President, the Republican Senators have come to talk about education, No Child Left Behind, and I ask consent to engage in a colloquy.

The Senators who will be here will be Senator Isakson, Senator Burr, Senator Kirk, and Senator Enzi. Will you let each of us know when we have consumed 5 minutes?

Mr. President, in the world in which we live, every American's job is on the line. As every American knows, better schools mean better jobs. Schools and jobs are alike in this sense: Washington cannot create good jobs and Washington cannot create better schools, but Washington can create an environment in which others can create good jobs and environments in which teachers and principals and students and communities can create better schools, along with their parents.

A good place for Washington to start is with the five pieces of legislation we introduced today to fix the law known as No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind was a bipartisan effort in 2001 and 2002. President Bush and Democratic Members of the Senate and the House and Republicans as well agreed on it. By the 2013-14 school year, the law said that all 50 million students in nearly 100,000 public schools would be proficient in reading and math. There would be State standards, tests to measure performance against those standards, and requirements that the more than 3,000 teachers in America be highly qualified. There would be school report cards, disaggregated by subgroups of students, and schools that failed to make what was called adequate yearly progress would receive Federal sanctions. There would also be more choices of schools and charter schools for parents.

During the last 9 years, Federal funding for elementary and secondary education programs has increased by 73 percent, while student achievement has stayed relatively flat. Our legislative proposals would set a new, realistic, but challenging goal to help all students succeed and to end the Federal mandates which have Washington, DC deciding which students and teachers are succeeding and failing.

Our legislation would require States to have high standards that promote college and career readiness for all students and would continue the reporting of student progress so parents, teachers, and communities can know whether students are succeeding. It would encourage teacher and principal evaluation systems, relating especially to student achievement, and would replace the Federal definition of a highly qualified teacher. It would consolidate Federal programs and make it easier to transfer funds within local school districts. It would expand charter schools and give parents more choices. For the bottom 5 percent of schools, the Federal Government would help States turn them around. Much has happened during the last 10 years, and it is time to transfer back to States and to local governments the responsibility for deciding whether schools and teachers are succeeding or failing.

Since 2002, 44 States have adopted common core academic standards. Two groups of States are developing common tests to see whether the students are meeting those standards, and more than 30 States are working together to develop common principles for holding schools and districts accountable for student achievement. Thanks to No Child Left Behind, we now have several years of school-by-school information about student progress that puts the spotlight on success and puts the spotlight on where work needs to be done.

In addition, many States and school districts are finding ways to reward outstanding teaching and school leadership and to include student performance as a part of that evaluation. As common sense as that idea may seem, it was not until Tennessee created the Master Teacher Program in 1984 that one State paid one teacher one penny more for teaching well. All the sponsors of the five pieces of legislation we introduced today are Republicans. Many of the ideas were either first advanced or have been worked out in concert with President Obama and with his excellent Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, as well as with Democratic Senators here and with Republican and Democratic colleagues in the House. In other words, we have made a lot of progress.

In the Senate, my judgment is that we are not far from agreement on a bipartisan bill, with most of the differences of opinion centering around what I would characterize as provisions that would create a national school board. We on the Republican side want to continue to work with our colleagues across the aisle and in the House. Our purpose in offering our ideas is to spur progress so we can enact a bill before the end of the year. The House of Representatives has passed its first bill to fix No Child Left Behind with bipartisan support. It would expand charter schools and is similar to the charter school bill Senator Kirk will introduce today. The President has met with us and given us his blueprint. The Secretary has warned us that, under existing law, most schools will be labeled as failing within a few years, and he is proposing to use his waiver authority to avoid that. The Secretary clearly has that waiver authority under the law, and I support his use of it in appropriate ways.

I am introducing legislation today to make it clear that the appropriate use means using the waiver to accept or reject State proposals based upon whether those proposals enhance student achievement and not to impose a new set of Washington mandates. But the best way for us to relieve the Secretary of the need to consider waivers and to help American children learn what they need to know is for us to work together in the Senate and in the House to fix No Child Left Behind.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following my remarks, and following the remarks of all the Senators, the following documents: Why we need to fix No Child Left Behind; how the environment has changed in the past 10 years; a summary of the nine proposals Secretary Duncan, Senator Harkin, Senator Enzi, and others of us have worked on; a summary of the legislation introduced by Senator Isakson to fix title I; a summary of the legislation that I am

a principal sponsor of to fix title II; a summary of Senator Burr's proposal on titles II and IV; a summary of Senator Kirk's legislation on charter schools; and a summary of the legislation that I am also introducing on waivers.

Mr. President, Senator Isakson of Georgia has a distinguished career in education, not just as a leader in the Senate of Georgia, but as chairman of the Georgia School Board, appointed by Gov. Zell Miller, and as a former Member of the House of Representatives who was a key author of No Child Left Behind when it was enacted in 2002.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Isakson for his leadership in education in the State of Georgia and on this bill.

Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina has focused on elementary and secondary education for many years, especially on making it easier for local school districts to use the Federal dollars that are made available and on finding ways to encourage student and teacher evaluation. He is introducing a bill, which I am proud to cosponsor, amending titles II and IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Burr, for his insight and leadership on how we help create an environment in which teachers, parents, principals, and community leaders can make schools better, rather than through orders sent from Washington telling them how to do that.

Senator Kirk from Illinois will be here in a few minutes to introduce the charter school bill, which is the same bill that passed the House of Representatives yesterday with 365 votes in a bipartisan way.

As I mentioned at the outset, our purpose is to get things moving. We think there ought to be a law before the end of the year that fixes No Child Left Behind. Toward that end, the senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Senator Enzi of Wyoming, began to meet quietly more than a year ago with the chairman of the committee, Senator Harkin, and with Secretary Duncan and, on some occasions, with the President. They were able to come to a good deal of agreement about fixing No Child Left Behind, and then, on the nine areas we would focus on, which I put into the Record a few minutes ago.

Senator Enzi is here now, and I thought he might want to speak about that effort. While all of us who are introducing these bills today are Republicans, we are only doing this as a way of moving the process forward and are hoping to attract Democratic support so we can end up with a bipartisan result. I believe, at the same time, that Senator Enzi is continuing to meet with Senator Harkin, the chairman of the committee, with the hope that we will achieve that bipartisan result.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Enzi and I thank him for his leadership and the constructive way he and Senator Harkin are working together.

I should emphasize, as I said in my remarks, the respect all of us have for Secretary Duncan. He has done a terrific job staying in touch with us without regard to political party, and the President and he have stuck their necks out on some issues that are not entirely popular with their Democratic constituency. We respect that as well.

As I said, our effort is to take these ideas and recognize we are in the ninth year of a bill that was supposed to be fixed after 5 years, and to get it done before the end of the year.

One example of what we could do the Senator from Illinois will talk about. He has been the leader on expanding opportunities for parents and communities to use charter schools. The House of Representatives acted on that bill yesterday.

Senator Kirk.

Mr. President, how much time is remaining?

Thank you, Mr. President. Every American knows that every American's job is on the line. Every American knows that better schools mean better jobs. We are ready to work with the President and with our Democratic colleagues to create an environment for better schools in this country by fixing No Child Left Behind.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

Elementary and Secondary Education: How Has the Environment Changed

Over the Past 10 Years?

1. Standards: All states have content standards in place

for reading/language arts and mathematics. 44 States are

working together in a Common Core state-led effort to improve

their standards.

2. Assessments: All states are conducting annual

assessments in reading/language arts and mathematics that are

aligned to state standards and are publicly reporting their

results. Two groups of states are working together to develop

common assessments aligned to the Common Core standards.

3. Data: Disaggregation of data by states and districts

provides greater information on how schools and students are

performing by race, income, English proficiency and

disability. This makes it easier to identify the achievement

gaps and target efforts to address problems.

4. Auditing: All states are participating in the National

Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP/Nation's Report

Card, which serves as an audit of the quality of state

standards and assessments.

5. Robust Awareness: Because of data, parents, teachers,

principals, legislators, and Governors are paying more

attention to education issues, and thus holding their

districts, schools, and teachers accountable.

6. Charter School Growth: The number of students enrolled

in public charter schools has more than tripled to 1.4

million and the percentage of all public schools that were

charter schools has increased from 2% to 5%, comprising 4,700

schools nationwide.

7. School Choice: Not much, but some growth in school

choice (i.e. Milwaukee, Florida).

What the Nation Has Learned From No Child Left Behind: The Good and the

Bad

The Good

Disaggregated Reporting: The disaggregation of data by

subgroups has allowed us to see how all students are

performing.

Annual Assessments: Provides basic information on the

performance of students in mathematics, English/Language

Arts, and Science.

Public Reporting: Increased public reporting of state,

district, and school performance has provided the public with

better information on the quality of local schools.

Parental Involvement: Provides greater information to

improve parental involvement in school-level decisions.

The Bad

Goal of 100% Proficiency by 2014: Sets unrealistic and

unproductive mandate that all students are proficient by

2014.

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): Rigid federal mandates of

how to achieve proficiency and tells states from Washington

which schools are succeeding and which are failing.

Highly-Qualified Teachers (HQT): Onerous federal definition

of what constitutes a qualified teacher.

Unfunded Mandates: Federal mandates far exceed the 9-10%

federal investment in education.

Ineffective spending: Dedicates billions in limited federal

dollars to small and ineffective programs that don't have a

record of success.

Why We Need To Fix No Child Left Behind

100% proficiency by 2014 will not happen.

Adequate Yearly Progress with its prescriptive 64-part

formula will result in every school getting a failing grade.

Teachers focus too much on testing and no one understands

what the results mean.

Sanctions impact rural schools more.

Highly Qualified Teacher requirements create unusual

restrictions particularly with respect to rural, special

education, and English as a second language teachers.

State and local flexibility is limited and there are

duplicative and overlapping programs.

Allowable uses of federal funds are too limited and

restrictive.

One size fits all mentality of Washington's ``good'' ideas.

We need local solutions.

Parents are too often left out of the equation.

How To Fix ``No Child Left Behind''

1. Set a new, realistic but challenging goal to help all

students succeed.

2. Free 95% of schools (91,000 schools) from the federal

requirement of conforming to a

federally-defined adequate yearly progress mandate.

3. The federal government will help states fix the bottom

5% of their schools (4,500 schools).

4. Require states to have high standards that promote

college and career readiness for all students.

5. Encourage the creation of state and school district

teacher and principal evaluation systems to replace federal

highly qualified teacher requirements.

6. Continue necessary reporting so that parents, teachers,

schools, legislators, and communities receive good

information on schools.

7. Provide school districts with the ability to transfer

funds more efficiently among the five largest federal

education programs.

8. Consolidate and streamline more than 80 programs within

NCLB and eliminate those that are duplicative and

unnecessary.

9. Empower parents.

How To Fix ``No Child Left Behind''

1. Set a new, realistic but challenging goal to help all

students succeed. Establish a national goal that all students

will be `college and career ready' by high school graduation.

States will use annual reading and mathematics assessments,

including student growth, to measure progress toward the

goal.

2. Free 95% of schools (91,000 schools) from the federal

requirement of conforming to a federally-defined adequate

yearly progress mandate. 95% of schools will no longer face

federal sanctions. These schools will continue annual reading

and mathematics assessments and public reporting

requirements. The emphasis will be on helping states to catch

these successful schools and struggling schools doing things

right, instead of announcing their failure.

3. The federal government will help states fix the bottom

5% of their schools (4,500 schools). States will identify,

for federal accountability purposes, the bottom 5% of schools

that receive Title I funding. These schools will be required

to choose an intervention model from a defined list of

options. The models will be broad and include options for

rural schools and provide flexibility for state innovation.

4. Require states to have high standards that promote

college and career readiness for all students. Require states

to adopt `college and career ready' standards that are

aligned with higher education, career and technical education

standards, and workforce skills within the state. There will

be no preference or prohibition for states to adopt a

specific set of standards, including the Common Core

standards.

5. Encourage the creation of state and school district

teacher and principal evaluation systems to replace federal

highly qualified teacher requirements. Encourage states and

school districts to develop teacher and principal evaluation

systems to identify high performing teachers and principals

and eliminate the federal ``highly qualified teacher''

definition. Innovative teacher and principal pay programs

will continue to be supported through the Teacher Incentive

Fund program.

6. Continue necessary reporting so that parents, teachers,

schools, legislators, and communities receive good

information on schools. States, school districts and schools

will continue to report information regarding student

achievement on annual reading, mathematics and science

assessments. Other reported information will include high

school graduation rates and teacher certification. All of

this information will continue to be disaggregated by race

and ethnicity, socio-economic status, disability status,

English proficiency, gender, and migrant status to maintain

public accountability for all student subgroups. Unnecessary

and irrelevant federal reporting requirements will be

eliminated.

7. Provide school districts with the ability to transfer

funds more efficiently among the five largest federal

education programs. School districts will have more

flexibility to meet their local needs by transferring funds

among the 5 major federal education programs. This will allow

school districts to better target federal resources to

improve student academic achievement.

8. Consolidate and streamline almost 60 programs within

NCLB to allow State and local leaders to meet student needs

in their states and districts. Consolidate the programs

authorized in NCLB into flexible funding streams that allow

States and local school districts to fund locally-determined

programs that meet the unique and specific needs of the

students in their States and districts.

9. Empower parents. Parents will receive meaningful

information on the performance of their children's schools so

they can be more effectively involved in their children's

education. The law will continue to support the expansion of

high-quality charter schools. For those parents whose

children attend the state-identified bottom 5% of schools,

they will have the option of public school choice to transfer

to another public school.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments Act of 2011

Empowering State and local education leaders to improve public schools

Establishes College & Career Readiness Goal: States are

asked to develop and maintain academic content standards and

assessments that will prepare students for college- and

career-readiness without interference by the Federal

government about whether to work alone or in partnership with

other states.

Empowers State and local leaders to develop their own

accountability systems: Instead of a ``One Size Fits All''

Washington-approach, states will develop their own systems

designed to ensure that all students graduate from high

school college- and career-ready, without Federal

interference or regulations on state standards, assessments,

growth models for accountability, or how to develop teacher

and principal evaluation systems that are based on improving

student achievement.

Eliminates Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): The Federal

government is taken out of the business of determining if

local schools and districts are succeeding or failing in

educating their students by ending the Washington-based AYP

system of how to identify schools.

Asks States to Identify the Bottom 5% of Lowest Performing

Schools: States will be required to identify the bottom 5% of

Title I receiving elementary and secondary schools, using

their state-developed accountability system, and local school

districts will be required to implement a school improvement

strategy for their lowest performing schools. School

districts will continue to be required to provide public

school choice to students in these lowest performing schools.

Eliminates ``Highly Qualified Teacher'' Requirement: States

will be freed from the onerous ``Highly Qualified Teacher''

requirements and empowered to maintain and improve their own

teacher and principal licensure and certification

requirements.

Maintains Public Reporting Requirements: States and local

school districts will continue to report disaggregated data

on student achievement, while requiring annual report cards

at the school, school district and State level.

Reduces Paperwork & Federal Intrusion: The bill

dramatically simplifies the Title I State plans that are

submitted to the Secretary to reduce unnecessary paperwork

and frees states from Washington interference.

The Teacher and Principal Improvement Act of 2011

Preparing, training, and recruiting effective teachers and principals

to improve student achievement

Addressing State and local needs for teacher and principal

training: States and local school districts will conduct a

needs assessment to determine what professional development

teachers and principals need to improve student achievement

and then target resources to meet those needs.

Supports the State-led Development of Teacher/Principal

Evaluation Systems: States and local school districts are

empowered to develop their own teacher and principal

evaluation systems that are based significantly on student

academic achievement. The Federal Government would be

prohibited from regulating or controlling those state and

local evaluation systems, allowing local innovation and

leadership to flourish.

Maintains Strong Reporting Requirements: States and local

school districts will provide important data on the quality

and effectiveness of teachers and principals, as well as the

results of teacher and principal evaluation systems if

developed, to inform parents and the community about who is

teaching in the classroom and leading our schools.

Teacher Incentive Fund: Authorizes the Teacher Incentive

Fund to provide competitive grants for states, districts, and

partnerships with private-sector organizations to implement,

improve, or expand comprehensive performance-based

compensation systems for teachers and principals, while

leaving broad latitude in how states develop such systems, as

well as prioritizing high-need schools.

Encourages Innovative Private-Sector Involvement:

Authorizes competitive grants for national non-profit

organizations, such as Teach for America and New Leaders for

New Schools, to help states and local school districts that

have a demonstrated record with teacher or principal

preparation, professional development activities, and

programs.

Reduces Paperwork and Federal Intrusion: The bill

dramatically simplifies the Title II State plans that are

submitted to the Secretary to reduce unnecessary paperwork

and frees states from Washington interference.

Empowering Local Educational Decision Making Act of 2011

State and local school districts, not Washington, D.C., are

the best makers of educational decisions. Unfortunately, in

the last few decades, the federal government, believing it

knew best, has exploded the number of small, categorical

education programs in K-12. Almost every year, yet another

new program has been created in pursuit of the newest

educational rave. And with each of these new programs, States

and local school districts have lost flexible federal funding

sources that allow them and not the latest fad to determine

how best to allocate federal resources to meet the unique and

specific needs of the individual students in their States and

districts.

The Empowering Local Educational Decision Making Act of

2011 streamlines 59 programs into 2 flexible foundational

block grants. Rather than Washington and the federal

government determining funding priorities for States and

local school districts, the Empowering Local Educational

Decision Making Act puts locals in charge by allowing them

the flexibility to fund locally-determined programs and

initiatives that meet

the varied and unique needs of individual States and

localities.

Fund for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning

Consolidates 34 programs into ONE flexible, formula-driven

Fund for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning to fund

locally-determined needs and initiatives related to--

Increasing the capacity of local school districts, schools,

teachers, and principals to provide a well-rounded and

complete education for all students.

Increasing the number of teachers and principals who are

effective in increasing student academic achievement.

Ensuring that low-income students are served by effective

teachers and principals and have access to a high-quality

instructional program in the core academic subjects.

Safe and Healthy Students Block Grant

Consolidates 25 programs into ONE flexible, formula-driven

Safe and Healthy Students Block Grant to fund locally-

determined needs and initiatives for improving students'

safety, health, and well-being during and after the school

day by--

Increasing the capacity of local school districts, schools,

and local communities to create safe, healthy, supportive,

and drug-free environments.

Carrying out programs designed to improve school safety and

promote students' physical and mental health well-being,

healthy eating and nutrition, and physical fitness.

Preventing and reducing substance abuse, school violence,

and bullying.

Strengthening parent and community engagement to ensure a

healthy, safe, and supportive school environment.

Enhanced Flexibility through Funding Transferability

To provide additional funding flexibility to State and

local school districts, under the Empowering Local

Educational Decision Making Act of 2011 districts will be

able to transfer up to 100% of their allocations under the

Fund for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning and the

Safe and Healthy Students Block Grant between the two

programs or into Title I, Part A.

Empowering Parents Through Quality Charter Schools Act 2011

Senator Kirk Charter School Bill

This bill will modernize the charter school program by

encouraging the expansion of high-quality charter schools and

allowing charter school management organizations to receive

assistance directly from the federal government.

Modernizes the Charter School Program to address present

realities for public school choice, by incentivizing

expansion and replication of successful charter models,

providing support for authorizers, and enhanced opportunities

for facilities financing.

Encourages states to support the development and expansion

of charter schools.

Streamlines federal Charter School Program funding to

reduce administrative burdens and improves funding

opportunities for the replication of successful charter

models and facilities assistance.

Allows proven, high-quality charter school management

organizations to apply directly to the federal government, as

well as local education agencies, deleting a layer of

bureaucracy with the State government.

Facilitates the establishment of high-quality charter

schools and further encourage choice, innovation and

excellence in education.

Supports an evaluation of schools' impact on students,

families, and communities, while also encouraging sharing

best practices between charters and traditional public

schools.

The State Innovation Pilot Act of 2011

The bill clarifies waiver authority that is currently in

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The clarified

waiver provision authorizes State educational agencies and

local school districts to submit a request to the Secretary

of Education to waive any statutory or regulatory requirement

of the law.

State and local leadership: The bill improves the waiver

authority currently in law by clarifying that the waiver

process is intended to be led by state and local requests,

not Washington mandates.

Deference to state and local judgment: If the Secretary

chooses not to immediately approve a waiver request, the bill

directs the Secretary to develop a peer review process that

defers to state and local judgment on waiver requests.

Transparency: The bill ensures that the peer review process

will be open and transparent so that it is clear what states

and local school districts are asking to waive and what peer

reviewers think about those waivers.

Prohibiting additional regulations: The bill prohibits the

Secretary from imposing by regulation any additional

requirements to waiver requests not authorized by Congress.

The bill encourages State and local education leadership in

developing and implementing innovative strategies in:

College and career ready academic content and achievement

standards for all public elementary and secondary school

students;

High-quality academic assessments that are aligned with and

are designed to measure the performance of local educational

agencies and schools in meeting those standards;

Accountability systems that are based on those college and

career ready standards, as well as other academic indicators

related to student achievement; and

Programs to improve principal and teacher quality and

effectiveness.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I believe I have up to 20 minutes?

Will the Chair please let me know when 5 minutes is remaining.

Mr. President, tonight we welcome President Obama to the Congress to deliver a jobs address. The President will be coming at a time when we have had persistent unemployment at a greater rate than at any time since the Great Depression. No one should blame our President for problems with an economy that he inherited, but the President should take responsibility for making the economy worse.

Unemployment is up. The debt is up. Housing values are down. The morning paper reports we may be on our way--at least the chances are 50-50, the newspaper says this morning--to a double-dip recession. The number of unemployed Americans is up about 2 million since the President took office. The amount of Federal debt is up about $4 trillion.

As I mentioned in discussing the proposals of the Senator from Nebraska, the President's policies, rather than helping over the last 2\1/2\ years, have thrown a big wet blanket over private sector job creation. They have made it more expensive and more difficult for the private sector to create jobs for Americans.

Let me be specific about that. The President chose, 2 years ago, rather than to focus exclusively on jobs, to focus on health care. His proposal was to expand a health care delivery system that already cost too much, that was already too expensive. So we have new health care taxes and mandates that make the economy worse.

Why do I say that? I met, for example, with the chief executive officers of several of the nation's largest restaurant companies. They reminded me that restaurants and hospitality organizations in the United States are the largest employers, outside of government, and that their employees are mostly young and mostly low income. One of the chief executives said because of the mandates of the health care law it would take all of his profits from last year to pay the costs, when it is fully implemented, so he will not be

investing in any new restaurants in the United States. Another said they operate with 90 employees per store, but as a result of the mandates and taxes in the health care law, their goal will be to operate with 70 employees per store. One of the largest employers is saying instead of having 90 employees per store, we are going to have 70. That doesn't help create new jobs in the United States.

Let's take the debt. The President inherited the debt but he has made it worse. The economists who look at debt say we are heading toward a level that will cost us, in the United States, 1 million jobs every year.

Undermining the right-to-work law--the President's appointees to the National Labor Relations Board have told the Nation's largest manufacturer of large airplanes that they cannot build a plant in South Carolina. It is the first new plant to build large airplanes in 40 years in this country. The Boeing Company sells those airplanes everywhere in the world. It could build them anywhere in the world. We want them to build them in the United States. Those kinds of actions by the National Labor Relations Board make it worse.

Regulations that put a big wet blanket over job creation, such as the one the Senator from Nebraska talks about, make it worse. The President's refusal to send trade agreements to Congress makes it worse. Let's be clear about this. Since the day the President took office, he has had on his desk three trade agreements, already signed by both countries. They simply need approval by Congress--one with Panama, one with South Korea, one with Colombia. We are ready to approve them in a bipartisan way if he will send them here. What will that mean in Tennessee? We make a lot of auto parts in Tennessee. We can sell them to South Korea. At the present time, Europeans sell them to South Korea at a lower price because of the tariff situation, because the President has not sent the three trade agreements to Congress. So all these steps have made the economy worse. Of course, with a bad economy home values have stayed down. That is making it worse, too.

So what can we do about this? What are the kinds of things the President could talk about tonight and that we could work on together to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs? We could change the tax structure in a permanent way, not short-term fixes but long-term lowering of tax rates for everyone, closing loopholes, creating a situation where our businesses are more competitive in the world marketplace. That is one thing we could do.

We could stop the avalanche of regulations that is throwing the big wet blanket over job growth. The Senator from Nebraska suggested a few--a moratorium on new regulations; avoiding guidance, as he suggested, that circumvents the rules or regulations; stopping wacky ideas such as regulating farm dust, as if everybody did not know that all farms create dust.

More exports--the President could send, today, the three trade agreements to Congress. We could ratify them and then crops grown in Tennessee and Nebraska and every other State in this country, and auto parts, and medical devices, could be sold around the world. Our State alone has $23 billion and tens of thousands of jobs tied up in exports. This could add to that.

In addition to that, we could agree on advanced research. The President's recommendations have been good on that. But we should agree on that and move ahead with appropriations bills and a fiscal situation that permits us to do the kind of advanced research we need to do to create jobs.

We need to fix No Child Left Behind. Better schools mean better jobs. We need a long-term highway bill. We need roads and bridges in order to have the kind of country we want. We need to find more American energy and use less. We should be able to agree on that.

There is an agenda, not of more spending, not of more taxes, not of more regulation, but an agenda that would make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs and get the economy moving again.

In another time a President named Eisenhower said ``I should go to Korea'' and he was elected President. He went to Korea before he was inaugurated and then he said ``I shall focus my time on this single objective until I see it all the way through to the end.'' The country felt good about that, they had confidence in him, he did that, and the Korean war was ended.

President Obama chose, instead of focusing on jobs 2\1/2\ years ago in the same sort of Presidential way, to expand a health care delivery system that already was too expensive and in fact makes the problem worse. Tonight is an opportunity to make it better and we are ready to join with him in doing that, especially if he were to recommend lower tax rates, fewer loopholes on a permanent basis, fewer regulations, and if he were to send the three trade agreements to us to ratify.

I wish to turn my attention to a different subject. September 11 is Sunday. I listened carefully, as most of us in the Senate do, to words that seem to resonate with my audiences. I have consistently found there is one sentence that I usually cannot finish without the audience interrupting me before breaking into applause, and it is this: ``It is time to put the teaching of American history and civics back into its rightful place in our schools so our children can grow up learning what it means to be an American.'' The terrorists who attacked us on September 11 were not just lashing out at buildings and people. They were attacking who we are as Americans. Most Americans know this, and that is why there has been a national hunger for leadership and discussion about our values. Parents know our children are not being taught our common culture and our shared values.

National tests show that three-fourths of the Nation's 4th, 8th, and 12th graders are not proficient in civics knowledge, and one-third don't even have basic knowledge, making them civic illiterates. That is why I made making American history and civics the subject of my maiden speech when I first came to the Senate in 2003, and by a vote of 90 to 0 the Senate passed my bill to create summer residential academies for outstanding teachers of American history and civics. Every year I bring them on the Senate floor, and those teachers from all over our country have a moment to think about this Senate. They usually go find a desk of the Senator from Alaska, if they are an Alaskan teacher, or the Senator from Tennessee, or Daniel Webster's desk, or Jefferson Davis's desk, and they stop and think about our country in a special way.

The purpose of those teachers is better teaching, and the purpose of the academy is more learning of key events, key persons, key ideas, and key documents that shape the institutions of the democratic heritage of the United States.

If I were teaching about September 11, these are some of the issues I would ask my students to consider. No. 1, is September 11 the worst thing that ever happened to the United States? Of course the answer is no, but I am surprised by the number of people who say yes. It saddens me to realize that those who make such statements were never properly taught about American history. Many doubted that we would win the Revolutionary War. The British sacked Washington and burned the White House to the ground in the War of 1812. In the Civil War we lost more Americans than in any other conflict, with brother fighting against brother. The list goes on. Children should know why we made those sacrifices and fought for the values that make us exceptional.

The second question I would talk about is, What makes America exceptional? I began the first session of a course I taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government 10 or 11 years ago by making a list of 100 ways America is exceptional, unique--not always better but unique. America's exceptionalism has been a source of fascination ever since Tocqueville's trip across America in 1830 when he met Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie on the Mississippi River. His book, ``Democracy in America,'' is the best description of America's unique ideals in action. Another outstanding text is ``American Exceptionalism'' by Seymour Martin Lipset.

A third question I ask my students is, Why is it you cannot become Japanese or French, but you must become an American? If I were to immigrate to Japan, I could not become Japanese. I

would always be an American living in Japan. But if a Japanese citizen came here, they could become an American, and we would welcome that person with open arms. Why? It is because our identity is not based on ethnicity but on a creed of ideas and values in which most of us believe.

The story Richard Hofstadter wrote:

It is our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, but to

be one.

To become American citizens immigrants must take a test demonstrating their knowledge of American history and civics.

Fourth, what are the principles that unite us as Americans? In Thanksgiving remarks after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush praised our Nation's response to terror. ``I call it the American character,'' he said.

Former Vice President Gore, in his speech after the attacks, said:

We should fight for the values that bind us together as a

country.

In my Harvard course that I mentioned, we put together a list of some of those values: liberty, e. pluribus unum, equal opportunity, individualism, rule of law, free exercise of religion, separation of church and state, laissez-faire, and the belief in progress, the idea that anyone can do anything. Anything is possible if we agree on those principles.

I would say to my students, Why is there so much division in American politics? Just because we agree on the values doesn't mean we agree on how to apply those values. Most of our politics, in fact, is about the hard work of applying those principles to our everyday lives. When we do, we often conflict.

For example, when discussing President Bush's proposals to let the Federal Government fund faith-based charities, we know, in God we trust--we have it here in the Senate--but we also know we don't trust government with God. When considering whether the Federal Government should pay for scholarships that middle- and low-income families might use at any accredited school--public, private, or religious--some object that the principle of equal opportunity can conflict with the principle of separation of church and state.

What does it mean to be an American? After September 11, I proposed an idea I call Pledge Plus Three. Why not start each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance--as many schools still do--and then ask a teacher or a student to take 3 minutes to explain what it means to be an American. I would bet the best 3-minute statements of what it means to be an American would come from the newest Americans. At least that was the case with my university students. The newest Americans appreciated this country the most and could talk about it the best.

Ask students to stand and raise their right hands and recite the oath of allegiance just as immigrants do when they become American citizens. This is an oath that goes all the way back to the days of George Washington and Valley Forge. It reads like it was written in a tavern by a bunch of patriots in Williamsburg late one night. I recited this with my right hand up during a speech I recently gave on my American history and civics bill. It is quite a weighty thing and startles the audience to say:

I absolutely renounce and abjure all allegiance and

fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or

sovereignty [and agree to] bear arms on behalf of the United

States when required by the law.

The oath to become an American taken by George Washington and his men and now taken today in courthouses all across America is a solemn, weighty matter. Our history is a struggle to live up to the ideas that have united us and that have defined us from the very beginning, the principles of what we call the American character. If that is what students are taught about September 11, they will not only become better informed, they will strengthen our country for generations to come.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President I congratulate the Senator from Nebraska on his typically commonsense, reasonable presentation about how we might take steps to deal with the smothering regulations that are putting a big wet blanket on job growth in this country, and the idea of a timeout to stop the avalanche of new regulations makes sense. Farm dust--the idea of regulating farm dust makes no sense. Slowing down the ability of Federal agencies to get around the regulatory process by issuing guidance, that is commonsense. These are three sensible steps that would help create an environment that would make it easier and cheaper for job creators to create private sector jobs in this country and I congratulate the Senator from Nebraska for his comments.

Mr. President I congratulate the Senator from Nebraska on his typically commonsense, reasonable presentation about how we might take steps to deal with the smothering regulations that are putting a big wet blanket on job growth in this country, and the idea of a timeout to stop the avalanche of new regulations makes sense. Farm dust--the idea of regulating farm dust makes no sense. Slowing down the ability of Federal agencies to get around the regulatory process by issuing guidance, that is commonsense. These are three sensible steps that would help create an environment that would make it easier and cheaper for job creators to create private sector jobs in this country and I congratulate the Senator from Nebraska for his comments.

Mark Hatfield was elected to the Senate in 1966. It was a distinguished class that included some prominent Republicans, sort of a new wave in the Republican Party. In addition to Governor Hatfield, a former two-term Governor, there was Charles Percy of Illinois, former President of Bell & Howell; there was Ed Brooke of Massachusetts, the first African American popularly elected to the Senate.

Also in that Republican class were Cliff Hansen, a prominent rancher from Wyoming, and a young man who was a son-in-law of then-Republican leader, Everett Dirksen, Howard H. Baker, Jr.

I hitched a ride with Howard Baker to Washington, DC, in that year and went to work as Baker's legislative assistant in 1967, and, of course, had a chance to meet Senator Hatfield. At that time, there was less space for Senators than there is even today. So new Senators were put into rooms with each other. For example, Senator Baker and Senator Brooke and all their staffs were put in a single room, separated only by a partition.

They got along with that for 6 months. But Senator Hatfield did not like it very much. After all, he had been a Governor for two terms and was not used to being treated in that way. He was polite about it, as he always was. But soon he made a mission. He went around the Senate and the Capitol and he counted up all the rooms that then-Senator James Eastland of Mississippi had taken to himself. He found 34 different rooms that were assigned to Senator Eastland and only half a room was assigned to Hatfield.

Senator Hatfield then reported to the Republican conference that Eastland had 34 rooms and that apparently someone was living in one of the rooms because someone from Restaurant Associates was putting a tray of food outside the door of this room in the Capitol and every morning two arms would come out and bring the food in.

This was Senator Hatfield's first report to the Senate. I saw him about 25 years later, when he was chairman of the Appropriations Committee and had a lot of power. I said: Senator Hatfield, how many rooms do you have now? He just smiled. My guess is he probably had 34.

But what I remember about Senator Hatfield, as a very young aide, was how unfailingly courteous he was to every single person. If you caught his attention, you had his full attention. It is easy to see why he was elected to the Senate for 30 years. It is easy to see why he won 11 elections.

Of course, the other reason, he was so interesting. He was a Baptist. He was a Libertarian. He was a great friend of Billy Graham. He was pro-life, not just on abortion but on the death penalty as well. He was antiwar. He was antibalanced budget. He was an interesting, independent, decent man. I simply wanted to say, from the vantage point of someone who feels privileged to serve in the Senate, what an impression this man from Oregon made on a 26-year-old young aide to Howard Baker in 1967.

I remember him for his courtesy, his decency, and for his independence.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, later today the Senate will consider the nomination by the President of Judge Bernice Donald for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Donald is from Memphis, TN. I know her well. I am here today to introduce her to my colleagues and to encourage them to support her confirmation.

Judge Donald has been before the Senate before. She has been a Federal district judge since 1995. Our Judiciary Committee in the Senate has looked over her qualifications again and has recommended her to us without dissent. The American Bar Association has reviewed her credentials and said she is either qualified or well qualified.

I think there is not much doubt about her fitness to serve on the court of appeals, so in my remarks I would like to talk more about Judge Donald's role in the community and her role as a pioneer in our country during her lifetime. She is the sixth of 10 children. Her parents were a domestic worker and a self-taught mechanic in DeSoto County, MS, which is just south of Memphis. As a young person, she was among the first African Americans to integrate in her high school during the period of desegregation. She obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Memphis and graduated from its law school. She focused her career at the beginning working among the most vulnerable citizens in Memphis in the Office of Legal Defender.

Here is where the pioneer story continues, not just in desegregating her high school or working with vulnerable citizens, but only 3 years after she left law school, she began a judicial career that has spanned nearly three decades. She became the first African-American female judge in the history of our State in 1982. Six years later, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, upon which she has been nominated to serve by the President, appointed her to serve as U.S. bankruptcy judge for the Western District of Tennessee. Again she made history--an African- American female judge had been appointed as a bankruptcy judge in the United States. Then, in 1995, as I mentioned earlier, President Clinton nominated her to be a Federal district judge. On December 22 of that year the Senate confirmed her by unanimous voice vote, and she became the first African-American female district court judge in the history of Tennessee. She served in that capacity for 15 years.

She has flourished in her career, not just on the court but in her profession. She has just concluded a 3-year term as Secretary of the American Bar Association, and she has previously served on its Committee on Governance and on its Board of Governors. She has been equally active in the local and Tennessee bar associations. She gives a good deal of her time to community organizations: the Memphis Literacy Council, the University of Memphis alumni board, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Calvary Street Ministry, the YWCA, and others.

It is coincidental, but I think it is fitting that Judge Bernice Donald, a pioneer in so many ways in our State's history, will be the first nomination for the Federal bench that this body will consider after the opening of the Martin Luther King Memorial in the Nation's Capital. Her life, which is full of education and service and achievement, is a testimonial to the success of Dr. King's movement and the kind of leadership he inspired.

I commend her on all that she has accomplished both in her profession and in our State and in her community. I know Memphis is proud of her. I look forward to voting in favor of her confirmation this afternoon, and I hope my colleagues will do so as well.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes under the time allocated to the Republican side.

Madam President, finally, Washington is taking some responsibility for spending money that we don't have. At a time when the Federal Government is borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends, this is a welcome change in behavior. I gladly support it. Make no mistake, this is a change in behavior--from spend, spend, spend, to cut, cut, cut. Let me give you one example.

On Christmas Eve 2010 Congress raised the debt ceiling and attached to it $1 trillion in new spending over 10 years in the new health care law. This time, for every dollar we are raising the debt ceiling, we are reducing spending by a dollar, not adding to it. This reduction in spending over 10 years is about $2.4 trillion.

Here is another example: According to Senator Portman, who used to be the Nation's budget director, the CBO would say if Congress did this kind of dollar-for-dollar reduction for spending every time a President asked us to raise the debt ceiling, we would balance the budget in 10 years.

Here is another: The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that because of these spending cuts, the discretionary part of the budget, which is about 39 percent of the entire Federal budget, will grow over the next 10 years at a little less than the rate of inflation. If we could control the rest

of the budget so that it would grow to anything close to the rate of inflation, we would balance the budget in no time.

Balancing the budget is exactly what our goal ought to be. I did it every year as Governor of Tennessee. Families in America do it every day. It is time to balance the government's books and live within our means.

These spending reductions are an important step, but they are just one step, and no one should underestimate how difficult the next steps will be. These spending cuts do almost nothing to restructure Medicare and Social Security so that seniors can count on them and taxpayers can afford them.

The President's budget projections still double and triple the Federal debt. Under the President's budget, according to the CBO, in 10 years we will be spending more in interest on the debt than we now spend on national defense.

In January 2013, the very first thing the next President will have to do is to ask the Congress to increase the debt ceiling. This problem wasn't created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight. If I were sitting at Union Station trying to catch a train to New York and someone offered me a ticket to Philadelphia or Baltimore, I would take it, and I would find a way to get to New York from there.

Today's vote is an opportunity to take an important step in the right direction, toward stopping Washington from spending money it doesn't have. We should take it and then get ready to find ways to take the next steps.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for up to 5 minutes.

As one Senator, I thank the majority leader and the Republican leader for their comments. We all know what we need to do. We have two objectives. At a time when we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, we need to reduce the debt. We also need to honor our obligations, and we know why. There is nobody on the Republican side of the aisle I know of who thinks we should not honor our obligations.

We know that on August 3 there will not be enough money to pay all the bills. We don't want the most creditworthy Nation in the world to go to a place where it begins to pay its bills selectively out of a cigar box, which is why I am hopeful--and I believe all of us are hopeful--that we can find a way for the two leaders to recommend to us and the House a solution that the President will sign, which will reduce our debt and honor our obligations.

But to suggest that the majority leader's proposal--his bill--which he offers in good faith, I know that--is a compromise, that is a little hard to accept. It is a Democratic proposal. The other side has spent most of its time this week saying: We can get 53 of us to make sure that as soon as the Republican proposal passes the House, if it does, we will beat it in an hour. We will not even consider it. We will kill it. We are not going to vote on it. We will table it and put it away.

That is not the spirit of compromise. The proposal the Speaker is trying to pass may be about the only thing he can pass in the House of Representatives. That may not be what a Democratic Senate would like, but this is a Democratic Senate and that is a Republican House. We have to come up with something that both can pass and the President will sign. We all know that.

I hope the spirit of today, tomorrow, and Sunday is that we spend less time plotting about how we can defeat each other's proposals as quickly as possible and more time working together to come up with ways to reduce spending and honor our obligations.

The Democratic whip is on the Senate floor. I have probably undermined his support in some groups for complimenting him for his courage. I support the same thing he does. For example, the work of the Gang of 6 is supported by one-third of the Senate, a very good example for the rest of us in the Senate about what can be accomplished when we work together.

I hope we will recognize the Speaker is trying as hard as the majority leader to come up with something that can pass the House. The majority leader wants something that can pass the Senate, but it must pass both and be signed by the President. We must reduce our spending and we must honor our obligations, and every single Republican Senator as well as every Democrat knows that, I think.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

I ask consent to speak for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Texas for her remarks, for her leadership, for her willingness to be involved in and support a variety of ways for us to meet the two goals we have before us, one of which is to make a significant step to reduce our Federal debt, to stop Washington from spending money it doesn't have; second, to do so in a way that honors the financial obligations of the United States of America, the most creditworthy country in the world.

The Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, which has passed the House and has 37 cosponsors in the Senate--I am proud to be one of them--I think is a superior piece of legislation. I hope when we vote on it, it gets a majority of votes in the Senate and becomes law. Before I speak about the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, I would like to speak for a moment about those two goals that are before us as we consider our debt, consider our financial obligations, and consider all of them up against what is said to be a point on August 2 where the debt ceiling needs to be increased.

As I think about those two goals, reducing our debt, honoring our obligations, I think about a friend of mine in Tennessee who pays his bills out of a cigar box. This is how it works: A bill comes in to my friend and he puts the bill in a cigar box. Then another bill comes in and he puts that bill in a cigar box. Then the next week maybe some money will come in. So my friend will reach down to his cigar box and he will pull a bill out and he will pay that bill. Then, when a little more money comes in the next week, he will reach down and pull out another bill and pay that bill. My friend pays his bills out of a cigar box. Now what happens to my friend if he wants to go down to the local bank and says: I would like to borrow some money in order to pay all the bills I have in my cigar box.

I think what the banker is going to say is: I am sorry, my friend, but we are reluctant to loan money to you or, if we do, we are going to charge you more for it because we don't know whom you are going to pay. You might reach into your cigar box and pay the whiskey store instead of the bank. You might pay the grocery store instead of the principal on your loan. You might pay the service station before you pay us. So because you selectively pay your bills out of your cigar box, you are not a good risk. We are going to charge you more to borrow money or we are not going to loan you money at all. That is the risk we take if we play around with this idea of the United States of America--the most creditworthy country in the world--selectively paying its bills, going from being the most creditworthy country to being a country that pays its bills out of a cigar box.

There are three obvious reasons why we should not do that. Reason No. 1 is, it is going to cost us more. Today, the United States of America can borrow money for 10 years at about 3 percent. We are so creditworthy--people trust us so much to pay our obligations--that they will give us money for a short period of time at no interest. It is a tremendous advantage to us. The United States has the most risk-free credit in the world, and I might add the most risk-free credit in an increasingly turbulent world.

What if we decided after August 2, when we are told sometime in that month we will begin to not have enough money to pay all our bills, what if we decided not to raise our debt ceiling and that we would pay our bills out of a cigar box? We might say: OK. We don't have enough money, so we will pay China before we pay grandma her Social Security. Oh, better not do that. In fact, I saw a fellow in Portland, TN, on Monday and he said: What is this about my Social Security not being paid? I said: I think it will be paid. It might be two or three days, but the telephone calls would come in and Congress will fix it and it will get paid. He said: It better not be 5 minutes.

So we might want to pay all of our Social Security benefits, but the President might say or the Secretary of Treasury might say: Well, we will pay grandma her Social Security, but we won't pay the wife of the soldier at Fort Campbell who is in Afghanistan on his third tour. That is not such a good idea. So maybe we won't pay the veteran's benefit. We will pay the wife. That doesn't sound so good, either.

What about those 12 million, 15 million students who are headed off to college in the next few weeks with a student grant or a student loan from the government? Should we pay just those going to public colleges and let the private colleges take care of their own--just the for- profits, not the nonprofits?

We see what could happen if we have a country that--especially a country such as the United States--instead of paying all of its obligations on time, whether it is to China or Japan or to grandma or to the veteran, begins to selectively pay those bills when we have the money. I think I know what would happen. Instead of being able to borrow money for 10 years at 3 percent, we might have to pay a little more for it. Let's say it just went from 3 percent to 4 percent. What would that mean to us? It would mean, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the taxpayers would have to pay $1.3 trillion more in interest over 10 years. So if it goes up 2 percentage points to 5 percent, it is twice that. That is what happens when we pay our bills out of the cigar box.

It is not just the taxpayers. My son said to me the other day: Dad, my mortgage loan resets in October. If you all don't work this out, it means my interest rate might go up.

Let's say he has a $100,000 house loan, and it goes up 1 percent. That gets to be some money for him. So if it is a credit card loan, if it is a home loan--whatever loan it is, it would begin to go up. Paying our bills out of a cigar box would raise our costs.

There is a second obvious reason not to do this. In 2008, we were smacked in

the face with a world economic crisis. We didn't expect it. Most of us didn't cause it, but we had to deal with it. Here in the Congress, we had to do some very unpopular things: We had to bail out banks, even some industries. The American people hated that, even though most of the money has been paid back. We don't know what we averted--probably a much worse problem--but we are still suffering from what happened in 2008. But we didn't do that deliberately.

In this case, if we were to deliberately go from being the most creditworthy country in the world to a country that paid its bills out of a cigar box, we would be deliberately injecting uncertainty into a turbulent world.

Look at Europe, with the eurozone trembling over the debt in Portugal and the debt in Greece, with sovereign nations perhaps having to bail out European banks.

Look at Japan, the third largest economy, in a 10-year recession, with a third of its powerplants closed after the tsunami, sweating through the summer, with an inability to sell their goods.

Look at China. China is a big success story, but it may be growing too fast. Its inflation is up, and it has a lot of unreported debt at the provincial level.

Look at our markets. We make trades in milliseconds, and twice in the last year we had sudden drops in the market which we couldn't explain for months. Do we really want to inject this level of uncertainty into the turbulence we have today and into the financial markets when we know we could avoid it? I think not.

Then there is a third reason, and this is a purely partisan reason. Maybe it is not even appropriate to talk about it on the Senate floor, but let's talk about it for a moment anyway.

The President has done a pretty good job of blaming his predecessors for problems, but lately people have said: Mr. President, we don't blame you for the problems you inherited, but we do hold you responsible for the decisions you have made to make it worse. You have made it worse with the health care mandates and higher individual health care policies. You have made it worse with the financial regulations bill. You have made it worse by not sending over the trade bills. You have made it worse with the high cost of energy. You have made it worse with your National Labor Relations Board appointments and undermining right-to-work laws. You have made it worse by doubling and tripling the debt.

People are listening to that. They agree with that. But what would happen if the Republican Party or the Democratic Party or any group of people have the primary responsibility for turning this country from a country that is the most creditworthy country in the world into one that pays its bills out of a cigar box? The President will say--instead of us saying, Mr. President, you made it worse, he will say, you made it worse.

There is every reason in the world to regard the debt ceiling decision we have to make as an opportunity to take a significant step to reduce the debt. We can do that while still honoring our financial obligations, and we should. And today we are talking about one of those ways to do it.

Republicans have offered--with Democratic cosponsorship in a number of cases--at least five major ideas for taking a significant step toward stopping Washington from spending money it doesn't have. There are five ways to do that:

There has been the Corker proposal, which is bipartisan and over 10 years would bring our spending, which is the real problem, from its present level--about 25 percent of our total output in the country--to about 20 percent, which is the historical level.

There is the balanced budget amendment, which is the most obvious solution for a nation that is spending more than it takes in. Families do it, States do it--balance their budgets, live within their means-- and the Federal Government can do it. Over time, we can get back to the point where we were not many years ago, where we spend about the same amount of money we take in. As Governor, I know that for 8 years we did that. As a result, we have almost no debt in the State of Tennessee, and as a result of that, we can use our gas tax money, for example, to pay for roads instead of interest on the debt.

Then there is a third idea that has bipartisan support; that is, the Gang of 6, which came out this week. The President said it was a gang of seven. He thought I was in it. I would have to say with respect, Mr. President, I am a law-abiding citizen. I am not a member of any gangs. But I support what they do because I think it is a serious, bipartisan effort to help stop Washington from spending money it doesn't have.

Then there is another proposal which has bipartisan support that Republicans as well as Democrats have initiated. Senator Isakson from Georgia has taken the lead on it. It is the 2-year budget proposal which would allow us time every other year to focus our efforts on eliminating rules and eliminating regulations instead of adding so many.

So there are four ideas we have suggested--in some cases with bipartisan support--where we can take a significant step to reduce our debt while still honoring our financial obligations.

Today, we are talking especially about cut, cap, and balance. The legislation that passed the House of Representatives with 234 votes this week has come to the Senate floor. We are going to be voting on it in the next day or two. It has 37 cosponsors, and I am one of them. I especially commend Senator Lee for his work on putting this bill together and doing it in a way that would attract the largest amount of support.

This is a very reasonable proposal. The cut part is to say that for the first year, we would spend a little less than we did last year. Now, that is a reasonable proposal. The State of Tennessee, where I was once Governor--the current Governor is presiding over a State that is spending $1\1/2\ billion less than it spent last year. Now, they don't like to do that. There are some unfortunate consequences from it. But they still balanced their budget, they are still getting along, and they are hoping for the day when the economy recovers and they will have more revenues coming in without raising taxes.

So step one is to cut what we are spending today in next year's budget. Then we cap, according to the economic output of the country over the next 10 years, the amount we spend over those 10 years. Then the third step is to balance the budget--the most obvious solution of all--over time, to say we are not going to spend more money than we have coming in. This is our proposal to begin to control spending in a government that borrows 40 cents out of every dollar it spends, a government the economists tell us is costing our Nation 1 million jobs because of the high level of debt. This is an urgent problem. It urgently needs a solution.

In conclusion, almost all of us here in the Senate are good at making speeches. That is one way we get here. But we have not become as good at the rest of our job, which is to get a result. The American people expect us to do that. They have to do that in their everyday lives. So they respect our principles, they respect our speeches, but they know our principles sometimes conflict, and in the end, we have to have a result. We have to have a result here. We have to find a way, first, to significantly reduce the debt and, second, to do it in a way that honors the financial obligations of the United States.

I have suggested five ways we can do that, including cut, cap, and balance. In order to do that, it means each of us is probably going to have to accept as a part of the solution an idea that is not our first choice. But why should we be exempt from that requirement? That is what we have to do in a marriage. That is what we have to do in a family. That is what we have to do in a business. That is what we had to do in creating the Constitution years ago. This Senate wouldn't exist if it weren't because of a grand compromise. Otherwise, how could we justify two Senators from Wyoming and the same number of Senators from California, which is so much larger?

To get a result, after we make our speeches, we need to be willing to accept some ideas that are not our first choice. That is why I am a cosponsor of several different kinds of ideas--cut, cap, and balance, the Corker proposal, the Gang of 6 proposal. That is why I support the Isakson-Shaheen effort on the 2-year budget. That is the kind of attitude we need in the next couple of weeks.

Cut, cap, and balance is a good way to meet our two urgent goals: take a

significant step to reduce our debt and do it in a way that honors our financial obligations.

We are perfectly capable as a country of fiscally disciplining ourselves. We are capable of reducing our debt and of stopping spending money we don't have and, at the same time, avoiding turning the most creditworthy Nation in the world into a country that pays its bills out of a cigar box.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.