I thank the distinguished ranking member of the education committee for yielding time to me, and I would like to share in his message which we have tonight. I remember 25 years ago when Secretary Bell issued The Nation at Risk and we had…
I thank the distinguished ranking member of the education committee for yielding time to me, and I would like to share in his message which we have tonight. I remember 25 years ago when Secretary Bell issued The Nation at Risk and we had the whole discussion about the fact that America perhaps is not doing as well educationally as were other countries. I am not sure before that time that anybody had ever really tried to point the finger at that and to really reach that conclusion. We looked at our fine schools, our excellent colleges and universities, and we didn't look at some of the problems behind, and we didn't look perhaps at the fact the economy was growing on us in a way that demanded education of all children, not just of the kids that could go to the very best schools in the United States of America. But from that point on, I think there has been a focus on this.
The Congress has essentially done its job. There has been a great increase in funding of education, not as much on the local and State level, but at the congressional level there has been a great deal of funding increases. But we have seen many studies now which have indicated that the funding increases do not necessarily end up with a bottom line of our young students being educated better.
The bottom line is that we need a tremendous commitment from anybody who touches on their lives. Obviously, their parents, the teachers, the administrators in the school, the other personnel in the schools, elected officials both here in Congress and throughout the United States of America, and I think a broader understanding among all Americans, perhaps even the media, of the significance of education and how that ties in economically to what children may do in the future and to the entire future of America.
We have for many years now here in Congress under the leadership of Mr. McKeon and other leaders looked at education and made efforts to try to improve our educational status in our country. There is a distinct recognition of we need to do more in math and science, perhaps in geography and other areas as well, but that has not happened at the levels which we would like it to happen. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which has been with us for some time, has worked to help in that area somewhat, but it wasn't really until No Child Left Behind came along some I guess 6 years ago now that we really started to make a difference as far as education is concerned.
All of a sudden, now our test scores are going up in various parts of the country. In addition, some schools who are educating their best students very well are being exposed as not doing as good a job with some of their lesser students. We now have to examine these students by various categories and we have various numbers and achievement levels that have to be met for schools to make adequate yearly progress, and that has shown that in some areas of the country and in some certain school districts, that is simply not happening. In others, it is.
I can tell you that in my State of Delaware that I have visited many of our schools. In fact, at one time or another I visited every school in our State. It's a small State. I will tell you that some of those districts have done just a wonderful job of grabbing hold of the need to make improvements in education, of getting commitment, of getting parents involved, making sure the courses are laid out in such a way that those kids could improve. As a result, we have seen test scores grow, particularly in our elementary and middle school levels, and these kids are now doing considerably better than they had been doing before, simply because they have made that commitment.
It does involve standards, it does involve assessments. Some people don't like that, and we hear some concerns about it. But the bottom line is that we are making the progress that we felt that we had to make in order to improve our schools. This must continue, and I believe strongly that we have to do a variety of things to do this. We have to strengthen the parental options which are out there, make sure they understand what they can do in terms of helping education.
We still have State and local flexibility. That is another area that we have to continue to work on, and we have passed legislation to do that. No Child Left Behind is very demanding in terms of teacher quality, and some of the aspects of teaching, which is important as well. We have encouraged the establishment of more charter schools. That is not just to establish charter schools, it is so that they can perhaps show us the way or set an example for our other schools. For that reason, the charter school movement has had a beneficial effect on education in ways beyond just the charter schools themselves.
We need to be careful with our dollars, obviously. We know that is important. The whole business of standards and assessments and growth models is important too. We need to be able to
measure how we are making progress. I am not sure that we do that quite as we should. We need to do better with reading. We have learned that if we do not teach these children how to read early on, it is going to be problematic in terms of their future education. So that is extraordinarily important.
We just had a call for more effective measurement of graduation rates by the Secretary of Education. And I have actually introduced legislation along those lines previous to that. I am a strong believer that we need to be able to measure graduation equally throughout all of our State so we can determine what the graduation measures truly are.
I believe that dealing with No Child Left Behind has not been easy. There is opposition to it. There are those that believe it is too demanding. They are reluctant to try to undertake to meet the standards that are there. Many of us who will speak tonight believe we can make improvement in No Child Left Behind. As I indicated, Secretary Spellings just in the last 2 days has issued a series of regulatory changes which she believes she can make, and she has already made some, in order to improve No Child Left Behind.
I believe that we in Congress should assume that responsibility too. That we should not just say we don't like it, we are not going to change it, because if we don't like it and we are not changing it, it's going to stay the same. We should look at the various things that we can do in order to make No Child Left Behind more meaningful if indeed there are problems as far as that is concerned.
I mentioned a growth model. That is a significant aspect of this. If we measure growth, we don't have to measure that everyone has achieved the way we would like them to, but how much they have grown, which could be a factor. I mentioned the graduation rate, which is important. A clarification of multiple assessments might be important as well.
Obviously, information to parents is also vitally important at all times to make sure that they are involved and engaged in terms of what is happening in our schools. I have seen a program in schools just the last couple of days in Delaware, and I have seen what one person in a school can do in terms of communication between the school, the parents, and the outside. I think it makes all the difference in the world, and that is something that we should be pursuing. Supplemental education services is included in No Child Left Behind, and that is another area in which we can provide services to those kids who need it the most.
These are the kinds of things we need to boost. We don't need to dismiss them or throw them out because we feel that perhaps they don't work as well as they should. They do work. They make a difference as the education of our young children is concerned.
I would call on the media to get involved with this. I think we need to look at the comparisons with other countries, we need to look at the significance of education as it applies to the economics of what kids are going to be doing in the future. There just needs to be a greater understanding among our young people that with good education, their opportunities explode in terms of what they might be able to do.
So these are all things that I think we all have a responsibility for, Republicans and Democrats alike, in Congress. I believe the Secretary of Education is doing all that she can. I believe we are still at risk 25 years later. I don't want to be at risk 25 years from now. Hopefully, together we can continue to work to make sure that American education is improved to the point that we can look at everybody else and say we have without a doubt the best education system in the world.
I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I yield back to him.