Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to be here to share some thoughts and share my time with the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) concerning Brown v. Board of Education, what it has meant to us as a country, what it has led to,…
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to be here to share some thoughts and share my time with the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) concerning Brown v. Board of Education, what it has meant to us as a country, what it has led to, and where we are today. And then I would like to take some time and tie it in with No Child Left Behind, which I think perhaps is the most significant measure we have taken since Brown v. Board of Education to truly educate all of the young people in the world today.
I think most of us recognize by now because of all of the news and publicity that Brown v. Board of Education was decided 50 years ago. A lot of people may not know all of the States involved, but one of them happened to be my State, Delaware. Kansas is most often cited, but it was a decision made in the State of Delaware that first said separate but equal, Plessy v. Ferguson should no longer be the law of the land, but indeed we had to have integration in our schools, not just separate but equal facilities; and quite frankly, most of the facilities were not equal anyhow.
From that went the Supreme Court decision argued by Thurgood Marshall and others in which the case of Brown v. Board of Education actually found that the doctrine of separate but equal was unconstitutional in the sense it did not give everyone equal opportunity, and came forward with the new policy of full integration for everybody.
At the time it caused, frankly, some upheaval. Some were disturbed about it. Others embraced it as a solution to a lot of societal and educational problems in the United States of America. But the bottom line was that it was the law of the land. The law of the land, however, does not necessarily mean that it was carried out in that way, because even though that was the way it was stated, there were only a minimal number of students that came forward, often with a lot of publicity, police sometimes accompanying them as they went into their schools. And, indeed, some took advantage of it, but many did not.
In Delaware, other things happened later in terms of desegregation suits, bussing issues, and eventually we got to the point of full integration in Delaware, so we became at one point the second most integrated State in the United States of America. Others struggled for a longer time.
There are pockets in this country where integration took place on a sound basis in terms of bringing our schools together, but it was soon realized that all of the goodwill from Brown v. Board of Education would not be realized in full, at least any time soon, so we struggled continuously in terms of educating our young people.
But something else happened which was very interesting. It was Brown v. Board of Education, decided 50 years ago, which really paved the way for a number of other acts which are of extraordinary importance to Americans today. One is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and then shortly thereafter the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. These in combination with Brown v. Board of Education have helped to integrate America to a degree America had not been previously integrated. They are certainly landmark laws and have helped turn the tide of racism which existed in our country prior to that time.
The Supreme Court revisited the ruling in 1955 to resolve some of the difficulties that were involved. As we look back at that segment of what we have done and what we are doing in the year 2004, there is recognition of a couple of things. One is in the Brown v. Board of Education suit, we were dealing primarily with African Americans. In America today, we are dealing with a greater number of minorities than we were before, as well as a greater percentage of minorities, but particularly Hispanic Americans, some Asian Americans, and a whole variety of other minorities who become actual larger numbers in our school districts. So we deal with broader issues as we deal with the questions that were raised by Brown v. Board of Education.
I think there is also a greater realization, decade by decade, maybe not year by year, of the significance of education. As I go through my communities in Delaware, as other Members go through their communities, I think there is an understanding that you can tie education into economic opportunity in America. If we do that, the issue of race, the issues of gender and geographical location, poor income, backgrounds, the various things that have been a problem before seem to melt away if we can educate all of our young people.
I would say, in 2004, there is greater emphasis on educating each and every young person in our community than there has ever been before. So Brown v. Board of Education has not been perhaps the great success that everyone would have liked it to be. We recognize this anniversary; we do not really celebrate it because a celebration would involve pure integration and no problems, and there are still some problems, but it is of overwhelming importance in the history of the United States of America. It has been extremely positive in many ways, and all of us have a responsibility to try to continue it forward.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), but before I do that, I am going to come back and talk about No Child Left Behind because I am firmly convinced that the only act which has really made the kind of impact difference or can at least make an impact difference similar to what we had in Brown v. Board of Education is No Child Left Behind, and they are very closely tied together.
But I would like to yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) who obviously, through his coaching career, has dealt with many, many young people in terms of their educational concerns, as well as being a distinguished member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the vice chairman of my Subcommittee on Education Reform where we deal with kindergarten through 12th grade education, and is someone who knows as much about education and as much about young people in this country as anyone I know.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's insight into this is as helpful as anybody I know in the entire Congress. His comments are highly appreciated. His continuing concern about the young people, the mentoring, the things that he cares so much about I think makes a huge difference in this country. We thank him for all his service.
I would like to just go back a little bit, Mr. Speaker, if I may. I was in State government for a long time, being a State legislator and then a lieutenant governor and a Governor. I always found it was very hard to
change education. Although I felt we really needed to change education, we needed to be more challenging in education, but there are those who felt that the status quo was the way to go. It was hard to get done. It was not Republican or Democrat. It was just very hard to deal with the subject matter of education.
I was invited in December of 2000 to go to Austin, Texas, to meet with the President-elect, who at that point had been declared the President-elect. I sat at a table with him. There were, I guess, four tables in the room and about 40 Members of the House and Senate or Members-to-be of the House and Senate. I remember that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) was there sitting right next to the President and others were there. During the election, I heard the promises about education, but I did not pay a lot of attention because it is an election, after all, on all sides. But when I sat there, I realized that here is an individual who really does care a lot about education and that maybe I better start listening to exactly and precisely what he was saying.
He started talking about No Child Left Behind. I cannot recall if it was called No Child Left Behind then, but he talked about lifting every student. My recollection from being in State government was that we could never lift every student. We could always prepare the students for the Ivy League schools, we could help some other students, but we never really helped those students who needed help the most. I always felt that we needed to do that in terms of early education, day care, Head Start. Now we have an Early Reading First program. You name it. Parents had to be more involved. A whole lot had to happen in early education. We needed full-day mandatory kindergarten if we could get it. We needed to give those kids that opportunity.
Frankly, it just simply was not happening, and it was a matter of great consternation to me. For the first time in a long time a light went off. I realized that what he is saying really makes some sense. We can really truly challenge in terms of what is happening in education. We had spent $300 billion on K-12 education since 1965. Yet there was just no really significant academic improvement in the achievement gaps between minorities, particularly African Americans and our Caucasian students and disadvantaged students and the affluent students in general just was not where it should be. We really had to do something about it. We had, frankly, in this country a two-tiered education system, and it is just simply not acceptable.
In fact, according to the most recent national data, by the time African American students reach eighth grade, only 12 percent can read proficiently and only 7 percent are proficient in math. Nationally, the achievement gap between Hispanic and Caucasian fourth graders is 29 percentage points. Those are deplorable statistics. They simply are unacceptable.
And No Child Left Behind came along. As the gentleman from Nebraska said, there are a lot of things in there that make a difference, but one of them is this, that is, that each individual would be put into a subgroup of one kind or another. If you have a subgroup of, in Delaware's case, 40; I think it is 35 in other States, individuals in that subgroup, be they low-income, African American, Hispanic American, learning disabilities, whatever it may be, that group is going to be rated on its testing. That school is indeed going to be rated as to making adequate yearly progress on the basis of each of those subgroups, and then the school district is going to be rated on all of the schools in that particular district.
So, as a result, you had a circumstance in which literally everybody was going to be looked at in terms of their educational process. It is obviously much more complicated than that, but that was the basic thesis behind this particular piece of legislation. Indeed, we passed it, as was indicated, by about 90 percent of the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, because we all felt education had to be better.
Well, it has been in place now for a couple of academic years, and indeed there are those who probably were opposed to it to begin with who are still raising questions about, are we spending our money correctly, is there enough money here, is this too demanding on the students, can they take these tests, because it does demand standards and assessments, and that involves testing in grades 3 through 8 and once again after 8th grade, or is this more than these kids can handle, is this really working or not.
But every time I read one of these stories of criticism, Mr. Speaker, I also read about what the various schools are doing to give those kids a better opportunity, and I see hope in that. I see for the first time in many, many generations of educating in America, that we are paying as much attention to the lower income, neediest academic students as we are to everybody else, and we are making special exceptions, and we are looking at various ways in order to really help these children improve from an academic point of view.
So, for that reason, I believe this disaggregation of statistics, breaking it down into subgroups, has made a tremendous difference as far as education is concerned. Yes, there are skeptics, and, yes, it is not easy, and, yes, there are those who would like to overturn it, but the bottom line is, in the lives of some people, it is making a tremendous difference.
Now, as to some of the flexibility issues, as was touched on by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), I would like to comment on two or three of those. In the past 6 months, the Department of Education has issued three different rulings that exhibit the inherent flexibility in No Child Left Behind, as well the Department's willingness to respond when warranted. I would just like to go over these, and they are right here alongside of me.
The first one says under No Child Left Behind being flexible, flexibility on testing students with disabilities. This gets a little bit complicated, but we have essentially opened up the percentage of students that would be exempted from taking the tests, and it is 1 percent, or 10 percent of the students with disabilities in the school, and then the schools can apply for even more if need be, on the basis that not all these kids are in a position to handle the tests. And that has got to be found as to the right chord, so we have the right answer with respect to that, and we will continue to work on that. But the Department has shown some great flexibility.
Second, in February, the Department announced a flexibility policy with respect to how limited English proficient students are included in the school's adequate yearly progress. Really, to make a long story short, we are basically allowing those students to stay in that category for 2 years, so that even after they learn English, it would count in the second year, as well, to help with the scores in that area.
Third, in March, the Department responded to concerns on how to define a highly qualified teacher, still ensuring that every child in America is taught by a teacher who is skilled in his or her subject.
Pretty simple stuff. You want the teachers to be able to teach these subjects that they have studied to the students, and that is basically what the law says. But it also recognizes when you get to certain rural areas and other parts of the country, they may not be able to find teachers who are that specialized, so we have made some exceptions as far as that is concerned.
Then, finally, in late March, the Department issued a flexibility policy for how schools calculate student participation rates, which had to be 95 percent, when determining adequate yearly progress, again liberalizing that slightly in order to meet what we have to do.
It is also important to understand that each State has submitted a plan. I am very proud of my State of Delaware. I think they have submitted both a good plan, and they are looking at revising the plan to improve it based on 1 year's experience.
That is exactly what should be done, because we do need to get all of this in sync between the Federal Government and the State governments with respect to the planning, if we are going to be able to move ahead.
So I feel that No Child Left Behind has been a tremendous adjunct to Brown v. Board of Education for all of these reasons.
The funding issues have been raised by a number of individuals, and I need to share some of that information here, Mr. Speaker, if I may, because, and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) said this, the funding has been well done as far as the Federal Government is concerned. The problem lies more at the State and local levels, simply because they do not have the money they need at this point. I understand that. That will probably come back.
But this shows the funding for programs under the No Child Left Behind Act has an increase of 42.5 percent in 4 years. That is over 10 percent a year. Some States vary. My State happens to have a little more than that percentage, so it does vary a great deal.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, Federal funding for these programs encompassed by No Child Left Behind has risen from $17.4 billion in 2001 to $24.3 billion; $17.4 billion to $24.3, 2001 to 2004, which represents in excess of a 40 percent increase in just 3 years.
Included in this number is funding for Title I, which is a significant part of all of this. You can see by the red lines which we have here how much Title I has gone up since No Child Left Behind passed.
That is basically, for those who do not know, the funding for disadvantaged students and schools. That was increased by more than $650 million this year, for an increase of $3.5 billion, and we have been increasing that on a rapid basis over the past several years, knowing that that money is needed in order to implement No Child Left Behind.
The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) also pointed out that in certain circumstances, schools can qualify for extra funding. Indeed, if schools have not made adequate yearly progress, then they have the ability to have more flexibility in their Federal funding so they can take money from various other programs, although not Title I, but other programs and move it around, up to 50 percent, in order to help them with their programs as we move forward.
We are beginning to see results. Remember, it has only been in place for 2 academic years. According to a 2004 study by the Council of Great City Schools, the achievement gap is narrowing in both reading and math between African American and Caucasian, and Hispanic and Caucasian students in our Nation's inner-city schools, and they attributed the positive change, in part, to No Child Left Behind; and just last week, Florida and Michigan reported decreases in the achievement gap between African American students and their Caucasian peers.
This is an important day, and we should all honor the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and those that were so instrumental in the Brown movement. I have had an opportunity to meet many of them in the last year and to reflect with them on how far we have gone in ensuring educational access; and yet everyone says that we need to do more to ensure educational success, and that is something we do need to continue to work on.
But, indeed, the ball has started to roll. No Child Left Behind is the next step, which was absolutely essential if we are going to be able to make this work.
Now, for those who would argue that No Child Left Behind is not a step in the right direction, I would ask them to do a couple of things: One, I do not want to really argue with them. I want really for them to study No Child Left Behind, to truly understand what is in there and how they can work it to their advantage.
Secondly, to see what it can do to help a lot of children not being helped otherwise who, I think, for the first time ever, can be helped by No Child Left Behind, to study those individual schools, classrooms and school districts who have understood that and have made a difference as far as No Child Left Behind is concerned, and helping all of those kids, remember, in all those subject groups, particularly the lower-income kids; and then perhaps to look at the funding mechanisms and realize, gee, there is a heck of a lot more money going into education from the Federal Government level than we ever realized. Then they would realize that this truly is a step, is truly a giant step in the right direction, as far as education is concerned, and we must stay that course.
I think any attempts to change this system, to return to the old methodologies or the status quo, would be effectively preserving a system which has not worked as well as it should for all the young people of our country.
America today in 2004 is a true polyglot. We are indeed a country in which people have come in from a variety of other countries. They speak different languages, their color of skin can be different, their religions can be different, their educational opportunities historically in their families may be different.
But we have a responsibility to give them that opportunity in life, which has always been what we have done in America, and we needed to challenge education in order for that to happen. Indeed, I think that Brown v. Board of Education was a challenge, and a welcome challenge, but a new challenge was needed, and No Child Left Behind did that. And I believe it is in the interests of our young people, and I believe if we stay the course, if we do this properly, that we will again rise to the top, where we used to be on all educational standards in this world, and not just for those top students, but for each and every student in our schools in America.
So I urge all of us to pay a lot of attention to what we are doing on the Federal, State and local levels, and make absolutely sure we are doing all we can to help the children of America.