| I'm honored to give the Martin Buskin Memorial Lecture, and to be here today with such a distinguished an outstanding group of journalists.
Your role in education policy and reform is indispensable. You help to shape the face of the nation's school's, keep us abreast of the nation's progress, and inform parents and the public about the challenges that we face. You continue to set a high standard for us all, and I commend you for your leadership and your achievements.
Today, the Administrations announced that GDP has increased. That may be good news to Wall Street, but this Administration has forgotten that Main Street America is still suffering. And It's wrong for the Administration to use rising GDP to paper over rising unemployment and the drastic budget shortfalls which are falling hard on America's schools.
A poll released yesterday by Education Week proves this new reality once again. Next to economic recovery, it shows that there is no greater priority in the minds of Americans than to strengthen the educational opportunities for our children. And I believe that this is not the time for more and more tax cuts that jeopardize our ability to meet the new challenges of our time. This is a new day and a new time with new priorities for the nation. Since September 11th, Americans expect their leaders to meet the challenges of the war front-- the fight against terrorism at home and abroad.
But they also want us to address their greatest needs here at home.
We also made a significant down payment on the additional resources needed to meet these basic goals. Under those reforms, states and communities are asked to do more than ever before. They must work to ensure that all children meet the proficient level on state assessments in 12 years. States must see that all children are taught by a highly qualified teacher in the next 4 years. And Districts must increase the percentage of teachers with access to high-quality professional development. And States will be held accountable for ensuring that all children with limited English proficiency are learning English and doing well academically.
Local schools must show that their programs are research-based. States and districts will have to give more support and technical assistance to schools that are failing to meet their goals for yearly progress.
In addition to implementing this law successfully, states and districts are also working to meet other challenges that require additional resources. Schools are facing record enrollments that will continue to rise.
One of the most extortionary figures is that the elementary, secondary education populations is estimated at the end of the century 98 million, almost double what it is at the present time. So we as a country, if we're looking in terms of just at the numbers of children. But alone all of the issues in terms of quality have to think in the terms eventually doubling that population over the period of these next years and we have to be thinking, or we should be thinking about that now.
The number of students with limited English proficiency has doubled in the past decade. Schools are facing serious teacher shortages. Teachers need more opportunities for training and professional development. States are meeting only 20 or-30 percent of the need for after-school activities for children. The applications for the after school program in the last year, the greatest number of applications for the amounts of money. Any program in the federal government with higher quality applications after school programs. And effectively they were in this next budget effectively are cut in terms of availability to children. Squeezed by tight budgets linked to the sputtering economy, many states are under heavy pressure to reduce funds for education.
With such great challenges facing the nation's schools, it is essential for the federal budget to provide a significant increase for children.education. Yet President Bush's budget provides only a 2.8 percent increase not even enough to keep up with inflation.
He cuts funding for the new school reforms legislation by $90 million dollars. He cuts funding for rural education, education technology, dropout assistance and school construction. He cuts 18,000 teachers from professional development programs. He cuts 25,000 limited English proficient students from services. He cuts 33,000 latch-key children from after-school programs.
This is the wrong direction for schools. It's the wrong direction for students. And it's the wrong direction for the nation. And it It's is not enough to promise reform. We must pay for it as well.
If we have this will, we can also make progress in every other major area of learning. In early education, the goal is clear. Every child should start school ready to learn. Years of scientific study have demonstrated the benefits of quality care and quality educational experiences for children from birth to age of five. Jack Shawncofs great book from Neurons to Neighborhoods the definitive were the three national academy studies that now reflect all sides shows the opportunities for early intervention and the impact that can have on the terms of the child's development even moving beyond the head-start and the early years. There is the growing agreement that now is the time to act to make these benefits much more widely available to all children and their families. I am hopeful that we can meet this challenge with the same broad bipartisan support that accomplished so much on the recent school reform bill.
We will soon introduce the Early Care and Education Act to achieve this goal. The Act will provide incentive grants to States to create a system of early care and early education to improve the quality and availability of learning opportunities and age-appropriate activities for young children in the first five years of life.
I commend the President and the First Lady for their commitment to early education and to achieving better quality and more accountability in this critical area. And I hope we can agree that in addition to improving preliteracy skills, we can also agree to do more to enhance children's emotional and developmental needs as well. Together, we can see that millions of children are not left far behind even before they enter school.
Our Senate Committee has also begun bipartisan work on extending the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
IDEA has opened the schoolhouse door to millions of students with disabilities since its enactment in 1975. Today, 95 percent of these students learn alongside their non-disabled peers in the regular classroom.
Our work, however, is far from over. It's is unconscionable that only 55 percent of students with disabilities leave high school with a diploma, and that young people with disabilities still drop out of high school at twice the rate of their non-disabled peers.
Our IDEA reforms will focus on improving achievement, increasing graduation rates, and reducing drop out rates for students with disabilities. Additional steps are also needed to see that every child with a disability is taught by a qualified teacher who can provide the instruction and extra support to help them succeed. Today, only 21 percent of general education teachers feel very well-prepared to meet the needs of special education students, and thousands of special education teaching positions are vacant. Surely we can do better than that.
Most important, full-funding of IDEA is essential if we are to meet the federal obligation to support the needs of children with disabilities. I hope that our bipartisan work on needed reforms for this legislation will be accompanied by bipartisan support for the additional resources necessary to accomplish our goals.
Another major priority in education will be next year's reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. We know we can do more to improve access to college, particularly for poor and minority students, and to make college affordable for every qualified student. Enrollment in higher education institutions was over 15 million children last year and is expected to increase to nearly 17.5 million by 2010.
Successful efforts to improve elementary and secondary education will lead to much larger numbers of high school graduates who are qualified for college. But with rising tuition, college will not be a real choice for students unless we provide more financial aid. The long-term economic health of our country depends on the education of our citizens. A college education adds a million dollars to a person's lifetime earnings. The cost of not going to college is far greater than the cost of attendance.
In 1980, 60 percent of the federal dollar commitment to higher education was in grant aid, and 40 percent was in loans. Today those numbers are reversed so that 60 percent of federal dollars are spent on loans and only 40 percent on grant aid. In 2000, over 4 million students received a Pell grant, the cornerstone of need-based aid. The average family income of Pell grant recipients was $14,230 dollars. These are students who could not attend college without aid. Yet the maximum Pell grant now covers only 40 percent of the cost of attending a 4-year public institution. We need to increase the maximum grant and renew our commitment to need-based aid.
We know that many students are leaving college under the heavy burden of debt. A study earlier this year reported that the average undergraduate student owed $14,500 dollars in college loans. Our commitment has to be to maintain a loan system that offers the best rates to students, so that they don't begin their careers saddled with unmanageable debt.
Finally, in strengthening our overall policy on education, we must address the training needs of the nation's adults. The prosperity of our citizens and the long-term economic security of the nation demand that our education policy be integrated with our economic and our workforce development strategy. Workers need to be trained to respond to persistent labor market shortages, such as the current national crisis in nursing.
Periodically in the modern job market, many workers must not only change jobs but change careers. Lifelong earnings will be tied more and more likely directly to lifelong learning. An innovative job training system is essential to achieving our goal. Workers of all ages must be able to obtain the training they need in order to stay competitive in the changing workforce. For some workers, that will mean increasing basic literacy skills. For others, it will mean learning English. For still others, it will mean acquiring the skills in technology needed to meet industry's new demands. It will also mean that we should look at the creation of career ladder systems in more fields, so that workers can qualify for better jobs and increasing increase their earning potential. The challenge is clear. In all of the areas I have mentioned today, effective action is needed to meet America's educational needs in the years ahead.
Just as we rose to the challenge to enact the G.I. Bill to put America back to work after World War II, and just as we invested in math and science education as we launched the race into space, we need an education policy to help all Americans fulfill their dreams and keep our country strong and secure for the future.
Now is the time to act. We have a President and a First Lady who have made education their number one domestic priority. That The same bipartisan spirit that enabled us to succeed in school reform can achieve similar success in each of these other areas of education as well. We can meet the education needs of all Americans of all ages from pre-school to elementary school to high school to college to lifelong learning. Few priorities are more important for the nation, and I intend to do all I can to see that we meet them.
Thank you for all you do to support education. And thank you for the honor you have given me this noontime at letting me talk with you today. -
Thank You.
Q and A Session With Reporters
The Senator has agreed to take some questions so I think we can take five or six.
Question: "Yes, I'm Charlie Clark with the Association of Governing Boards. Senator why haven't more Democrats joined you in your call for postponing the Bush tax cuts, and may more join you after this fall's elections?"
Answer: "Well, I hope so, to answer to both. We'll have an opportunity to see how many Demarcates and Republications want to join us before this session is over because there will be that opportunity of deferring the tax cuts and we'll have a vote on that in using the resources for education. And I believe that the, I think that its going to be difficult in explaining as a politician to be able to explain how they all voted for the increases in the authorization last year and not vote for the resources this year. I would not want to be on the other end of that trying to explain that to families back in any part of this country. So I think we are, as often happens about five steps behind where the public is and we're going to give them a chance to catch up as we move on through this year.
As you know we just had six weeks on energy and we have the trade next week. But we come into the appropriations time in probably the next six weeks or so and then you'll see at the some effort made to have people express themselves in deferring the tax and using that money for education. And I think we'll have a, my sense is we'll have a strong showing I don't think it's out of the question of being about to carry it with a majority. I don't think it's quite there yet today but I'm convinced of the power of the issue and the importance of it. And I think the fact the more people get back home begin to understand this more clearly I think it will have a change.
Can I just say finally on that earlier question? You know we're spending 1.5 percent of our national budget on the K-12. Now 1.5 percent if you go into any place down in Massachusetts and Idaho, and if you said to a group of people, "if we had a dollar what do you think we ought to be spending it on?" They'd say we got to be spending it on national security that's got to take a big chunk out of it. Medicare, you know we need something. They said prescription drugs, and social security. There isn't a place in this county that wouldn't we ought to be spending ten cents let alone 5, and wouldn't gasp at the fact that we're 1.5 percent. And that's why I am so frustrated quite frankly with the President's own budget report submitted January 8, 2002.
The President's requesting a 50 billion discretionary for the Department of Education, an increase of 1.4 billion 2.8 percent over the two. Virtually zero real growth last year, zero real growth over the next seven years. At the same time their asking for an additional six hundred billion cut. .
I don't understand the difficulty, the difficulty having to understand, I don't think the American people if its put together right and hopefully we'll try and do it better will find that they are going to think that ought to be altered in change."
Question: "Linda Lenz, from Catalyst Magazine in Chicago and Cleveland. Between the really short time lines in No Child Left Behind and the lack of resources your likely going to see big messes through out the country trying to implement this. What do you think the political reaction is going to be in Washington?"
Answer: "I think the question you hear about the implementation of this I think and can it be done? Very good question. Last week I was down with the Secretary for about two hours with his people just going over the various previsions that they've been developing. Particularly the first one the reading visions of what their regulations are, there are going to be readings in classrooms. The language is very clear in the conference reports that it isn't, its going to be scientific based but it isn't going to be in the classroom, but it also can be in small groups, and it also can be individuals on this part.
So we've got the two aspects, one is to get the rules, and the regulations, and the guidance accurately to what we did in the bill and secondly to be able to make sure that there's going to be adequate information and conciliation. We did an over site hearing this week, yesterday, two days ago, and I've indicated to the secretary we're going to do one every four or five weeks. We are glad to outline, or have then outline with us exactly what sections are going, where the states are, which ones are up to speed, which ones aren't, why aren't they, what kind of technical help and assistance is needed. We're going to make a very solid record on that and we begin that process last week.
I indicated we're going to do that by partisan support for that and we're going to make sure, and we're going to hear from others around the country that are concerned.
Obviously some states are going to be much further ahead than others are. I mean, my own state of Massachusetts which is and North Carolina and a number of states that are going to be very well along but there are going to be some that aren't.
One of the key issues is going to be the substitution of resources. Rather they are going to substitute resources that we provide for others that are cut back by the states. We have in their careful accounting provisions so that we are going to know that, then we're going to find out what the department is going to do. They say that they are going to be very strict, insure that this is what's going to be done.
This is going to be their defense in the program now so we're not going to let this slide. So that's going to be monitored very, very carefully and very closely and we intend to do that with them.
The principal areas are going to be the issues on choice; it's going to be the more difficult on because the way it was constructed. You've probably go about three thousand students now that can be eligible for the ability to go to a different school. And how that's going to be set up is the numbers are going to be particularly I think are complex and difficult. They understand they're trying to work their way through.
We hope to make available to the public, and you're the ones that are going to understand it. In every five weeks or so exactly everywhere they've gone and where they done it. We will welcome the public; particularly our committee does, if you've found out in areas in different parts of the country the states where this is reaching deadlock and gridlock. And if we've found out about it, we are going to be of all the help that we possibly can."
Yes sir?
Question: "Five years from now schools are-a thicker school is still failing to distill in it that they have the opportunities or taken the option to lead, what happens to those kids in those schools?"
Answer: "Well, we're hopeful that the schools, if this does work the aspect of this legislation that I find very appealing is that states are going to make decision's in various grades about what the criteria, what are going to be the standards that children ought to know. Then hopefully they are going to develop a curriculum, hopefully you're going to have a well-qualified teacher that's going to teach it, and then hopefully you're going to monitor to that child's progress. Not in a putative way, but in a way that you'll understand where that child is making progress and where that child is failing, and having support services. I think if you do that, we're going to be beyond that. We're going to have made important progress that we haven't made. I believe that. There's pretty good indication when those-least that is being followed you can get results and I think we-I think that's something we ought to try to work on.
You know what's interesting. I don't know how many of you saw the other night, on Sunday night a 60 Minute program. You know the progress will be made in the military, 64 percent of those children, if you get the children of the private first class and the coronal you get 64 percent qualified for poverty and they are well above the national average, very close to the top. They don't have the discipline problems. We understand that, we understand that's a big issue. Well, it's got a teacher; it's well qualified, it's got the smaller classes that are out their and their investing 15 percent above the national average in terms of resources and they're getting extraordinary results.
Answer: Well, the question is about research based programs, particularly with regards to the reading. There are a number of places that have worked. A number of schools, a number of colleges, a number of states, that progress and they do have it as a result of this process they've been able to work through what has been thorough certified in terms of the quality of theses. Obviously the balance is to try to get some flexibility, particularly for areas and programs that demonstrated that they are working and not to have a one size fit all. But to make sure that they are going to be of sufficient merit base upon sound research. So that is always the tention that you have in trying to work through that process.
I think we've gotten as well as we can. That's going to be evolving a process that we all have to learn how to deal with. I think we certainly have it with regards to reading. There's probably some difference among some of us on the commette and where some with in the Department of Education are on that particular issue. But we're working our way through."
Question: "Senator, the act Leave No Child Behind, call for within the next five or so year, phasing out some emergency credentials for teachers or those states will risk losing federal education funds. I'm wondering how congress proposes to hold states to that when currently we're looking at having to hire more than two million new teachers in the next decade which is about two thirds of the current work force? Answer: It's, I think you hear the question. No one minimizes the complexity and the difficulty trying to get the recruitment in terms of it. But there are a lot of very exciting and interesting things happing in state level.
Let me just say, I'm please to have the chance, I'll tell you one last story. I remember the first time when I asked if their we're any questions and I went our to, I was working on my brothers champagne in 1959 I went out to Montana. I talked to actually a group of democrats, they said "There's some farmers down the road and their going to send a group of delegates to the convention," I said "fine." I went down to talk to them. I always noticed my brother say, "are their any questions?" I noticed a hand went up in the back of the room and said, "Mr. Kennedy, how does your brother stand 90 percent a parity for wheat on controlled acreage?" And I had absolutely no idea, and I will say after 40 years in the senate I still don't know. I remember a story that happened to my brother in 1942. He was a naval intelligence officer, then he volunteered to go on out to the PT boats in South Pacific.
But his last talk was to a group of workers about the dangers of espionage and sabotage in a factory and that if the workers saw a fire in the factory; they ought to determine the origin of the fire in order to extinguish it. If it's made from wood put some water on it, oil and gas put C02 on it, electricity put pome on it. But never put water on an oil and gas fire because it would spread and have disastrous results. So He asked were there any questions. A hand went up in the back of the room and said, "Mr. Kennedy, if I look in the back of the hole and I see a fire back there, how am I going to know just by looking at it, rather, it's made from wood, oil and gas, or electricity, so I'll know what to put on it and what not to put on it?" My brother said, "You know, that's a very good question and there will be someone here next week who will talk on that very subject."
Thank you very, very much. Good to see you."
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