Reply #41: Carol Moseley Braun

[gottaB]

has been critical of testing, and as you know she is critical of NCLB and supports increased funding for public schools. She herself went to public schools.

It was a campaign issue for her in 1992 when her Republican opponent was firmly in favor of "testing" and "standards" and "accountability."

At the cdf forum she said:

The truth of the matter is that the federal government right now contributes less than 7 percent of the cost of elementary and secondary education, and pushes the rest of the cost onto states and local governments. This plan, which really is No Child Left, not No Child Left Behind, really is punitive and counterproductive in terms of providing quality education. For this program to suggest that the federal government is going to mandate a series of tests to segregate, isolate and otherwise identify "low performing schools," but not send any money to help the communities, help parents, help the local governments pay for schools, is just outrageous and not very thoughtful.

Here is what she said on the Senate floor when introducing the Moseley-Braun amendment 1376 to the Edudacate America Act of 1994.

Mr. President, this amendment would require the National Education Standards and Improvement Council, upon recommendation from a working group on voluntary national opportunity-to-learn standards, to certify voluntary national opportunity-to-learn standards which address:

The extent to which school facilities provide a safe and secure environment for learning and instruction and have the requisite libraries, laboratories, and other resources necessary to provide an opportunity to learn.

Mr. President, my amendment, which the U.S. House of Representatives has already included in its version of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, is endorsed by the National Association of School Boards, the National Committee for Adequate School Housing, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the Council of Great City Schools , the Council of Education Development and Research, the American Association of State Colleges, the American Association of School Administrators, the American Library Association, and the Council of Education Facilities Planners International.

I am an original cosponsor of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, legislation which provides a coherent, national framework for education reform founded on the national education goals. Goals 2000 encourages States to meet the national education goals by authorizing $400 million to help them develop their own internationally competitive content and performance standards which define the knowledge and skills students need in order to compete in the emerging global economy. Goals 2000 also encourages States to meet the national education goals by authorizing the National Education Standards and Improvement Council to certify voluntary national content and performance standards.

Finally, this legislation also encourages States to measure their progress in meeting the national education goals by authorizing the National Education Standards and Improvement Council to certify assessments submitted voluntarily by States which measure the achievement of all students.

Nonetheless, Goals 2000 recognizes that there are possible dangers in assessing the achievement of students--especially economically and socially disadvantaged students. As I have already stated here on the Senate floor, Stephen Gould documents in his book, `The Mismeasure of Man,' how intelligence and achievement tests have been misused throughout history to rank people in a single series of worthiness, to find that oppressed people and disadvantaged groups--races, classes, or sexes--are invariably inferior and deserve their status. Goals 2000 limits these dangers by targeting funds to schools with large numbers of economically and socially disadvantaged students and by authorizing the National Education Standards and Improvement Council to certify voluntary national opportunity-to-learn standards. These standards will define the teaching and learning conditions students need in order to have a fair opportunity to achieve the knowledge and skills described in the voluntary national content and performance standards. More specifically, Goals 2000 requires the National Education Standards and Improvement Council to certify voluntary national opportunity-to-learn standards which address:

• The quality and availability of curricula, instructional materials, and technology;
  
  
• The capability of teachers to provide high-quality instruction;
  
  
• The extent to which teachers and administrators have ready and continuing access to professional development; and
  
  
• The extent to which curriculum, instructional practices, and assessments are aligned to content standards.

Mr. President, while I firmly believe that these educational inputs must be addressed when certifying voluntary national opportunity-to-learn standards, I am convinced that emerging education reforms are doomed unless we house them in adequate school facilities.

Mr. President, the problems facing public school facilities in this country have reached crisis proportions. The Education Writers Association has concluded that our Nation's education infrastructure needs $125 billion: $84 billion for new construction and $41 billion for maintenance and repairs. More specifically, EWA has reported that 25 percent of school buildings in this country are shoddy places for learning and that 61 percent of these inadequate schools need major repairs, 43 percent are obsolete, 42 percent are environmentally hazardous, 25 percent are overcrowded, and 13 percent are structurally unsound. Other studies have shown that the problems facing our Nation's school facilities are not limited to either rural or urban school districts. The Council of Great City Schools has found that New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago need more than $1 billion each to repair old school buildings and to build new ones. Education researchers from three major research universities, on the other hand, have reported that one-half of all rural school buildings are unsafe, inadequate, and inaccessible to handicapped students.

In his book `Savage Inequalities,' Jonathan Kozol uses a series of interviews and personal observations to show the negative effects that inadequate school facilities can have on our Nation's children. Mr. Kozol quotes a 1989 St. Louis Post Dispatch story which reads `The Martin Luther King Junior High School was evacuated Friday afternoon after sewage flowed into the kitchen, gym, and parking lot.' Mr. Kozol then encourages his readers to see this school crisis through the eyes of a young girl who states: `We have a school in East St. Louis named for Doctor King. The school is full of sewer water and the doors are locked with chains. Every student in the school is black. It's like a terrible joke on history.' Mr. Kozol also quotes another student who is so frustrated with her school environment that she states: `I don't go to Physics class, because my lab has no equipment. I don't even use the toilets. If I do, I come back into class and I feel dirty'.

Mr. President, my amendment would increase educational opportunities for students in East St. Louis and throughout the country by requiring the National Education Standards and Improvement Council to certify voluntary national opportunity-to-learn standards which define the learning environment students need in order to have a fair chance to meet the voluntary national content and performance standards. More specifically, my amendment would require the Council to certify opportunity-to-learn standards which address the safety and security of school facilities and the need for adequate school facilities including laboratories and libraries. In effect, my amendment would further the efforts of Senator Simon who has worked tirelessly to highlight the importance of elementary and secondary school libraries.

Mr. President, I am proud to be a cosponsor of Senator Simon's Elementary and Secondary School Library Media Act because it addresses the fact that young people in correctional institutions often have better access to library facilities than average students.

Mr. President, although my amendment would require the National Education Standards and Improvement Council to address the quality of school facilities, it does not define any specific opportunity-to-learn standards. My amendment only encourages the Council to consider the quality of school facilities when defining the teaching and learning conditions students need in order to have a fair chance to achieve the knowledge and skills described in the voluntary national content and performance standards.

Mr. President, I would like to conclude my remarks by urging my colleagues to support my school facilities amendment.

I'm still looking for a more current and detailed statement. There must be one out there because Carol's record on education is exemplary in my book and she should be running on it. (On edit: I wanted to highlight her citation of Gould and Kozol. I realize this may seem tangential to the issue at hand, but I'm sure you can see the point. I got lazy searching thomas and google, but I'm all over it when I get back home next week.)