Right now we are losing too many students before they even make it through high school, too many students who are not developing the skills and the learning experiences that they need. How can we go about fixing that problem? 

Well, for the most part, this is a local issue. This is something that States, school districts and local communities are going to be the primary drivers on in terms of fixing the problems, investing the resources and making the decisions. And I think we should keep that in mind, as the United States Congress, that we want to make sure that we empower the locals to do the job that they are in the best position to do. 

But the Federal Government does have a role. There is a lot of people that say that the Federal Government does not have any business being involved in K-12 education because it is a State and local issue, period. I disagree. 

On the single-most important issue facing our country, the quality of our child's education, I think all taxpayers would like to know that some of that money that they pay in taxes to the Federal Government is going to help improve our K-12 education system since it is such an important issue to all of us. 

But the question that we are addressing here today is, what is the proper role for the Federal Government? How can they best use the money that they spend? 

Right now the Federal Government is responsible for about 7 percent of the school district's budget. Are we getting the most we can for those dollars? Are those dollars going to the right places? Are they coming with the proper amount of flexibility? I do not think so. 

Myself and a number of colleagues of mine have introduced a bill on education called the Three R's bill. The gentleman from California (Mr. DOOLEY), the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. ROEMER) and others have cosponsored this to try to shift the focus of the Federal role in education to improve it and to make it work better. There are some basic principles that we want to outline today that we are headed towards on this program. 

First and foremost is we do need to make an increased investment in education. And have a chart here that lays out what our goals and priorities are, and that is the first time. 

There are many people that would like to believe, I guess, that we do not need to spend more money to make education better. And I will agree that we do not need to only spend more money, we have to make it more efficient, more effective and more accountable as well. But when we look at our crumbling classrooms in one end of this country to the other, the crushing need for school construction, at the coming shortage of teachers that we have, at the growing class sizes, at the growing needs for technology in our schools, there is no question that we as a Nation need to make a greater investment in K-12 education, and that is something that we ought to start with. 

But the other thing is, when we are looking at the Federal Government, where should we send our money? Those Federal dollars should be targeted to help where we can best help, and that is driving those dollars out to the communities that are in poverty, to the poorer communities that frankly do not have the same access to education that other communities have. 

If they live in a wealthy or tax-rich community, they have a number of options for funding the programs that they need in school. If they do not, they do not have as many options, they cannot simply raise a $100,000 from the parents or pass a levy or bond issue to generate those dollars. 
 

The Federal Government should target their dollars that they send to get to those poor communities. We do not do a good enough job of that right now. Too many of those dollars are not going to the communities that truly need them. Our bill adjusts those formulas to drive them out primarily based on need, based on those poverty-based communities that we are headed towards. 

The other major problem of the Federal role in education right now is that it is too bureaucratic and there are too many strings attached to those dollars that are sent out. That is a problem in a couple of different areas. First of all there is insufficient flexibility. The needs of one school district may not necessarily be the same as another. The needs in Seattle may not be the same as Chicago or Spokane or South Bend, Indiana, there may be differences in what they want, but the Federal Government is very prescriptive in how we send the dollars out. They have to be spent in a certain way. That reduces the flexibility of those local communities to best use those dollars. But the other problem with it is the bureaucratic nightmare that goes with it. 

The way the Federal structure is currently set up, there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 different Federal programs, pots of money of varying sizes that all school districts in the country have to compete for. They fill out grants to go get these dollars. There are a whole series of problems with this process. First of all, the communities that need these dollars the most, the poor, the rural communities, they do not have the money for grant writers. They are struggling just to provide the educators they need in their school districts. So it becomes a snowball effect. They do not have the money to hire the grant writers so they cannot get the additional money the Federal Government is providing and the dollars do not get driven out where they are truly needed. But even in communities that have large school districts, you do not want your school district personnel to be grant writers. You want them to be educators. 

There is a school district in my congressional district that estimates in 1 year they spent 900 person-hours filling out Federal grants for money. Think of what those 900 person-hours could have been better used for to help educate our children. We need to give them that flexibility and freedom from the grant writing that is currently required of so many school districts. We drive our dollars out in a way that does not require that, that gives them that greater flexibility and lifts them away from that bureaucracy. 

The last issue I want to touch on is accountability. As I mentioned, we certainly need to invest more in education. But we also need more accountability, more effective results. The biggest reason for that is you cannot fix a failing school. You cannot educate a child that is not learning to read or write or develop the math skills that he or she needs if you are not aware of it. If we are not measuring the results of our schools and our students, we do not know where they are at. Now, this is something that should be State driven, no question. But I believe it should be the policy of the Federal Government to require States to keep track of how their schools are performing, so that parents can know what is going on and so that, most importantly, we can meet the needs as they come up. So that is another important part of our bill is we require States to measure performance at least three times during the course of K-12 education. In my home State of Washington, we do it in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grade. Different States do it at different places, but there needs to be a measurement so we know how the schools are doing. 

But the second most important part about accountability is the part that I think we are doing the weakest job on as a country, and, that is, once you find out the schools that are not succeeding, the students that are not succeeding, what do you do about it? Are you then investing and making the changes necessary to fix the problem? It is nice to know, but it is far more important to get in there and fix the problem so that all of us, all of our children, have access to a quality education. What our bill does is it requires that measurement and then once you find out what schools are not performing, we set aside money for the States to go into those specific schools and improve them and make them work better, to get the results that we need. 

Our bill is a significant change in Federal education policy. It is a change that reflects the need to spend more money certainly but to target those dollars in an appropriate place, to increase local flexibility so that they are not filling out Federal paperwork but, rather, educating our children and to have accountability, to measure results so that we know how our children are doing, how our schools are doing, so hopefully we can step up and improve them. I feel there is no more important issue that this Congress will deal with. I am pleased that the President has shown an indication to move in this direction. We have some differences on the proposal that he has outlined. But we also have a lot of similarities. I think there is a good chance that this Congress will make a significant change in education policy.