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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD: Oct. 21, 1999

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT FOR ALL ACT (STRAIGHT A'S ACT)

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HON. RON PAUL
OF TEXAS

[Page: H10706]


Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, those who wish to diminish federal control over education should cast an unenthusiastic yes vote for the Academic Achievement for All Students Freedom and Accountability Act (STRAIGHT `A's'). While this bill does increase the ability of state and local governments to educate children free from federal mandates and regulations, and is thus a marginal improvement over existing federal law, STRAIGHT `A's' fails to challenge the federal government's unconstitutional control of education. In fact, under STRAIGHT `A's' states and local school districts will still be treated as administrative subdivisions of the federal education bureaucracy. Furthermore, this bill does not remove the myriad requirements imposed on states and local school districts by federal bureaucrats in the name of promoting `civil rights.' Thus, a school district participating in STRAIGHT `A's' will still have to place children in failed bilingual education programs or face the wrath of the Department of Education's misnamed Office of Civil Rights.

  • The fact that this bill increases, however marginally, the ability of states and localities to control education, is a step forward. As long as the federal government continues to levy oppressive taxes on the American people, and then funnel that money back to the states to use for education programs, defenders of the Constitution should support all efforts to reduce the hoops through which states must jump in order to reclaim some of the people's tax monies.

  • However, there are a number of both practical and philosophical concerns regarding this bill. While the additional flexibility granted under this bill will be welcomed by the ten states allowed by the federal overseers to participate in the program, there is no justification to deny this flexibility to the remaining forty states. After all, federal education money represents the return of funds illegitimately taken from the American taxpayers to their states and communities. It is the pinnacle of arrogance for Congress to pick and choose which states are worthy of relief from federal strings in how they use what is, after all, the people's money.

  • The primary objection to STRAIGHT `A's' from a constitutional viewpoint, is embedded in the very mantra of `accountability' stressed by the drafters of the bill. Talk of accountability begs the question: accountable to whom? Under this bill, schools remain accountable to federal bureaucrats and those who develop the state tests upon which a participating school's performance is judged. Should the schools not live up to their bureaucratically-determined `performance goals,' they will lose the flexibility granted to them under this act. So federal and state bureaucrats will determine if the schools are to be allowed to participate in the STRAIGHT `A's' programs and bureaucrats will judge whether the states are living up to the standards set in the state's five-year education plan--yet this is supposed to debureaucratize and decentralize education!

  • Under the United States Constitution, the federal government has no authority to hold states `accountable' for their education performance. In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats. However, the current system of leveling oppressive taxes on America's families and using those taxes to fund federal education programs denies parental control of education by denying them control over the education dollar. Because `he who pays the piper calls the tune,' when the federal government controls the education dollar schools will obey the dictates of federal `educrats' while ignoring the wishes of the parents.

  • In order to provide parents with the means to hold schools accountable, I have introduced the Family Education Freedom Act (H.R. 935). The Family Education Freedom Act restores parental control over the classroom by providing American parents a tax credit of up to $3,000 for the expenses incurred in sending their child to private, public, parochial, other religious school, or for home schooling their children.