Parents Bill of Rights Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, my amendment is quite simple. It expresses the sense of Congress that the Department of Education and the Secretary of Education should no longer have any authority to administer any program related to elementary or secondary education in the United States.

Some people may confuse the purpose of my amendment, and let me be clear: It is to strengthen public education in the United States.

I am a product of public education, K-12. I attended public schools, as did my wife and all of our children.

We are proud of our schools in this country, but it is time to turn in the grade card for the Department of Education. They have been at it for 40 years, and they get an F. Education has not improved, but spending has doubled per pupil.

It is time to return the power back to the States, back to the people, and back to the school boards to allow them to make these decisions locally.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Brecheen).
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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, as my colleague from Oklahoma pointed out, Congress lacks the constitutional authority to create what amounts to a national school board of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.

How many are there; 4,000 bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?

My colleague on the other side of the aisle said that basically every school would like to have more money.

How could we do that without raising taxes?

Quit wasting it in Washington, D.C., on 4,000 bureaucrats who cost us about $100,000 apiece.

These bureaucrats make more than the teachers. Yet, they don't teach a single class. They don't write books. They don't help with that.

In fact, the Federal Government is responsible for about 90 percent of the red tape that local schools have to deal with and only about 10 percent of the funding. It is time to change that equation.

Imagine if we could hire 4,000 more teachers in this country using that money and pay them each $100,000, pay them what the bureaucrats get in Washington, D.C.

How many more kids would get a better education?

I suspect a lot more kids would get a better education.

This was a reelection ploy that was foisted on America by Jimmy Carter and Congress at the time in 1979. It did not work. He did not get reelected. It was not a good idea, but here we are. We are stuck with it.

It is time, as I said before, to reevaluate this.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment to show that we support public education. We support the rights of parents to determine through their school boards the rights of teachers. The teachers know what to teach and how to teach. They don't need the Federal Government telling them.

What your child learns or how your child learns shouldn't be dependent on who won the Presidential election and who became Secretary of Education. It is too important to leave it up to that. You need to leave it up to your community, to the teachers and the parents.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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