Department Of Labor, Health And Human Services, And Education, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 18, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. BALDWIN. Madam Chairman, I thank the chairman for his courtesy in yielding me time.

In lieu of offering an amendment this evening, I appreciate the opportunity to briefly share with Members a concern regarding the education title of this bill. I have learned that taxpayer dollars in this bill, combined with taxpayer dollars at the State and local level, are used to purchase textbooks printed and manufactured in countries that censor these teaching materials.

Madam Chairman, one of the consequences of outsourcing to cheaper labor sources overseas is that an increasingly large number of American textbooks and educational materials are printed overseas, especially in China, a country which the State Department's 2006 Country Report on Human Rights concludes actively censors all publications.

The State Department's Human Rights report reads, ``By law, only government-approved publishing houses are permitted to print books. The State Press and Publications Administration controls all licenses to publish. The Chinese Communist Party exerts control over the publishing industry by preemptively classifying certain topics as off limits.''

In addition, ``the government does not respect academic freedom and increases controls on political and social discourses at colleges, universities, and research institutes.''

Madam Chairman, the Chinese Government is forcing the same censorship on American students and teachers, and let me just explain how this happens.

An American publishing company develops a textbook or any educational material and decides to print it overseas because they can save on printing costs by doing so. But the material content will be censored by the government-sanctioned publishing houses to conform to Chinese requirements. The Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, and balanced discussions of Tibet, political freedoms and descriptions of democratic participation and public protest will intentionally be left on the cutting room floor.

And then a well-meaning, well-prepared unsuspecting teacher or school district buys this textbook for their classroom, a textbook which contains no mention of the Dalai Lama and a decidedly altered discussion of politics and culture, even American politics and culture because Chinese censorship laws do not discriminate between Chinese and American texts and contexts.

And ultimately public funds meant to educate our children are simultaneously suppressing human rights and freedoms, and limiting exposure and curriculums on important topics of history, politics and culture.

The same situation exists, with far more harmful consequences, for teacher manuals because if a lesson does not exist in the teacher's curriculum, chances are that the students won't be taught that lesson.

Madam Chairman, the lesson that our students truly need to learn, and which must not be censored, is that State-sponsored censorship should not be supported with public dollars. I hope that my colleagues will join me in future efforts to teach our schoolchildren that ethics and morals and their education are more important, and more valuable, than cheap labor and production costs.

Again, I thank Chairman Obey for the courtesy of yielding this time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source