Student Success Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Chairman, 50 years ago, we passed the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act, recognizing that a child's future opportunities are
primarily established by virtue of their education.
We know that there is inequality in education, primarily because we
fund it typically by the real estate tax. We fund it politically, and
those in low-income areas tend to get the short end of the stick. That
is why we passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
The underlying bill takes all that good work and goes backwards. They
cap the funding. We take the money from the low-income areas, give it
to the wealthy areas, we eliminate the focus on English learners and
disabled. The bill goes in the wrong direction.
By shortening the authorization of the life of this bill, under H.R.
5, the gentleman's amendment will force us to reauthorize it and
reconsider it in a shorter period of time, and if it is a bad bill, I
think that is a good thing.
Since it is my firm belief that the implementation of this bill will
yield devastating results for our Nation's most vulnerable children,
the gentleman and I are in agreement that we ought to revisit it as
soon as possible, and that is why I am not in opposition to the
amendment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I think the case has been made
for the growth model as opposed to the static model. It is much fairer.
It gives credit where credit is due, as the gentleman from New York has
said. Some teachers produce 2 and sometimes 3 years' growth in 1 year,
but because the student was so far behind, they are still not up to par
on the static test; and on the AYP standard, that school is a failing
school although they did tremendous work.
The reason that this needs to be required is these assessments are a
little more expensive, and if you don't require it, they won't get
done. These are the better assessments and should be a part of the
legislation.
I thank the gentleman for introducing his amendment.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, this would just add confusion to
an already difficult situation. To have each locality set its own
assessments means that all of the assessments are going to be
different.
What happens in one city is going to be different from another city.
If a student in one city moves from another city, all of a sudden, they
become more intelligent? No, they just did better on that different
assessment.
Mr. Chairman, in our Democratic substitute, we have an amendment
coming up, an idea that the assessments should be as accurate as
possible and that we should have as few assessments as possible.
One of the things people keep talking about is the multiple tests and
the burden of these tests. We can do better. But allowing each locality
to come up with its own home-baked assessment only will lead to
confusion and something that nobody will understand. You won't know
whether a student in one city is doing as well as a student in another
city because you can't compare the results.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for
yielding, and I thank the gentleman for his amendment.
I support the important work being done by afterschool, before
school, and summer programs. These programs have been proven to
increase academic achievement, increase student achievement, and reduce
dropouts.
This is especially powerful in light of some studies that show that
many students actually regress during the summer. If they are given
effective summer programs, that regression can certainly be stopped, so
it is a very powerful idea.
I thank the gentleman for offering his amendment, and I hope that it
is adopted.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Mr. Chairman, when Congress enacted No Child Left Behind in 2002, we
recognized the importance of paraprofessional qualifications.
Because their support to students has a significant impact on their
success in school, paraprofessionals provide a wide range of critical
support, including tutoring, computer assistance, library resources,
classroom management, translation, and other instructional services.
In the past 13 years, paraprofessionals have met these strong
qualifications, including minimum postsecondary credentials and a
demonstration of specialized knowledge. They already meet these
standards, and that is why it is unfortunate that the underlying bill
repeals these standards.
We don't understand why we would want to go backwards in maintaining
the high standards; and that is why this amendment is so important, and
I would hope it would be adopted.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, the purpose of ESEA is to increase resources to an
education, especially focused on areas of high poverty. The underlying
bill limits the amount of money that can be spent under the bill. It
takes money by changing the formula from low-income areas to high-
income areas, and now this amendment tries to eliminate one of the most
devastating impacts, that is the requirement of the maintenance of
effort.
If there is Federal money going into the States, it can only increase
money going to education if the States maintain their effort. If they
are able to reduce their effort and just replace the money they were
spending with the Federal money, then there has been no increase in education, and the ones left behind continue to remain behind.
This is an extremely important amendment. It makes sure that the
Federal money actually increases the money going to education to help
those left behind, and I would hope that we would correct this grievous
error in the underlying bill by adopting the amendment.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the
amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois. The amendment is
thoughtful and necessary to restore employee protections that are
already in current law.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman's
amendment focuses on the importance of aligning education with labor
market needs so that when you get educated, you are educated for the
jobs of the future. The underlying bill, however, does not insist on
college and career-ready standards so that when young people graduate
from high school, they ought to be ready for a job or for college.
We would like to see in the legislation that the standards set by
each State provide that if you graduate from high school, you are able
to go to college without remediation. That is not in the underlying
bill. This amendment does a step in the right direction by aligning
education to labor market needs.
Therefore, I am not in opposition to the amendment, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
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