Every Child Achieves Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about an amendment that I am offering with Senator Kirk, Senator Brown, and Senator Baldwin, which would establish an accountability mechanism for student access to the core resources necessary for learning.

First, I wish to thank Senators Kirk, Brown, Baldwin, and others for helping with this very important matter.

More than 60 years after the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education, one of the greatest challenges still facing this Nation is stemming the tide of rising inequality. We have seen the rich--in fact, really the very rich--get richer while middle-class and low-income families have lost ground. We see disparities in opportunities starting at birth and growing over a lifetime. With more than one in five school-age children living in families in poverty and roughly half of our public school population eligible for free or reduced-priced lunches because they come from low-income families, we cannot afford nor should we tolerate a public education system that fails to provide the resources and opportunities for the children who need them the most.

When President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law 50 years ago, he described education as the ``only valid passport from poverty.'' He noted:

From our very beginnings as a nation, we have felt a fierce commitment to the ideal of education for everyone. It fixed itself into our democratic creed.

I believe this amendment will help us stay true to that ideal. There are other amendments we will consider that, frankly, will do just the opposite, such as those that would divert scarce resources from public schools to private schools through vouchers or so-called portability amendments that Senator Murray so eloquently spoke about. Rather than transferring resources away from our public education system, the passport to opportunity in our country, we should be doing more to ensure they have adequate resources. We have to do work to achieve real equity in educational opportunity.

Survey data from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights showed troubling disparities, such as the fact that Black, Latino, American Indian, Native Alaskan students, and English learners attend schools with higher concentrations of inexperienced teachers. In fact, nationwide one in five high schools lacks a school counselor, and between 10 and 25 percent of high schools across the Nation do not offer more than one of the core courses in the typical sequence of high school math and science, such as algebra I and II, geometry, biology, and chemistry. Their curricula are very limited, and, indeed, perhaps inadequate.

The Education Law Center reports that a majority of States have unfair funding systems with flat or regressive funding distribution. For these reasons, I introduced the Core Opportunity Resources for Equity and Excellence Act, or the CORE Act. Senators Brown and Baldwin were my cosponsors. This bill would establish an accountability mechanism for resource equity. This was the first education bill introduced in this Congress, and we are very proud of that.

Holding our educational system accountable for both results and resources is paramount. The No Child Left Behind Act looked at results, outcomes, testing, and measurement. What it failed to grasp is that we need resources also. We need the inputs. The Every Child Achieves Act, the legislation we are discussing today, includes important transparency on resource equity. I thank Senators Alexander and Murray for that. It requires States to report on key measures of school quality beyond student achievement on statewide assessments, including student access to experienced and effective educators, access to rigorous and advanced course work, availability of career and technical educational opportunities, and safe and healthy school learning environments. However, reporting alone will not ensure that students get the resources they need and deserve. I commend the reporting. I think it is a necessary but not quite sufficient measure.

I am pleased to offer this opportunity dashboard of core resources amendment with Senators Kirk, Baldwin, and Brown. This amendment has the support of dozens of national organizations.

Specifically, our amendment will require States to develop and report on measures of access to critical education resources, identify disparities in access for districts, schools, and student subgroups, develop plans with school districts to address disparities in access to critical educational resources, and include the opportunity dashboard of core resources on the State report card so everyone will know where the resources are, where they are going, and how we are making our commitment to an equitable and excellent education for every American child.

This amendment has bipartisan support, and, more importantly, broad support in the communities across the Nation. I urge my colleagues to support it when it comes to the floor for a vote.

With that, I yield the floor.

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Mr. President, I come to the floor today to urge all of my colleagues to support the Reed-Cochran amendment to encourage States and school districts to integrate school library programs into their plans for improving student academic achievement.

I would first like to thank Senator Cochran for his longstanding partnership in supporting school libraries. He has been a steadfast champion for ensuring that students have access to these vital resources.

Fifty years ago, when President Lyndon Johnson urged Congress to enact what would become the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, he specifically called for an investment in school libraries, saying that school libraries were simply ``limping along'' and insisting that we do better. Sadly, this ``limping along'' is still true for too many communities in our United States.

This spring, the Washington Post ran articles on the inequitable access to school libraries in public schools in our Nation's Capital, reporting that one school library in a wealthy part of town had 28,000 books in a library that spanned two floors, while 12 miles away, in a school in a poorer part of the town, the school library had only 300 books along two walls. If that is not a stark example of one of the things we hope we can fix through this act, I cannot think of anything more direct and to the point.

Recently, noted author James Patterson made a pledge to help school libraries. More than 28,000 applications came in.

One librarian reported that school libraries in her State had not received any funding for three-quarters of a decade and that their collections and equipment were out of date and in disrepair. I suspect she is not alone in making such a report. We see this neglect despite the fact that evidence shows that effective school library programs, staffed by a certified school librarian, have a positive impact on student achievement.

While I would like to see a much more robust school library-focused initiative included in the reauthorization, along the lines of the bill I introduced with Senator Cochran, I am very pleased that the underlying bill includes an authorization for competitive grants to help high-need school districts strengthen and enhance effective library programs. However, we need to do more to encourage States and school districts to integrate school library programs into their overall instructional programs.

Effective school library programs are essential supports to educational success. If you understand how to use the library in school, that is not a skill that goes away; in fact, it will be a skill for the rest of your life that you will use time and time again, not only for your pleasure but for your progress and the progress of your family. Knowing how to find and use information is an essential skill for college, careers, and life in general. A good school library, staffed by a trained school librarian, is where students develop and hone those skills.

The Reed-Cochran amendment will encourage States and school districts to ensure that students have access to effective school library programs.

Once again, I thank my colleague, Senator Cochran.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this bipartisan amendment.

I yield the floor.

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