Summary:

All articles in Senate section

THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued
(Senate - June 28, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S5954-S5994] THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a vote on or in relation to the Dodd amendment not take place at the conclusion of argument; that it be stacked later this afternoon at a time to be mutually agreed upon after consulting with the leaders on both sides. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is not too much need for me to respond to the Senator from Connecticut. I think he has already stated my position in toto. I do think this afterschool program, which he has proposed to add to, is a worthwhile program. But it is beyond the limits with which our subcommittee has to work. He is correct that I will make a motion that it exceeds the allocation to our committee at the appropriate time. Afterschool is very important. It is sort of a twin brother to day care. Last year, I agreed with the Senator from Connecticut to scrimp and save and use a sharp pencil to find $817 million more to bring day care up to $2 billion, which we did. I thought that kind of an allocation might have satisfied the Senator from Connecticut for a year. But it has not. So we will have to face this when it comes along. He said to me: That is day care. I said: Day care is very important. Bringing it up by more than $800 million to $2 billion was a tough job, Senator Dodd. I called him Chris at the time. We thought that being a twin brother to afterschool, we might have avoided an amendment. Mr. DODD. If my colleague will yield. Mr. SPECTER. I will be glad to yield. Mr. DODD. I was as complimentary as I could be. But I will be even more complimentary. I am deeply grateful to the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. It is very tough being the manager of a bill that funds the Department of Education because there is no priority higher than education. The only one on a level with it is health care. And we have the funding coming out of the same pool of money. We made the allocations as best we could. I know of the devotion of the Senator from Connecticut to this cause. He and I were elected at the same time. He withstood the Reagan landslide in 1980 to be one of two Democrats elected to open seats, when 16 Republicans came in. And he and I cochaired the Children's Caucus at that time. In 1987, when he proposed family leave, I was his cosponsor, with a lot of turmoil just on this side of the aisle. We have worked together over the years for education and for children. I commend him for all that he has done. We have added to education some $4.6 billion. We are $100 million more than the President in education this year. We have increased funding tremendously for children and young people in America. The Head Start Program comes, curiously enough, under the Department of Health and Human Services. There is an increase this year of $1 billion to Head Start, coming up to $6.2 billion. We have increased special education by $1.3 billion, bringing it up to $7.3 billion. We have increased innovative State grants by $2.7 billion for more teachers, class size, and for school construction, with the proviso that it is limited. It is up to the local school district if they decide to do something else with it. When it comes to the program the Senator from Connecticut is talking about, the 21st Century Learning Centers, we have added $146.6 million to bring the figure up to $600 million. In fiscal year 1999, it was $200 million. So we are moving right along on it to provide the maximum amount of money we can. It is not an easy matter to allocate $104.5 billion--as much money as that is--for the National Institutes of Health and for drug programs and for school violence programs. We have done the best job we could. It is with reluctance that I raise a point of order. How much time remains, Mr. President? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator has 9 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. I have made the essential arguments which are relevant. In the interest of moving the bill along and saving time, I make a point of order under section 302(b) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Dodd amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget and is not in order. Mr. DODD. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as previously agreed to by unanimous consent, the vote will be delayed to a time agreed upon by the leaders later today. I yield back the remainder of my time so we may proceed with the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts is recognized. [[Page S5955]] Amendment No. 3659 (Purpose: To increase funding for the technology literacy challenge fund) Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3659 and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry], proposes an amendment numbered 3659. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: Sec. . Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the total amount made available under this title to carry out the technology literacy challenge fund under section 3132 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 shall be $517,000,000. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time on the Kerry amendment be 1 hour equally divided. We have already talked about this. I understand there is agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Bingaman and Mikulski be added as original cosponsors of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me pick up, if I may, on the comments made by the Senator from Connecticut. There is a relationship between these amendments that are proposed by Senator Kennedy, Senator Bingaman, Senator Dodd, and myself. They are made with great respect for the leadership of the appropriations subcommittee. I share the feelings expressed by Senator Dodd that they are working within the constraints that have been imposed on them by the Congress in a sense through the budgeting process. What we are asking of our colleagues is to begin a process by which we more accurately reflect the truth of the budgeting process and the choices we as Senators face. The fact is, we have the ability to provide 60 votes to waive and to proceed to make a statement as the Senate that we believe a specific priority is significant enough that we ought to depart from the constraints. The constraints under which we are operating, that were very properly and articulately listed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, are restraints imposed by a Budget Act and by allocations that do not reflect the reality of the budget choice we face as a country because of the level of surplus. Since those allocations were made, we have in fact learned that we have a significant amount of additional funds available to us to begin to choose how we will reflect the priorities of our Nation. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, a lot of us on this side of the aisle joined with them to put in place the fiscal discipline we all laud and believe is appropriate. It was a 1993 vote, in fact, that put in place the Deficit Reduction Act. Many of us are pleased that we finally were able to set this country on a course where we now have the current surpluses. We have to start to be smart about what kind of choices we are going to make. I keep hearing colleagues on both sides of the aisle come to the floor. They lament what is happening to children in America. They lament what is happening with respect to young people who are increasingly feeding into the juvenile justice system of the Nation. We hear the cries of anguish about children having children out of wedlock, about the failure of marriage in this country. But we don't seem to connect our legislative actions to things that really might make a difference in the lives of young people so they will choose a more moral, traditional, affirmative course for their own life. How do kids make those kinds of choices? Traditionally, in the America we always hear Members talking about, we have family, which is the best teacher of all, the most important connection of a child to their future. We have schools and teachers. History in America is replete with great personalities who harken back to a particular teacher who affected their life. We hear less and less of those stories in modern America. Finally, there is organized religion. Organized religion is the other great teaching entity. Not one that we are supposed to, in this body, specifically legislate about, but it is proper to acknowledge the role that religion plays as one of those three great teachers in the lives of children. The truth is, in America today we have an awful lot of young children who don't have contact with any one of those three teachers, not one. Their teachers are the streets. Colin Powell talks about it in his America's Promise, which appeals to people to make a voluntary commitment to try to intervene in the lives of some of those children and replace the absence of those three great teachers. What kids learn in the streets is not the real values of America; it is what I call ``coping skills.'' They learn how to get by. They learn how to survive. They learn the sort of ``law of the jungle,'' as some used to call it. The fact is, we are not doing enough, we Senators are not doing enough, to leverage those things that make a difference in the absence of the three great teachers. I ask any one of my colleagues: How do we break the cycle of a kid having a kid out of wedlock? How do we break the cycle of a child raised in an abusive household, whose role models in life are people who beat up on each other, shoot drugs, get into trouble, such as the role models for that 6-year-old kid who shot a 6-year-old classmate living in a crack house with an uncle, a parent in jail, no one responsible? What is that child's future, unless adults make the decision to somehow provide those positive forces that make a difference? What are the positive forces? Well, the positive forces are often some of the faith-based interventions, whether it is the Jewish Community Center or a Baptist organization or the Catholic Charities; but there are those entities out there that have a wonderful, extraordinary capacity to bring kids back from the brink. And then there are those organized entities that also do it, such as the Boys and Girls Club; Big Brother/ Big Sister; YMCA and YWCA; or a program in Boston called Youth Build, or City Year. All of these provide young people with alternatives and the ability to have surrogate parenting, fundamentally. That is what is really taking place. What is really taking place is those entities is providing an alternative. Now, we will debate in the Senate whether or not we are going to provide 200,000 H-1B visas. I am for it. I think we ought to provide that, or more, because we have an immediate need in this country to provide skilled people in order to keep the economic boom going and provide for critical technologies, to have good working people. But has it not occurred to my colleagues what an insult it is to our own system that we have to go abroad and import skilled labor to the United States, even as we are putting thousands of young kids into prison, into the juvenile justice system, and out into the streets, as the Senator from Connecticut just said, because we don't have afterschool programs? What are we going to do? We are going to import 200,000 skilled people to make up for the unskilled people whom we leave unskilled because we are unwilling to make the adult choices in the Senate that would make a difference in their lives. How can we boast about the extraordinary surplus we have in this country, with the stock market climbing to record levels, the most extraordinary amounts of wealth ever created in the history of any nation on the planet right here in the United States, but poverty among children has increased by 50 percent and the number of kids who are at risk has increased. I don't believe in the Federal Government taking over these programs. I don't believe in Washington dictating the solutions. But I do believe in Washington leveraging the capacity of people at the local level to be able to do what they know they need to do. So we are reduced to a debate where the Senator from Pennsylvania has to say, well, oh, my gosh, under our 201(b) allocation--or whatever the appropriate section is--we don't have enough money to be able to allocate because we have a total cap that has no relationship to the reality of what we must do. We keep saying, isn't it terrific that we have raised the amount of money--and it is terrific--when the real question is, are we doing what we need to do to get the job done? That is the question we ought to be asking. What is it going to take to guarantee that children in the United States of [[Page S5956]] America are safe? What does it take to guarantee that we don't dump 5 million kids out into the streets in the afternoons, unsafe, and exposed to drug dealers and to all of the vagaries of the teenage years and all of the pressures that come with it in a modern society that doesn't have parents around to be able to help those kids make a better choice? We don't have to do that. We ought to make it the goal of the Senate to guarantee that every child in America is going to be safe and secure between the hours when teachers stop teaching and when those parents are coming home. And we can ask 100,000 questions about why it is we are not providing arts and music and sports and libraries that are open full-time, and Internet access. That is where my amendment comes in, Mr. President. Senator Kennedy has an amendment on teacher quality, which is linked to the capacity of kids to fill those high tech jobs that we talk about. Senator Dodd has an amendment talking about making those kids safe after school. My amendment seeks to increase the funding for the technology literacy challenge fund, which is a critically important education program that helps provide technology access, education, professional development, and instruction in elementary and secondary schools. All we say is that to qualify for the money, States have to submit a statewide technology plan that includes a strategy on how the States will include private, State, local, and other entities in the continued financing and support of technology in schools. There are two points that I can't stress enough. One is the importance of providing young people with the opportunity to learn how to use technology. I am not one of those people. I don't want to celebrate technology to the point of it being put up on a pedestal and it becomes an entity unto itself. Technology is not a god; it is not a philosophy; it is not a way of life. Technology is a tool, a useful tool. It is a critical tool for the modern marketplace and the modern world. But we are preordaining that we are going to have to have next year's H-1B plan, and the next year's H-1B plan, and another prison, and another program to deal with a whole lot of young kids for whom the digital divide becomes more and more real, who don't have accessability or the capacity to be able to gain the skills necessary to share in this new world. The fact is that there are too many teachers who don't have the ability to even teach; we have the schools wired; we have the e-rate. We are beginning to get increased access to the Internet. But what do you do with it? How many teachers know how to use the technology to really be able to educate kids? How many kids are, in fact, having the benefit of the opportunity of having teachers who have those skills so that they can ultimately maximize their opportunities? All we are suggesting is that we ought to be doing more to empower-- not to mandate, not to dictate, but to empower--those local communities that desperately want to do this but don't have the tax base to be able to do it. Let's give them that ability. That is the best role the Federal Government can play--to leverage things that represent national priorities, leverage the things that represent the best goals and aspirations of ourselves as a Nation. It is not micromanagement; it is, rather, putting in place a mechanism by which we have national priorities--to have good, strong families, to have kids who are computer literate, and to have more skilled workers. Those are national priorities. But if we turn our heads away and say the only priority in this country is to sort of sequester this money for the senior generation in one form or another, without any regard to the generation that is coming along that needs to fund Social Security, that needs to have a high value-added job so they can pay into it and adequately protect it, that is not Social Security protection. We have gone from 13 workers paying in for every 1 that is taking out--13 workers paying into the system for every 1 worker taking out-- to three paying in and one taking out. Now there are two paying in and one taking out. We have a vested interest as a nation in making sure those two paying in are capable of paying in; that they have a high value-added job that empowers them to pay in; when they pay in, it doesn't take so much of their income that they feel so oppressed by the system that they are not able to invest in their own children and in their own future. That is in our interest. That is a national priority. If we don't begin in the Senate tomorrow to adequately reflect the needs of our children in the money that we allocate, we will be seriously missing one of the greatest priorities the country faces. All of us understand the degree to which there is an increase in the digital divide of the country. The technology literacy challenge fund is a critical effort to try to provide those kids with an opportunity to close that gap. Last year, my home State of Massachusetts received $8.1 million. Some of the programs it put in place are quite extraordinary. Let me share with my colleagues one of the examples of this program that works so effectively. It is called the Lighthouse Technology Grant. The Lighthouse Technology Grant incorporates new technologies into the State curriculum framework so that it better motivates children to be able to learn. One of the schools in my State--the Lynn Woods Elementary School in Lynn--is integrating technology into the classroom by virtue of this grant. Fifth grade students at the Lynn Woods school are studying Australia. They have been able to videoconference directly with Australian students who are studying the Boston area. You have students engaging in a very personal and direct way, all of which encourages their learning and enhances their interest in the topic. They have also developed writing skills through special e-mail pen pal programs with Australian students. In addition, they have been able to connect more directly with the experience of life, thereby asking very direct questions and engaging in a personal exchange that they never could have experienced before because of telephone rates and because of the difficulties of communication under any kind of telephone circumstance. The Lighthouse Technology Grant is only one of eight programs funded by this challenge grant in Massachusetts. It also provides grants to a virtual high school program which enables school districts to offer students Internet courses ranging from advanced academic courses to technical and specialized courses. Let me emphasize the importance of that to my colleagues. A few weeks ago, I visited a high school in Boston, an inner-city high school, Dorchester High. I found that in this high school of almost 1,000 students in the inner city they are not able to provide advanced placement courses. I ask everybody here to imagine a high school that is supposed to be state of the art that doesn't have advanced placement courses. Yet, because of the virtual high school and because of the access to the Internet, if we close the digital divide, we can in fact make it affordable and accessible for schools that today have difficulty finding the teachers, affording the teachers, and providing the curriculum--and be able to do so immediately. That is the difference between somebody being able to go to college or being college ready or being able to go to college and advance rapidly in the kinds of curriculum and courses that will make even a greater difference in their earning capacity and in their citizen- contributing capacity at a later time. We need to recognize that unless we encourage this to happen, the transformation could take a lot longer than we want it to take. For example, it has taken only 7 years for the Internet to be adopted by 30 percent of Americans. That is compared to 17 years for television to be adopted by 38 percent, and for the telephone, 38 percent during the same amount of time. The world of work is obviously so much different and at a faster rate. But if we leave kids behind for a longer period of time, we will greatly restrain their learning capacity as well as our growth capacity as a country. The technology literacy challenge fund has been funded under the committee's mark at about $425 million. The administration actually asked for $450 million. The House has set a figure [[Page S5957]] of $517 million. I think that is more reflective of the level of funding that is necessary in order to achieve the kind of transition that we wish for in this country. Some might argue we could even do more. But it is clear to me that by measuring the priorities as expressed by other colleagues we can, in fact, do more if we will challenge the system a little bit, if we will push the limits a little bit, and if we will look at the reality of the budget choices that the Congress faces. I think nothing could be more important for all of us as Senators and as Congress this year. I hope my colleagues will embrace the notion that we can in fact do an appropriate waiver of the budget and set this as a priority of the Senate. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, here again, there is little doubt that technology literacy is a very important matter for America. There is no doubt about that at all. Here again, it is a matter of how our allocations are going to run. We debated the Dodd amendment earlier today about afterschool programs--again, a good program. There is a question about the amount of money and where the priorities are. We debated the Kennedy amendment about teacher recruitment--another good program. We had to turn down amendments yesterday by Senator Wellstone who wanted more money for title I; Senator Bingaman, also more money for title I; Senator Murray asked for an additional $325 million on top of $1.4 billion which was supplied for class size. There is no doubt that so many of these programs are excellent programs. The Senator from Massachusetts in offering this amendment noted the constraints we are operating under with respect to how much money we have in our allocation. We have established priorities. We have greatly increased the education account by some $4.6 billion. That is a tremendous increase, coming to a total of $40.2 billion. In our education account, we have $100 million more than the President asked for. I have already today gone over a long list of items where we have increased funding on education on very important items. It is a matter of making the appropriate allocation and the setting of priorities. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts that the House of Representatives has established a mark of $517 million in this account. It is entirely plausible that the figure that is in the Senate bill will be substantially increased. We will certainly keep in mind the eloquence of Senator Kerry's arguments. There is no doubt about technology and about the need for more funding in technology. I believe that a country with an $8 trillion gross national product can do better on education. I said earlier today and have said many times on this floor that I am committed to education, coming from a family which emphasizes education so heavily, my parents having very little education and my siblings and I being able to succeed--I guess you would call it success to come to the Senate--because of our educational opportunities. That is the essence of our position. We have substantially more time. I inquire of the Chair: How much time remains? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 26 minutes remaining. The Senator from Massachusetts has 8 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could direct a question to the manager of the bill, it is my understanding Senator Wellstone will offer one of his amendments next. Mr. SPECTER. That is fine. Mr. REID. I will also have Senator Wellstone agree to a time limit. Mr. SPECTER. Speaking of the time limit with Senator Wellstone on the floor, may we agree to 30 minutes equally divided, 20 minutes equally divided, 15 minutes equally divided? How much time does Senator Wellstone desire? Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I did not hear the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I suggested a time agreement of 30 minutes equally divided, perhaps 20 minutes equally divided. Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Pennsylvania, my guess is it will take me about 40 minutes on my side. I prefer not to agree to a time limit. I don't think I will go more than that. Mr. SPECTER. Would the Senator from Minnesota be willing to enter a time agreement of an hour, 40 minutes for the Senator from Minnesota, and 20 minutes for our side? Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to do so. Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent the time be set on the Wellstone amendment at 1 hour, with the Senator from Minnesota having 40 minutes and our side having 20 minutes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the vote. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. If the Senator from Pennsylvania wants to yield back time, I am prepared to do the same. I want to reserve one comment. I appreciate everything the Senator has said. I appreciate his comments. I know he wants to do more. Unless we in the Senate tackle this beast called the allocation process, and unless we begin to challenge the constraints within which we are now dealing, we are not doing our job. These votes are an opportunity to try to do that. My plea is to the Senator, the Appropriations Committee, and others, that we begin to try to change these shackles that are keeping us from responding to the real needs of the country. The measurement should not be what we are doing against a baseline set by us. The measurement should be, what will it take to guarantee we can turn to Americans and say we are addressing the problem, we are getting the job done. We need to close that gap. I am happy to yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the vote on the Kerry amendment be deferred, to be stacked later today at a time to be mutually agreed upon by our respective leaders. I raise a point of order under section 302(f) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Kerry amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocations under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget, and is not in order. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive the applicable section of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. KERRY. I thank my colleague. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Amendment No. 3644 (Purpose: To provide funds for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program, with an offset) Mr. WELLSTONE. I call up amendment 3644. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] proposes an amendment numbered 3644. Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 71, after line 25, add the following: Sec. ____. (a) In addition to any amounts appropriated under this title for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program under section 428K of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1078-11), an additional $10,000,000 is appropriated to carry out such program. (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, amounts made available under titles I and II, and this title, for salaries and expenses at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, respectively, shall be reduced on a pro rata basis by $10,000,000. [[Page S5958]] Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer a very simple amendment. This amendment asks only that we appropriate an additional $10 million to fund the loan forgiveness program which was authorized under the Higher Education Act. This is a loan forgiveness program for women and men who go into child care work. This would be taken from administrative expenses in the overall budget. Despite the fact that we know that child care workers struggle to pay back their student loans, and that all too many of them earn poverty- level wages without benefits, which means in turn that many of them are forced to leave their work for higher paid work, we have yet to appropriate one penny for this forgiveness program. I originally offered this amendment calling for loan forgiveness for those men and women who go into the child care field with Senator DeWine. My thought was this is sacred work. This is important work. This is work with small children. If people are going to be paid miserably low wages--many having no health care benefits at all, and we understand the importance of early childhood development--then let's at least have a loan forgiveness that will encourage men and women to go into this area. Right now the child care situation in the United States is critical. We have a system in place where child care is prohibitively high for working families. It is not uncommon for a family to be paying $6,000 per child, $12,000 per year, $10,000 per year. Maybe the family's overall income is $35,000 or $40,000. At the same time, we have child care workers who are taking care of children during the most critical years of development and they don't even make poverty wages. It seems counterintuitive. How can it be that on the one hand child care is so expensive, but on the other hand those men and women who work in this field are so underpaid? The problems of the high costs and the low wages are inevitable under the current system of child care delivery in the United States. Colleagues, this amendment is just one vote, but this is a central issue of American politics. Talk to working families in this country and they will list child care as one of their top concerns. They are not just talking about the cost of child care, but they are also saying when both parents work, or as a single parent working, they worry most of all that their child is receiving the best care--not custodial, not in front of a television for 8 hours, but developmental care. On a personal note, I can remember as a student at the University of North Carolina, barely age 20, Sheila and I had our first child. I will never forget, 6 weeks after David was born, Sheila had to go back to work. That is all the time she could take off. Six weeks is not enough time to bond with a child. We had hardly any money. We asked around and we heard about a woman who took care of children. We took David over. After about 3 days of picking him up, every day he was listless. Before he had gone to this child care, this home child care setting, he was engaged and lively. It was wonderful. I was at school, I was working; Sheila was working. At 5 o'clock or 5:30 we would come to pick him up and he was listless. Finally, after 3 days I got concerned and I showed up at her home in the middle of the day. The problem was she had about 20 children she was trying to take care of. Most of them were in playpens and she had stuck a pacifier in their mouth and they were receiving no real care. There was no real interaction. Parents worry about this. I argue today on the floor of the Senate, one of the keys to making sure there is decent developmental child care--not custodial child care--is to have men and women working in this field being paid a decent wage. Right now, we have a 40-percent turnover in this field. Who pays the price? The children. I have said on the Senate floor before, when I was teaching at Carleton College as a college teacher for 20 years, I had conversations with students who came to me and said: Look, don't take it personally. We think you are a good teacher, Paul, and we really appreciate your work as a teacher. But we would like to go into early childhood development. The problem is, when you make $8 an hour, with no health care benefits, and you have a huge student loan to pay off, especially at a college like Carleton, you can't afford to do it. Some of the people want to go into this field, which we say is so important, but they can't afford to do it. The least we could do is have a small loan forgiveness program. The result of the system we have right now is poverty-level earnings for the workforce. By the way, who are the child care providers in the country today? Mr. President, 98 percent of them are women, and one-third of them are women of color. We can do a lot better. We pay parking lot attendants and men and women who work at the zoos in America twice as much as we pay those men and women who take care of our small children. Something is profoundly wrong when we pay people who care for our cars and our pets more money than we do for those who care for our children. Let me go over the facts. The average teacher based at a child care center earns roughly $7 an hour. Despite above average levels of education, roughly one-third of the child care workers earn the minimum wage. Even those at the highest end of the pay scale, who are likely to have a college degree and several years of experience, make about $10 an hour. Family child care providers--a lot of child care is in homes-- make even less money. People who care for small groups of children in their home make on average about $9,000 per year after all expenses are figured in. A recent study by the Center For The Childcare Workforce finds that family child care providers earn on the average, when you take into account their costs, $3.84 an hour, given their typical 55-hour week. Not only that, but the majority of child care workers in our country receive no health benefits, despite high exposure to illness. A lot of kids, when they come, have the flu and they pass it around. Fewer than one-third of the child care providers in this country today have health insurance, and an even smaller percentage of child care workers have any pension plan whatsoever. A recent study in my State of Minnesota found that only 31 percent of child care centers offered full-time employees fully paid health care. The consequences of these dismal conditions are clear. Let me just put it into perspective for colleagues. In the White House Conference on the Development of the Brain, they talked about how important it is that we get it right for children in the very early years of their lives. The medical evidence is irrefutable and irreducible that these are the most critical years. We all want to have our pictures taken next to children --the smaller the children are, the better. Yet at the same time we have done so precious little to make a commitment to this area. We have child care workers, men and women who work in these centers, who do not even make half of what people make who work in our zoos. I think work in the zoo is important, but I also think work with small children is important. We have the vast majority of child care workers barely making minimum wage or a little bit above, only about a third at best having any health care coverage whatsoever. Senator DeWine and I, several years ago, help pass a bill that authorized some loan forgiveness so you would have men and women who could go to college, with the idea they would go into this critically important field and their loans would be forgiven. What I am trying to do, taking it out of administrative expenses, is just finally to get a little bit of appropriation; start out with $10 million so we finally set the precedent that we are willing to fund this. We have not put one penny into this program so far. What happens is that we have this high turnover. As I said before, probably about 40 percent or thereabouts of child care workers in any given year go from one job to another. That figure may be a little high, but it is a huge turnover. Who pays the price? The children pay the price. As I look at my own figures, I guess it is about a third, a third of this country's child care workforce leaves the job each year because they are looking for better work. This leads to a dangerous decline in the quality of child care for our families. The most dangerous decline in quality is the care for toddlers, for infants. [[Page S5959]] They are exposed to the poorest care of all. We have not appropriated one cent for the loan forgiveness program we authorized 2 years ago, and at the same time you have 33 percent of child care workers every year leaving, and you don't have the continuity of care for our children, for families in this country. At the same time, it is the infants and the toddlers who are the ones who are most in jeopardy. At the same time, we have not made any commitment whatsoever to at least--at least, this doesn't change everything in the equation--make sure we have a loan forgiveness program. Another thing that is happening is that as we begin to see a severe teacher shortage, a lot of child care workers are saying that they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits. A lot of younger people say they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits and a big loan to pay off. They now become our elementary school teachers or middle school teachers. As a result, what you have is, at the same time the number of child care providers is decreasing, the number of families who need good child care for their children is dramatically increasing. That is not just because of the welfare bill, but because the reality of American families today, for better or for worse--sometimes I wonder--is that you just don't have one parent staying at home. In most families, both parents are working full time. This is a huge concern to families in this country. We could help by passing this amendment. I want to talk about one study in particular that I think, in a dramatic way, puts into focus what I am talking about. It was a recent study by the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University. They found that a million more toddlers and preschoolers are now in child care because of the welfare law. That wouldn't surprise anyone, given the emphasis on people going to work. So far, so good. But they also found that many of these children are in low-quality care, where they lag behind other children in developmental measures. This was a study of 1,000 single mothers moving from welfare to work. They wanted to know where were their children. What they found out was their children were, by and large, placed in child care settings where they watched TV all the time, wandered aimlessly, and there was little interaction with caregivers. Here is the tragedy of it. Many of these toddlers from these families showed developmental delays. Would anybody be surprised? Anyone who has spent any time with small children would not be surprised. When asked to point to a picture of a book from among three different pictures, fewer than two in five of the toddlers in the study pointed to the right picture compared to a national norm of four out of five children. One of the study's authors is quoted as saying: We know that high quality child care can help children and that poor children can benefit the most. So we hope that this will be a wake-up call to do something about the quality of child care in this country. The quality of daycare centers is not great for middle class families, but it is surprising and distressing to see the extent to which welfare families' quality was even lower. I simply want to point out that just because a family is a welfare family or just because a family is a poor family does not mean these small children are not as deserving of good child care. That is not the situation today in the country. Ironically, as we see the child care system deteriorating, we are now putting more and more emphasis on the importance of developmental child care. We are saying at the same time that we want to make sure single parents work and families move from welfare to work. We are putting the emphasis on work, and more families have to work to make it. The median income in our country today is about $40,000 a year. The income profile is not that high. We know investment in early childhood development pays for itself many times over. We know good child care programs dramatically increase the chances for children to do well in school, for children to go on beyond K-12 and go to college and do well in their lives, and we know the lives of low-income families, in particular, quite often lack some of the advantages other families in this country have. Children from low-income families do not always have the same vocabulary; there is not always the opportunity for a parent or parents to read to them. Therefore, the learning gap by kindergarten is wide. Some children start way behind, and then they fall further behind. I cite one study which began in the seventies on the effects of early childhood intervention. Children who received comprehensive, quality, early education did better on cognitive, reading and math tests than children who did not. This positive effect continues through age 21 and beyond. Parents benefit as well. I do not understand where our priorities are. We should want to make a commitment to working families in this country and make a commitment to children. I want to give some evidence from the State of Minnesota, and then I will finish up at least with my first comments. This loan forgiveness program works. First, it gives people an opportunity to go to college who want to become child care workers. Second, the turnover is reduced. Third, this means we get better people. My own State of Minnesota has experimented. We have a State level loan forgiveness program. In 1998, we offered child care providers up to $1,500 in forgivable student loans for the first time. Fifty percent of the money was set aside for what we call the metro area, and 50 percent of the money was set aside for greater Minnesota, outside the metro area. The money was awarded on a first come, first served basis. People began lining up on the first day. In the metro area, all the money was gone by 5 p.m. on the second day, and all of the money for rural Minnesota was awarded within 2 weeks. This year, Minnesota has made over $900,000 available through their loan forgiveness program. They started accepting applications in March, and they have committed nearly half the money to family care providers and 50 percent to center-based providers. A lot of it goes to rural Minnesota and a lot of it goes to urban Minnesota. I am saying to my colleagues, I am hoping I can win on this amendment. I take it out of administrative expenses. We know the budget is going to be better for this Health and Human Services bill. We know we do not have a good budget with which to work right now. We know the cap is going to go up. We know we are going to have more resources with which to work. We all say we are committed to developmental child care. It is one of the top issues of working families. It seems to me several years ago--I did this with Senator DeWine--we authorized legislation that called for loan forgiveness to men and women who want to go into this critical area, and we have not appropriated one penny. We can at least find it in our hearts and find our way to put some appropriations into this legislation. I am calling for $10 million as a start. I am saying to Senators today--and I do not think anybody can argue with me--there is not one Senator who can dispute the clear set of facts that we have to get it right for children. We have to get it right for them before age 3, much less before age 5. Nobody can argue with that. Nobody can argue these are not critical developmental years. Look at the spark in their eyes. They are experiencing all the unnamed magic in the world before them, as long as we encourage them. No one can argue that for working families this is not a huge issue, both the expense of child care, which I cannot deal with in this amendment, and the quality of the care for their children. If both parents are working or a single parent is working, there is nothing more important to them than making sure their child is receiving the best care. They do not want their child warehoused. They do not want their child in front of a television 8 hours a day. They want to make sure their child is stimulated. They want to make sure there is nurturing for their child. They want to make sure there is interaction with their child. I do not know how some of the people who work in the child care field do it. They are saints; they do it out of love for children; but they should not be the ones who subsidize this system. We are not going to have good people in the child care field if they are making $8 an hour. We are not going to have good people if they do not have any health [[Page S5960]] care benefits. I cannot deal with that in this amendment, but I can deal with one thing. I can call on my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, who say they are committed to good child care, who say they are committed to family values. If they are committed to family values, what better way to value families than to make sure that when people are working, their children are receiving good care? What better way to make sure that happens than to do something about the one-third turnover every year? How can we best deal with the one-third turnover? We need to do a lot of things, but this amendment in its own small way helps. I am simply saying we ought to at least put $10 million into this loan forgiveness program so we can encourage men and women--frankly, I would like to see more men in this field; it is almost all women in this field. At least they know their loan will be forgiven. That will make a huge difference. That is all this amendment is about. I also say to my colleagues, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator DeWine. I am so pleased Senator DeWine is a cosponsor. I have done a number of different bills and legislation with Senator DeWine. We did the Workforce Investment Act together, and we did this authorization together. I do not think we are asking too much. This is actually a crisis. The fact is, the studies that have come out about the quality of child care in this country are pretty frightening. Sometimes it is downright dangerous, but almost always it is barely adequate, and we have to do something about it. One of the best ways we can show we care is to at least begin putting some funding into this loan forgiveness program. I reserve the remainder of my time if, in fact, there is substantive debate on this issue. Otherwise, I will make a few other points. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time on the amendment? The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of the committee, we are prepared to accept this Wellstone amendment which provides $10 million for loan forgiveness for child care providers. The program was authorized by the Higher Education Amendment of 1998 and has never been funded. The administration did not request funding, I might add. A $10 million offset in administrative expenses will pay for this amendment. If the Senator is agreeable, I will accept the amendment to forgive loans for child care providers who complete a degree in early childhood education and obtain employment in a child care facility located in low-income communities. That is acceptable to us. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alaska. And if this is not presumptuous of me to say, normally I like to call for a recorded vote, but I would be pleased to have a voice vote, if that is what my colleague wants. And there is one reason why. I can't get an ironclad commitment from the Senator from Alaska, but I make a plea to him to please try to help me keep it in conference. It would be a small step toward getting funding for this. I know the Senator is very effective. I don't need to have a recorded vote if he can at least tell me he will certainly try. Mr. STEVENS. The Senator does not need a recorded vote. This amendment probably applies to my State more than any other State in the Union. I assure him I will be asserting his position in conference. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am very glad to hear that. I think I would be pleased to go forward with a voice vote. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we ask for the adoption of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Do both Senators yield back their time? Mr. STEVENS. I yield back our time. Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield back my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 3644) was agreed to. Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. WELLSTONE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are awaiting clearance--I understand there is a Kennedy amendment on job training. We would like to get a time agreement on that. I would urge that we consider that at this time. Does the Senator wish the floor? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada. Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to the manager, the chairman of the full committee, Senator Stevens, we would like to have Senator Reed of Rhode Island offer the next amendment. He is on his way over to do that. Mr. STEVENS. Is it possible to get a time agreement on that? Mr. REID. Yes, it is. Mr. STEVENS. We would like to get time agreements so it would be possible to stack votes later, if that is possible. Is the Senator prepared to indicate how long it might be? Mr. REID. We will wait until he gets here, but I don't think he will take a lot of time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, might I ask my colleagues, there is some order here. There is going to be a Reed amendment--is that correct?--next, and then a Kennedy amendment. I have an amendment with Senator Reid that deals with mental health and suicide prevention. Might I add that I follow Senator Kennedy? I am ready to keep rolling. Mr. STEVENS. I am not prepared to agree to that yet. We are not sure Senator Kennedy wants to offer his amendment yet. We are prepared to enter into a time agreement on the Kennedy amendment. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I might state for the information of the Senate, we are trying to arrange amendments from each side of the aisle. We urge Members on the Republican side of the aisle to come forward with amendments if they wish to call them up today. For the time being, I ask unanimous consent that on the amendment offered by Senator Reed of Rhode Island there be a time limit of 30 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote on or in relation to that amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. We presume that there may be a Republican amendment offered after the Reed amendment. But in any event, the next Democratic amendment to be offered would be that of Senator Kennedy, his job training amendment, and prior to that vote, there would be--let's put it this way, that time on that amendment be limited to 60 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote. It is my understanding there would be 2 minutes on each side. Is that the procedure now prior to the vote? Is that correct, may I inquire? Is that your desire? Mr. REID. That is appropriate. Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that on each of these consents there be a 4-minute period prior to the vote to be equally divided. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. WELLSTONE. Can I ask my colleague in that sequence, that following Senator Kennedy there be a Republican and then I be allowed-- -- Mr. STEVENS. It is my understanding the third Democratic amendment to be offered would be the amendment from Senator Wellstone. We are awaiting the Republican amendments to see. But it will be the Reed amendment, then a Republican amendment, then the Kennedy amendment, then a Republican amendment, and then the Wellstone amendment. [[Page S5961]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. REID. Senator Wellstone has agreed to 1 hour evenly divided. Mr. STEVENS. I don't know what the subject matter is. Mr. REID. Mental health. Mr. WELLSTONE. Suicides. Mr. REID. It deals with suicides. Mr. STEVENS. We haven't seen it, but we will be pleased to consider an hour on that amendment and get back to the Senator. Mr. REID. If you need more time, we don't care. If you decide you do, we will add it on to ours. Mr. STEVENS. Let's decide the time on that amendment once we have seen it. Mr. President, while we are awaiting the next amendment, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). Without objection, it is so ordered. Amendment No. 3638 (Purpose: To provide funds for the GEAR UP Program) Mr. REED. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 3638, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed], for himself, Mr. Kennedy, and Mrs. Murray, proposes an amendment numbered 3638. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: SEC. . GEAR UP PROGRAM. In addition to any other funds appropriated under this Act to carry out chapter 2 of subpart 2 of part A of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, there are appropriated $100,000,000. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. REED. Mr. President, this amendment would increase funding for GEAR UP by $100 million. GEAR UP is a critical component of our efforts to provide disadvantaged young people a chance to go on to college. GEAR UP reaches out very early in their educational careers, giving them the mentoring, the support, and the information necessary to succeed, not only in high school but to go beyond, to enter and complete college. I offer this amendment along with Senator Kennedy and Senator Murray. We are offering it because we believe--as I am sure everyone in the Chamber believes--that the opportunity to go on to postsecondary education is central to our country and central to our aspirations in the Senate. This opportunity is particularly difficult to achieve if one is a low-income student in the United States. The GEAR UP program is specifically designed to reach out early in the career of a child, the sixth or seventh grade, and give them not only the skills but the confidence and the expectation that they can succeed and can go on to college. Both these skills and information, together with the confidence that they can succeed, are essential to their progress and to our progress as a Nation. GEAR UP is based upon proven early intervention models such as the I Have a Dream Program and Project GRAD. These programs have succeeded in improving low-income student achievement, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment rates. We are building on a successful set of models. GEAR UP provides students with very specific services tailored to help them prepare for college. These services include tutoring, mentoring, and counseling. They are critical to ensure that students are equipped both academically and emotionally to succeed in college. We often hear about the lack of opportunities available to low-income families. This is particularly the case when we talk about entering and succeeding in college. Low-income children are the least likely individuals in the United States to attend college. In fact, if we look at high-achieving students from low-income schools and backgrounds, they are five times less likely to attend college as comparable students in higher-income schools across this country. By focusing on college preparation for these needy students, GEAR UP is directly targeted at eliminating this disparity. There is something else that is important about GEAR UP. There are many talented young people who, if they are the first child in their family to seriously contemplate college, do not have the advantage of parents who are knowledgeable about the system. Their parents often do not have the information and the incentives to provide the kind of support and assistance these young people need. That, too, must be addressed, and GEAR UP does that. In fact, GEAR UP addresses the needs not only of students but also of parents. In a recent survey, 70 percent of parents indicated they have very little information or they want more information about which courses their child should take to prepare for college. Eighty-nine percent of parents wanted more information about how to pay for college. This information disparity is particularly acute in low-income areas. Again, GEAR UP provides that type of information and assistance. It is well documented that continuous programs that are integrated into the daily school life of a child are the best types of programs to provide for successful outcomes. That is exactly what GEAR UP does. It starts early in a career, sixth and seventh grade, follows the child through their middle school years and into high school, and is integrated with other subjects so there is both continuous support and an integrated approach to preparing a child for college. GEAR UP does this through partnerships and collaborations among State departments of education, high-poverty school districts, institutions of higher education, businesses, and other private or non-profit community organizations. GEAR UP is a college preparatory program, a Federal program that focuses on children in early grades. As such, the existence of other programs such as TRIO does not eliminate the need to fully fund GEAR UP. We have to recognize that we have not only the responsibility but also an opportunity to fully fund the GEAR UP program. I commend Senator Harkin and Senator Specter. They have dealt with a variety of educational issues in a budget that constrains their choices--indeed, their desires--significantly. They have done remarkable work, including funding for the LEAP program, which provides low-income students with funds to go to college. But if you don't have the first piece, if you don't have a GEAR UP program that gives students the skills, the confidence, the insights to get into college, Pell grants and LEAP grants are irrelevant because these deserving young students won't even be in the mix. GEAR UP is important. It is fundamental. The budget that Senators Specter and Harkin were dealing with did not give them the full range of choices they needed to ensure they could fund these important priorities. That is why we are here today, to provide a total of $325 million for GEAR UP, an increase of $100 million over what is in this current appropriations bill. If we do this, it will allow every State to have a GEAR UP program. As a result of the additional $100 million, GEAR UP

Major Actions:

All articles in Senate section

THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued
(Senate - June 28, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S5954-S5994] THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a vote on or in relation to the Dodd amendment not take place at the conclusion of argument; that it be stacked later this afternoon at a time to be mutually agreed upon after consulting with the leaders on both sides. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is not too much need for me to respond to the Senator from Connecticut. I think he has already stated my position in toto. I do think this afterschool program, which he has proposed to add to, is a worthwhile program. But it is beyond the limits with which our subcommittee has to work. He is correct that I will make a motion that it exceeds the allocation to our committee at the appropriate time. Afterschool is very important. It is sort of a twin brother to day care. Last year, I agreed with the Senator from Connecticut to scrimp and save and use a sharp pencil to find $817 million more to bring day care up to $2 billion, which we did. I thought that kind of an allocation might have satisfied the Senator from Connecticut for a year. But it has not. So we will have to face this when it comes along. He said to me: That is day care. I said: Day care is very important. Bringing it up by more than $800 million to $2 billion was a tough job, Senator Dodd. I called him Chris at the time. We thought that being a twin brother to afterschool, we might have avoided an amendment. Mr. DODD. If my colleague will yield. Mr. SPECTER. I will be glad to yield. Mr. DODD. I was as complimentary as I could be. But I will be even more complimentary. I am deeply grateful to the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. It is very tough being the manager of a bill that funds the Department of Education because there is no priority higher than education. The only one on a level with it is health care. And we have the funding coming out of the same pool of money. We made the allocations as best we could. I know of the devotion of the Senator from Connecticut to this cause. He and I were elected at the same time. He withstood the Reagan landslide in 1980 to be one of two Democrats elected to open seats, when 16 Republicans came in. And he and I cochaired the Children's Caucus at that time. In 1987, when he proposed family leave, I was his cosponsor, with a lot of turmoil just on this side of the aisle. We have worked together over the years for education and for children. I commend him for all that he has done. We have added to education some $4.6 billion. We are $100 million more than the President in education this year. We have increased funding tremendously for children and young people in America. The Head Start Program comes, curiously enough, under the Department of Health and Human Services. There is an increase this year of $1 billion to Head Start, coming up to $6.2 billion. We have increased special education by $1.3 billion, bringing it up to $7.3 billion. We have increased innovative State grants by $2.7 billion for more teachers, class size, and for school construction, with the proviso that it is limited. It is up to the local school district if they decide to do something else with it. When it comes to the program the Senator from Connecticut is talking about, the 21st Century Learning Centers, we have added $146.6 million to bring the figure up to $600 million. In fiscal year 1999, it was $200 million. So we are moving right along on it to provide the maximum amount of money we can. It is not an easy matter to allocate $104.5 billion--as much money as that is--for the National Institutes of Health and for drug programs and for school violence programs. We have done the best job we could. It is with reluctance that I raise a point of order. How much time remains, Mr. President? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator has 9 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. I have made the essential arguments which are relevant. In the interest of moving the bill along and saving time, I make a point of order under section 302(b) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Dodd amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget and is not in order. Mr. DODD. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as previously agreed to by unanimous consent, the vote will be delayed to a time agreed upon by the leaders later today. I yield back the remainder of my time so we may proceed with the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts is recognized. [[Page S5955]] Amendment No. 3659 (Purpose: To increase funding for the technology literacy challenge fund) Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3659 and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry], proposes an amendment numbered 3659. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: Sec. . Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the total amount made available under this title to carry out the technology literacy challenge fund under section 3132 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 shall be $517,000,000. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time on the Kerry amendment be 1 hour equally divided. We have already talked about this. I understand there is agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Bingaman and Mikulski be added as original cosponsors of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me pick up, if I may, on the comments made by the Senator from Connecticut. There is a relationship between these amendments that are proposed by Senator Kennedy, Senator Bingaman, Senator Dodd, and myself. They are made with great respect for the leadership of the appropriations subcommittee. I share the feelings expressed by Senator Dodd that they are working within the constraints that have been imposed on them by the Congress in a sense through the budgeting process. What we are asking of our colleagues is to begin a process by which we more accurately reflect the truth of the budgeting process and the choices we as Senators face. The fact is, we have the ability to provide 60 votes to waive and to proceed to make a statement as the Senate that we believe a specific priority is significant enough that we ought to depart from the constraints. The constraints under which we are operating, that were very properly and articulately listed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, are restraints imposed by a Budget Act and by allocations that do not reflect the reality of the budget choice we face as a country because of the level of surplus. Since those allocations were made, we have in fact learned that we have a significant amount of additional funds available to us to begin to choose how we will reflect the priorities of our Nation. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, a lot of us on this side of the aisle joined with them to put in place the fiscal discipline we all laud and believe is appropriate. It was a 1993 vote, in fact, that put in place the Deficit Reduction Act. Many of us are pleased that we finally were able to set this country on a course where we now have the current surpluses. We have to start to be smart about what kind of choices we are going to make. I keep hearing colleagues on both sides of the aisle come to the floor. They lament what is happening to children in America. They lament what is happening with respect to young people who are increasingly feeding into the juvenile justice system of the Nation. We hear the cries of anguish about children having children out of wedlock, about the failure of marriage in this country. But we don't seem to connect our legislative actions to things that really might make a difference in the lives of young people so they will choose a more moral, traditional, affirmative course for their own life. How do kids make those kinds of choices? Traditionally, in the America we always hear Members talking about, we have family, which is the best teacher of all, the most important connection of a child to their future. We have schools and teachers. History in America is replete with great personalities who harken back to a particular teacher who affected their life. We hear less and less of those stories in modern America. Finally, there is organized religion. Organized religion is the other great teaching entity. Not one that we are supposed to, in this body, specifically legislate about, but it is proper to acknowledge the role that religion plays as one of those three great teachers in the lives of children. The truth is, in America today we have an awful lot of young children who don't have contact with any one of those three teachers, not one. Their teachers are the streets. Colin Powell talks about it in his America's Promise, which appeals to people to make a voluntary commitment to try to intervene in the lives of some of those children and replace the absence of those three great teachers. What kids learn in the streets is not the real values of America; it is what I call ``coping skills.'' They learn how to get by. They learn how to survive. They learn the sort of ``law of the jungle,'' as some used to call it. The fact is, we are not doing enough, we Senators are not doing enough, to leverage those things that make a difference in the absence of the three great teachers. I ask any one of my colleagues: How do we break the cycle of a kid having a kid out of wedlock? How do we break the cycle of a child raised in an abusive household, whose role models in life are people who beat up on each other, shoot drugs, get into trouble, such as the role models for that 6-year-old kid who shot a 6-year-old classmate living in a crack house with an uncle, a parent in jail, no one responsible? What is that child's future, unless adults make the decision to somehow provide those positive forces that make a difference? What are the positive forces? Well, the positive forces are often some of the faith-based interventions, whether it is the Jewish Community Center or a Baptist organization or the Catholic Charities; but there are those entities out there that have a wonderful, extraordinary capacity to bring kids back from the brink. And then there are those organized entities that also do it, such as the Boys and Girls Club; Big Brother/ Big Sister; YMCA and YWCA; or a program in Boston called Youth Build, or City Year. All of these provide young people with alternatives and the ability to have surrogate parenting, fundamentally. That is what is really taking place. What is really taking place is those entities is providing an alternative. Now, we will debate in the Senate whether or not we are going to provide 200,000 H-1B visas. I am for it. I think we ought to provide that, or more, because we have an immediate need in this country to provide skilled people in order to keep the economic boom going and provide for critical technologies, to have good working people. But has it not occurred to my colleagues what an insult it is to our own system that we have to go abroad and import skilled labor to the United States, even as we are putting thousands of young kids into prison, into the juvenile justice system, and out into the streets, as the Senator from Connecticut just said, because we don't have afterschool programs? What are we going to do? We are going to import 200,000 skilled people to make up for the unskilled people whom we leave unskilled because we are unwilling to make the adult choices in the Senate that would make a difference in their lives. How can we boast about the extraordinary surplus we have in this country, with the stock market climbing to record levels, the most extraordinary amounts of wealth ever created in the history of any nation on the planet right here in the United States, but poverty among children has increased by 50 percent and the number of kids who are at risk has increased. I don't believe in the Federal Government taking over these programs. I don't believe in Washington dictating the solutions. But I do believe in Washington leveraging the capacity of people at the local level to be able to do what they know they need to do. So we are reduced to a debate where the Senator from Pennsylvania has to say, well, oh, my gosh, under our 201(b) allocation--or whatever the appropriate section is--we don't have enough money to be able to allocate because we have a total cap that has no relationship to the reality of what we must do. We keep saying, isn't it terrific that we have raised the amount of money--and it is terrific--when the real question is, are we doing what we need to do to get the job done? That is the question we ought to be asking. What is it going to take to guarantee that children in the United States of [[Page S5956]] America are safe? What does it take to guarantee that we don't dump 5 million kids out into the streets in the afternoons, unsafe, and exposed to drug dealers and to all of the vagaries of the teenage years and all of the pressures that come with it in a modern society that doesn't have parents around to be able to help those kids make a better choice? We don't have to do that. We ought to make it the goal of the Senate to guarantee that every child in America is going to be safe and secure between the hours when teachers stop teaching and when those parents are coming home. And we can ask 100,000 questions about why it is we are not providing arts and music and sports and libraries that are open full-time, and Internet access. That is where my amendment comes in, Mr. President. Senator Kennedy has an amendment on teacher quality, which is linked to the capacity of kids to fill those high tech jobs that we talk about. Senator Dodd has an amendment talking about making those kids safe after school. My amendment seeks to increase the funding for the technology literacy challenge fund, which is a critically important education program that helps provide technology access, education, professional development, and instruction in elementary and secondary schools. All we say is that to qualify for the money, States have to submit a statewide technology plan that includes a strategy on how the States will include private, State, local, and other entities in the continued financing and support of technology in schools. There are two points that I can't stress enough. One is the importance of providing young people with the opportunity to learn how to use technology. I am not one of those people. I don't want to celebrate technology to the point of it being put up on a pedestal and it becomes an entity unto itself. Technology is not a god; it is not a philosophy; it is not a way of life. Technology is a tool, a useful tool. It is a critical tool for the modern marketplace and the modern world. But we are preordaining that we are going to have to have next year's H-1B plan, and the next year's H-1B plan, and another prison, and another program to deal with a whole lot of young kids for whom the digital divide becomes more and more real, who don't have accessability or the capacity to be able to gain the skills necessary to share in this new world. The fact is that there are too many teachers who don't have the ability to even teach; we have the schools wired; we have the e-rate. We are beginning to get increased access to the Internet. But what do you do with it? How many teachers know how to use the technology to really be able to educate kids? How many kids are, in fact, having the benefit of the opportunity of having teachers who have those skills so that they can ultimately maximize their opportunities? All we are suggesting is that we ought to be doing more to empower-- not to mandate, not to dictate, but to empower--those local communities that desperately want to do this but don't have the tax base to be able to do it. Let's give them that ability. That is the best role the Federal Government can play--to leverage things that represent national priorities, leverage the things that represent the best goals and aspirations of ourselves as a Nation. It is not micromanagement; it is, rather, putting in place a mechanism by which we have national priorities--to have good, strong families, to have kids who are computer literate, and to have more skilled workers. Those are national priorities. But if we turn our heads away and say the only priority in this country is to sort of sequester this money for the senior generation in one form or another, without any regard to the generation that is coming along that needs to fund Social Security, that needs to have a high value-added job so they can pay into it and adequately protect it, that is not Social Security protection. We have gone from 13 workers paying in for every 1 that is taking out--13 workers paying into the system for every 1 worker taking out-- to three paying in and one taking out. Now there are two paying in and one taking out. We have a vested interest as a nation in making sure those two paying in are capable of paying in; that they have a high value-added job that empowers them to pay in; when they pay in, it doesn't take so much of their income that they feel so oppressed by the system that they are not able to invest in their own children and in their own future. That is in our interest. That is a national priority. If we don't begin in the Senate tomorrow to adequately reflect the needs of our children in the money that we allocate, we will be seriously missing one of the greatest priorities the country faces. All of us understand the degree to which there is an increase in the digital divide of the country. The technology literacy challenge fund is a critical effort to try to provide those kids with an opportunity to close that gap. Last year, my home State of Massachusetts received $8.1 million. Some of the programs it put in place are quite extraordinary. Let me share with my colleagues one of the examples of this program that works so effectively. It is called the Lighthouse Technology Grant. The Lighthouse Technology Grant incorporates new technologies into the State curriculum framework so that it better motivates children to be able to learn. One of the schools in my State--the Lynn Woods Elementary School in Lynn--is integrating technology into the classroom by virtue of this grant. Fifth grade students at the Lynn Woods school are studying Australia. They have been able to videoconference directly with Australian students who are studying the Boston area. You have students engaging in a very personal and direct way, all of which encourages their learning and enhances their interest in the topic. They have also developed writing skills through special e-mail pen pal programs with Australian students. In addition, they have been able to connect more directly with the experience of life, thereby asking very direct questions and engaging in a personal exchange that they never could have experienced before because of telephone rates and because of the difficulties of communication under any kind of telephone circumstance. The Lighthouse Technology Grant is only one of eight programs funded by this challenge grant in Massachusetts. It also provides grants to a virtual high school program which enables school districts to offer students Internet courses ranging from advanced academic courses to technical and specialized courses. Let me emphasize the importance of that to my colleagues. A few weeks ago, I visited a high school in Boston, an inner-city high school, Dorchester High. I found that in this high school of almost 1,000 students in the inner city they are not able to provide advanced placement courses. I ask everybody here to imagine a high school that is supposed to be state of the art that doesn't have advanced placement courses. Yet, because of the virtual high school and because of the access to the Internet, if we close the digital divide, we can in fact make it affordable and accessible for schools that today have difficulty finding the teachers, affording the teachers, and providing the curriculum--and be able to do so immediately. That is the difference between somebody being able to go to college or being college ready or being able to go to college and advance rapidly in the kinds of curriculum and courses that will make even a greater difference in their earning capacity and in their citizen- contributing capacity at a later time. We need to recognize that unless we encourage this to happen, the transformation could take a lot longer than we want it to take. For example, it has taken only 7 years for the Internet to be adopted by 30 percent of Americans. That is compared to 17 years for television to be adopted by 38 percent, and for the telephone, 38 percent during the same amount of time. The world of work is obviously so much different and at a faster rate. But if we leave kids behind for a longer period of time, we will greatly restrain their learning capacity as well as our growth capacity as a country. The technology literacy challenge fund has been funded under the committee's mark at about $425 million. The administration actually asked for $450 million. The House has set a figure [[Page S5957]] of $517 million. I think that is more reflective of the level of funding that is necessary in order to achieve the kind of transition that we wish for in this country. Some might argue we could even do more. But it is clear to me that by measuring the priorities as expressed by other colleagues we can, in fact, do more if we will challenge the system a little bit, if we will push the limits a little bit, and if we will look at the reality of the budget choices that the Congress faces. I think nothing could be more important for all of us as Senators and as Congress this year. I hope my colleagues will embrace the notion that we can in fact do an appropriate waiver of the budget and set this as a priority of the Senate. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, here again, there is little doubt that technology literacy is a very important matter for America. There is no doubt about that at all. Here again, it is a matter of how our allocations are going to run. We debated the Dodd amendment earlier today about afterschool programs--again, a good program. There is a question about the amount of money and where the priorities are. We debated the Kennedy amendment about teacher recruitment--another good program. We had to turn down amendments yesterday by Senator Wellstone who wanted more money for title I; Senator Bingaman, also more money for title I; Senator Murray asked for an additional $325 million on top of $1.4 billion which was supplied for class size. There is no doubt that so many of these programs are excellent programs. The Senator from Massachusetts in offering this amendment noted the constraints we are operating under with respect to how much money we have in our allocation. We have established priorities. We have greatly increased the education account by some $4.6 billion. That is a tremendous increase, coming to a total of $40.2 billion. In our education account, we have $100 million more than the President asked for. I have already today gone over a long list of items where we have increased funding on education on very important items. It is a matter of making the appropriate allocation and the setting of priorities. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts that the House of Representatives has established a mark of $517 million in this account. It is entirely plausible that the figure that is in the Senate bill will be substantially increased. We will certainly keep in mind the eloquence of Senator Kerry's arguments. There is no doubt about technology and about the need for more funding in technology. I believe that a country with an $8 trillion gross national product can do better on education. I said earlier today and have said many times on this floor that I am committed to education, coming from a family which emphasizes education so heavily, my parents having very little education and my siblings and I being able to succeed--I guess you would call it success to come to the Senate--because of our educational opportunities. That is the essence of our position. We have substantially more time. I inquire of the Chair: How much time remains? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 26 minutes remaining. The Senator from Massachusetts has 8 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could direct a question to the manager of the bill, it is my understanding Senator Wellstone will offer one of his amendments next. Mr. SPECTER. That is fine. Mr. REID. I will also have Senator Wellstone agree to a time limit. Mr. SPECTER. Speaking of the time limit with Senator Wellstone on the floor, may we agree to 30 minutes equally divided, 20 minutes equally divided, 15 minutes equally divided? How much time does Senator Wellstone desire? Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I did not hear the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I suggested a time agreement of 30 minutes equally divided, perhaps 20 minutes equally divided. Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Pennsylvania, my guess is it will take me about 40 minutes on my side. I prefer not to agree to a time limit. I don't think I will go more than that. Mr. SPECTER. Would the Senator from Minnesota be willing to enter a time agreement of an hour, 40 minutes for the Senator from Minnesota, and 20 minutes for our side? Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to do so. Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent the time be set on the Wellstone amendment at 1 hour, with the Senator from Minnesota having 40 minutes and our side having 20 minutes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the vote. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. If the Senator from Pennsylvania wants to yield back time, I am prepared to do the same. I want to reserve one comment. I appreciate everything the Senator has said. I appreciate his comments. I know he wants to do more. Unless we in the Senate tackle this beast called the allocation process, and unless we begin to challenge the constraints within which we are now dealing, we are not doing our job. These votes are an opportunity to try to do that. My plea is to the Senator, the Appropriations Committee, and others, that we begin to try to change these shackles that are keeping us from responding to the real needs of the country. The measurement should not be what we are doing against a baseline set by us. The measurement should be, what will it take to guarantee we can turn to Americans and say we are addressing the problem, we are getting the job done. We need to close that gap. I am happy to yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the vote on the Kerry amendment be deferred, to be stacked later today at a time to be mutually agreed upon by our respective leaders. I raise a point of order under section 302(f) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Kerry amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocations under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget, and is not in order. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive the applicable section of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. KERRY. I thank my colleague. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Amendment No. 3644 (Purpose: To provide funds for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program, with an offset) Mr. WELLSTONE. I call up amendment 3644. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] proposes an amendment numbered 3644. Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 71, after line 25, add the following: Sec. ____. (a) In addition to any amounts appropriated under this title for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program under section 428K of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1078-11), an additional $10,000,000 is appropriated to carry out such program. (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, amounts made available under titles I and II, and this title, for salaries and expenses at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, respectively, shall be reduced on a pro rata basis by $10,000,000. [[Page S5958]] Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer a very simple amendment. This amendment asks only that we appropriate an additional $10 million to fund the loan forgiveness program which was authorized under the Higher Education Act. This is a loan forgiveness program for women and men who go into child care work. This would be taken from administrative expenses in the overall budget. Despite the fact that we know that child care workers struggle to pay back their student loans, and that all too many of them earn poverty- level wages without benefits, which means in turn that many of them are forced to leave their work for higher paid work, we have yet to appropriate one penny for this forgiveness program. I originally offered this amendment calling for loan forgiveness for those men and women who go into the child care field with Senator DeWine. My thought was this is sacred work. This is important work. This is work with small children. If people are going to be paid miserably low wages--many having no health care benefits at all, and we understand the importance of early childhood development--then let's at least have a loan forgiveness that will encourage men and women to go into this area. Right now the child care situation in the United States is critical. We have a system in place where child care is prohibitively high for working families. It is not uncommon for a family to be paying $6,000 per child, $12,000 per year, $10,000 per year. Maybe the family's overall income is $35,000 or $40,000. At the same time, we have child care workers who are taking care of children during the most critical years of development and they don't even make poverty wages. It seems counterintuitive. How can it be that on the one hand child care is so expensive, but on the other hand those men and women who work in this field are so underpaid? The problems of the high costs and the low wages are inevitable under the current system of child care delivery in the United States. Colleagues, this amendment is just one vote, but this is a central issue of American politics. Talk to working families in this country and they will list child care as one of their top concerns. They are not just talking about the cost of child care, but they are also saying when both parents work, or as a single parent working, they worry most of all that their child is receiving the best care--not custodial, not in front of a television for 8 hours, but developmental care. On a personal note, I can remember as a student at the University of North Carolina, barely age 20, Sheila and I had our first child. I will never forget, 6 weeks after David was born, Sheila had to go back to work. That is all the time she could take off. Six weeks is not enough time to bond with a child. We had hardly any money. We asked around and we heard about a woman who took care of children. We took David over. After about 3 days of picking him up, every day he was listless. Before he had gone to this child care, this home child care setting, he was engaged and lively. It was wonderful. I was at school, I was working; Sheila was working. At 5 o'clock or 5:30 we would come to pick him up and he was listless. Finally, after 3 days I got concerned and I showed up at her home in the middle of the day. The problem was she had about 20 children she was trying to take care of. Most of them were in playpens and she had stuck a pacifier in their mouth and they were receiving no real care. There was no real interaction. Parents worry about this. I argue today on the floor of the Senate, one of the keys to making sure there is decent developmental child care--not custodial child care--is to have men and women working in this field being paid a decent wage. Right now, we have a 40-percent turnover in this field. Who pays the price? The children. I have said on the Senate floor before, when I was teaching at Carleton College as a college teacher for 20 years, I had conversations with students who came to me and said: Look, don't take it personally. We think you are a good teacher, Paul, and we really appreciate your work as a teacher. But we would like to go into early childhood development. The problem is, when you make $8 an hour, with no health care benefits, and you have a huge student loan to pay off, especially at a college like Carleton, you can't afford to do it. Some of the people want to go into this field, which we say is so important, but they can't afford to do it. The least we could do is have a small loan forgiveness program. The result of the system we have right now is poverty-level earnings for the workforce. By the way, who are the child care providers in the country today? Mr. President, 98 percent of them are women, and one-third of them are women of color. We can do a lot better. We pay parking lot attendants and men and women who work at the zoos in America twice as much as we pay those men and women who take care of our small children. Something is profoundly wrong when we pay people who care for our cars and our pets more money than we do for those who care for our children. Let me go over the facts. The average teacher based at a child care center earns roughly $7 an hour. Despite above average levels of education, roughly one-third of the child care workers earn the minimum wage. Even those at the highest end of the pay scale, who are likely to have a college degree and several years of experience, make about $10 an hour. Family child care providers--a lot of child care is in homes-- make even less money. People who care for small groups of children in their home make on average about $9,000 per year after all expenses are figured in. A recent study by the Center For The Childcare Workforce finds that family child care providers earn on the average, when you take into account their costs, $3.84 an hour, given their typical 55-hour week. Not only that, but the majority of child care workers in our country receive no health benefits, despite high exposure to illness. A lot of kids, when they come, have the flu and they pass it around. Fewer than one-third of the child care providers in this country today have health insurance, and an even smaller percentage of child care workers have any pension plan whatsoever. A recent study in my State of Minnesota found that only 31 percent of child care centers offered full-time employees fully paid health care. The consequences of these dismal conditions are clear. Let me just put it into perspective for colleagues. In the White House Conference on the Development of the Brain, they talked about how important it is that we get it right for children in the very early years of their lives. The medical evidence is irrefutable and irreducible that these are the most critical years. We all want to have our pictures taken next to children --the smaller the children are, the better. Yet at the same time we have done so precious little to make a commitment to this area. We have child care workers, men and women who work in these centers, who do not even make half of what people make who work in our zoos. I think work in the zoo is important, but I also think work with small children is important. We have the vast majority of child care workers barely making minimum wage or a little bit above, only about a third at best having any health care coverage whatsoever. Senator DeWine and I, several years ago, help pass a bill that authorized some loan forgiveness so you would have men and women who could go to college, with the idea they would go into this critically important field and their loans would be forgiven. What I am trying to do, taking it out of administrative expenses, is just finally to get a little bit of appropriation; start out with $10 million so we finally set the precedent that we are willing to fund this. We have not put one penny into this program so far. What happens is that we have this high turnover. As I said before, probably about 40 percent or thereabouts of child care workers in any given year go from one job to another. That figure may be a little high, but it is a huge turnover. Who pays the price? The children pay the price. As I look at my own figures, I guess it is about a third, a third of this country's child care workforce leaves the job each year because they are looking for better work. This leads to a dangerous decline in the quality of child care for our families. The most dangerous decline in quality is the care for toddlers, for infants. [[Page S5959]] They are exposed to the poorest care of all. We have not appropriated one cent for the loan forgiveness program we authorized 2 years ago, and at the same time you have 33 percent of child care workers every year leaving, and you don't have the continuity of care for our children, for families in this country. At the same time, it is the infants and the toddlers who are the ones who are most in jeopardy. At the same time, we have not made any commitment whatsoever to at least--at least, this doesn't change everything in the equation--make sure we have a loan forgiveness program. Another thing that is happening is that as we begin to see a severe teacher shortage, a lot of child care workers are saying that they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits. A lot of younger people say they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits and a big loan to pay off. They now become our elementary school teachers or middle school teachers. As a result, what you have is, at the same time the number of child care providers is decreasing, the number of families who need good child care for their children is dramatically increasing. That is not just because of the welfare bill, but because the reality of American families today, for better or for worse--sometimes I wonder--is that you just don't have one parent staying at home. In most families, both parents are working full time. This is a huge concern to families in this country. We could help by passing this amendment. I want to talk about one study in particular that I think, in a dramatic way, puts into focus what I am talking about. It was a recent study by the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University. They found that a million more toddlers and preschoolers are now in child care because of the welfare law. That wouldn't surprise anyone, given the emphasis on people going to work. So far, so good. But they also found that many of these children are in low-quality care, where they lag behind other children in developmental measures. This was a study of 1,000 single mothers moving from welfare to work. They wanted to know where were their children. What they found out was their children were, by and large, placed in child care settings where they watched TV all the time, wandered aimlessly, and there was little interaction with caregivers. Here is the tragedy of it. Many of these toddlers from these families showed developmental delays. Would anybody be surprised? Anyone who has spent any time with small children would not be surprised. When asked to point to a picture of a book from among three different pictures, fewer than two in five of the toddlers in the study pointed to the right picture compared to a national norm of four out of five children. One of the study's authors is quoted as saying: We know that high quality child care can help children and that poor children can benefit the most. So we hope that this will be a wake-up call to do something about the quality of child care in this country. The quality of daycare centers is not great for middle class families, but it is surprising and distressing to see the extent to which welfare families' quality was even lower. I simply want to point out that just because a family is a welfare family or just because a family is a poor family does not mean these small children are not as deserving of good child care. That is not the situation today in the country. Ironically, as we see the child care system deteriorating, we are now putting more and more emphasis on the importance of developmental child care. We are saying at the same time that we want to make sure single parents work and families move from welfare to work. We are putting the emphasis on work, and more families have to work to make it. The median income in our country today is about $40,000 a year. The income profile is not that high. We know investment in early childhood development pays for itself many times over. We know good child care programs dramatically increase the chances for children to do well in school, for children to go on beyond K-12 and go to college and do well in their lives, and we know the lives of low-income families, in particular, quite often lack some of the advantages other families in this country have. Children from low-income families do not always have the same vocabulary; there is not always the opportunity for a parent or parents to read to them. Therefore, the learning gap by kindergarten is wide. Some children start way behind, and then they fall further behind. I cite one study which began in the seventies on the effects of early childhood intervention. Children who received comprehensive, quality, early education did better on cognitive, reading and math tests than children who did not. This positive effect continues through age 21 and beyond. Parents benefit as well. I do not understand where our priorities are. We should want to make a commitment to working families in this country and make a commitment to children. I want to give some evidence from the State of Minnesota, and then I will finish up at least with my first comments. This loan forgiveness program works. First, it gives people an opportunity to go to college who want to become child care workers. Second, the turnover is reduced. Third, this means we get better people. My own State of Minnesota has experimented. We have a State level loan forgiveness program. In 1998, we offered child care providers up to $1,500 in forgivable student loans for the first time. Fifty percent of the money was set aside for what we call the metro area, and 50 percent of the money was set aside for greater Minnesota, outside the metro area. The money was awarded on a first come, first served basis. People began lining up on the first day. In the metro area, all the money was gone by 5 p.m. on the second day, and all of the money for rural Minnesota was awarded within 2 weeks. This year, Minnesota has made over $900,000 available through their loan forgiveness program. They started accepting applications in March, and they have committed nearly half the money to family care providers and 50 percent to center-based providers. A lot of it goes to rural Minnesota and a lot of it goes to urban Minnesota. I am saying to my colleagues, I am hoping I can win on this amendment. I take it out of administrative expenses. We know the budget is going to be better for this Health and Human Services bill. We know we do not have a good budget with which to work right now. We know the cap is going to go up. We know we are going to have more resources with which to work. We all say we are committed to developmental child care. It is one of the top issues of working families. It seems to me several years ago--I did this with Senator DeWine--we authorized legislation that called for loan forgiveness to men and women who want to go into this critical area, and we have not appropriated one penny. We can at least find it in our hearts and find our way to put some appropriations into this legislation. I am calling for $10 million as a start. I am saying to Senators today--and I do not think anybody can argue with me--there is not one Senator who can dispute the clear set of facts that we have to get it right for children. We have to get it right for them before age 3, much less before age 5. Nobody can argue with that. Nobody can argue these are not critical developmental years. Look at the spark in their eyes. They are experiencing all the unnamed magic in the world before them, as long as we encourage them. No one can argue that for working families this is not a huge issue, both the expense of child care, which I cannot deal with in this amendment, and the quality of the care for their children. If both parents are working or a single parent is working, there is nothing more important to them than making sure their child is receiving the best care. They do not want their child warehoused. They do not want their child in front of a television 8 hours a day. They want to make sure their child is stimulated. They want to make sure there is nurturing for their child. They want to make sure there is interaction with their child. I do not know how some of the people who work in the child care field do it. They are saints; they do it out of love for children; but they should not be the ones who subsidize this system. We are not going to have good people in the child care field if they are making $8 an hour. We are not going to have good people if they do not have any health [[Page S5960]] care benefits. I cannot deal with that in this amendment, but I can deal with one thing. I can call on my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, who say they are committed to good child care, who say they are committed to family values. If they are committed to family values, what better way to value families than to make sure that when people are working, their children are receiving good care? What better way to make sure that happens than to do something about the one-third turnover every year? How can we best deal with the one-third turnover? We need to do a lot of things, but this amendment in its own small way helps. I am simply saying we ought to at least put $10 million into this loan forgiveness program so we can encourage men and women--frankly, I would like to see more men in this field; it is almost all women in this field. At least they know their loan will be forgiven. That will make a huge difference. That is all this amendment is about. I also say to my colleagues, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator DeWine. I am so pleased Senator DeWine is a cosponsor. I have done a number of different bills and legislation with Senator DeWine. We did the Workforce Investment Act together, and we did this authorization together. I do not think we are asking too much. This is actually a crisis. The fact is, the studies that have come out about the quality of child care in this country are pretty frightening. Sometimes it is downright dangerous, but almost always it is barely adequate, and we have to do something about it. One of the best ways we can show we care is to at least begin putting some funding into this loan forgiveness program. I reserve the remainder of my time if, in fact, there is substantive debate on this issue. Otherwise, I will make a few other points. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time on the amendment? The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of the committee, we are prepared to accept this Wellstone amendment which provides $10 million for loan forgiveness for child care providers. The program was authorized by the Higher Education Amendment of 1998 and has never been funded. The administration did not request funding, I might add. A $10 million offset in administrative expenses will pay for this amendment. If the Senator is agreeable, I will accept the amendment to forgive loans for child care providers who complete a degree in early childhood education and obtain employment in a child care facility located in low-income communities. That is acceptable to us. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alaska. And if this is not presumptuous of me to say, normally I like to call for a recorded vote, but I would be pleased to have a voice vote, if that is what my colleague wants. And there is one reason why. I can't get an ironclad commitment from the Senator from Alaska, but I make a plea to him to please try to help me keep it in conference. It would be a small step toward getting funding for this. I know the Senator is very effective. I don't need to have a recorded vote if he can at least tell me he will certainly try. Mr. STEVENS. The Senator does not need a recorded vote. This amendment probably applies to my State more than any other State in the Union. I assure him I will be asserting his position in conference. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am very glad to hear that. I think I would be pleased to go forward with a voice vote. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we ask for the adoption of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Do both Senators yield back their time? Mr. STEVENS. I yield back our time. Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield back my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 3644) was agreed to. Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. WELLSTONE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are awaiting clearance--I understand there is a Kennedy amendment on job training. We would like to get a time agreement on that. I would urge that we consider that at this time. Does the Senator wish the floor? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada. Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to the manager, the chairman of the full committee, Senator Stevens, we would like to have Senator Reed of Rhode Island offer the next amendment. He is on his way over to do that. Mr. STEVENS. Is it possible to get a time agreement on that? Mr. REID. Yes, it is. Mr. STEVENS. We would like to get time agreements so it would be possible to stack votes later, if that is possible. Is the Senator prepared to indicate how long it might be? Mr. REID. We will wait until he gets here, but I don't think he will take a lot of time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, might I ask my colleagues, there is some order here. There is going to be a Reed amendment--is that correct?--next, and then a Kennedy amendment. I have an amendment with Senator Reid that deals with mental health and suicide prevention. Might I add that I follow Senator Kennedy? I am ready to keep rolling. Mr. STEVENS. I am not prepared to agree to that yet. We are not sure Senator Kennedy wants to offer his amendment yet. We are prepared to enter into a time agreement on the Kennedy amendment. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I might state for the information of the Senate, we are trying to arrange amendments from each side of the aisle. We urge Members on the Republican side of the aisle to come forward with amendments if they wish to call them up today. For the time being, I ask unanimous consent that on the amendment offered by Senator Reed of Rhode Island there be a time limit of 30 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote on or in relation to that amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. We presume that there may be a Republican amendment offered after the Reed amendment. But in any event, the next Democratic amendment to be offered would be that of Senator Kennedy, his job training amendment, and prior to that vote, there would be--let's put it this way, that time on that amendment be limited to 60 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote. It is my understanding there would be 2 minutes on each side. Is that the procedure now prior to the vote? Is that correct, may I inquire? Is that your desire? Mr. REID. That is appropriate. Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that on each of these consents there be a 4-minute period prior to the vote to be equally divided. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. WELLSTONE. Can I ask my colleague in that sequence, that following Senator Kennedy there be a Republican and then I be allowed-- -- Mr. STEVENS. It is my understanding the third Democratic amendment to be offered would be the amendment from Senator Wellstone. We are awaiting the Republican amendments to see. But it will be the Reed amendment, then a Republican amendment, then the Kennedy amendment, then a Republican amendment, and then the Wellstone amendment. [[Page S5961]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. REID. Senator Wellstone has agreed to 1 hour evenly divided. Mr. STEVENS. I don't know what the subject matter is. Mr. REID. Mental health. Mr. WELLSTONE. Suicides. Mr. REID. It deals with suicides. Mr. STEVENS. We haven't seen it, but we will be pleased to consider an hour on that amendment and get back to the Senator. Mr. REID. If you need more time, we don't care. If you decide you do, we will add it on to ours. Mr. STEVENS. Let's decide the time on that amendment once we have seen it. Mr. President, while we are awaiting the next amendment, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). Without objection, it is so ordered. Amendment No. 3638 (Purpose: To provide funds for the GEAR UP Program) Mr. REED. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 3638, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed], for himself, Mr. Kennedy, and Mrs. Murray, proposes an amendment numbered 3638. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: SEC. . GEAR UP PROGRAM. In addition to any other funds appropriated under this Act to carry out chapter 2 of subpart 2 of part A of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, there are appropriated $100,000,000. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. REED. Mr. President, this amendment would increase funding for GEAR UP by $100 million. GEAR UP is a critical component of our efforts to provide disadvantaged young people a chance to go on to college. GEAR UP reaches out very early in their educational careers, giving them the mentoring, the support, and the information necessary to succeed, not only in high school but to go beyond, to enter and complete college. I offer this amendment along with Senator Kennedy and Senator Murray. We are offering it because we believe--as I am sure everyone in the Chamber believes--that the opportunity to go on to postsecondary education is central to our country and central to our aspirations in the Senate. This opportunity is particularly difficult to achieve if one is a low-income student in the United States. The GEAR UP program is specifically designed to reach out early in the career of a child, the sixth or seventh grade, and give them not only the skills but the confidence and the expectation that they can succeed and can go on to college. Both these skills and information, together with the confidence that they can succeed, are essential to their progress and to our progress as a Nation. GEAR UP is based upon proven early intervention models such as the I Have a Dream Program and Project GRAD. These programs have succeeded in improving low-income student achievement, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment rates. We are building on a successful set of models. GEAR UP provides students with very specific services tailored to help them prepare for college. These services include tutoring, mentoring, and counseling. They are critical to ensure that students are equipped both academically and emotionally to succeed in college. We often hear about the lack of opportunities available to low-income families. This is particularly the case when we talk about entering and succeeding in college. Low-income children are the least likely individuals in the United States to attend college. In fact, if we look at high-achieving students from low-income schools and backgrounds, they are five times less likely to attend college as comparable students in higher-income schools across this country. By focusing on college preparation for these needy students, GEAR UP is directly targeted at eliminating this disparity. There is something else that is important about GEAR UP. There are many talented young people who, if they are the first child in their family to seriously contemplate college, do not have the advantage of parents who are knowledgeable about the system. Their parents often do not have the information and the incentives to provide the kind of support and assistance these young people need. That, too, must be addressed, and GEAR UP does that. In fact, GEAR UP addresses the needs not only of students but also of parents. In a recent survey, 70 percent of parents indicated they have very little information or they want more information about which courses their child should take to prepare for college. Eighty-nine percent of parents wanted more information about how to pay for college. This information disparity is particularly acute in low-income areas. Again, GEAR UP provides that type of information and assistance. It is well documented that continuous programs that are integrated into the daily school life of a child are the best types of programs to provide for successful outcomes. That is exactly what GEAR UP does. It starts early in a career, sixth and seventh grade, follows the child through their middle school years and into high school, and is integrated with other subjects so there is both continuous support and an integrated approach to preparing a child for college. GEAR UP does this through partnerships and collaborations among State departments of education, high-poverty school districts, institutions of higher education, businesses, and other private or non-profit community organizations. GEAR UP is a college preparatory program, a Federal program that focuses on children in early grades. As such, the existence of other programs such as TRIO does not eliminate the need to fully fund GEAR UP. We have to recognize that we have not only the responsibility but also an opportunity to fully fund the GEAR UP program. I commend Senator Harkin and Senator Specter. They have dealt with a variety of educational issues in a budget that constrains their choices--indeed, their desires--significantly. They have done remarkable work, including funding for the LEAP program, which provides low-income students with funds to go to college. But if you don't have the first piece, if you don't have a GEAR UP program that gives students the skills, the confidence, the insights to get into college, Pell grants and LEAP grants are irrelevant because these deserving young students won't even be in the mix. GEAR UP is important. It is fundamental. The budget that Senators Specter and Harkin were dealing with did not give them the full range of choices they needed to ensure they could fund these important priorities. That is why we are here today, to provide a total of $325 million for GEAR UP, an increase of $100 million over what is in this current appropriations bill. If we do this, it will allow every State to have a GEAR UP program. As a result of the additional $100 million,

Summary:

All articles in Senate section

THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued
(Senate - June 28, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S5954-S5994] THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a vote on or in relation to the Dodd amendment not take place at the conclusion of argument; that it be stacked later this afternoon at a time to be mutually agreed upon after consulting with the leaders on both sides. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is not too much need for me to respond to the Senator from Connecticut. I think he has already stated my position in toto. I do think this afterschool program, which he has proposed to add to, is a worthwhile program. But it is beyond the limits with which our subcommittee has to work. He is correct that I will make a motion that it exceeds the allocation to our committee at the appropriate time. Afterschool is very important. It is sort of a twin brother to day care. Last year, I agreed with the Senator from Connecticut to scrimp and save and use a sharp pencil to find $817 million more to bring day care up to $2 billion, which we did. I thought that kind of an allocation might have satisfied the Senator from Connecticut for a year. But it has not. So we will have to face this when it comes along. He said to me: That is day care. I said: Day care is very important. Bringing it up by more than $800 million to $2 billion was a tough job, Senator Dodd. I called him Chris at the time. We thought that being a twin brother to afterschool, we might have avoided an amendment. Mr. DODD. If my colleague will yield. Mr. SPECTER. I will be glad to yield. Mr. DODD. I was as complimentary as I could be. But I will be even more complimentary. I am deeply grateful to the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. It is very tough being the manager of a bill that funds the Department of Education because there is no priority higher than education. The only one on a level with it is health care. And we have the funding coming out of the same pool of money. We made the allocations as best we could. I know of the devotion of the Senator from Connecticut to this cause. He and I were elected at the same time. He withstood the Reagan landslide in 1980 to be one of two Democrats elected to open seats, when 16 Republicans came in. And he and I cochaired the Children's Caucus at that time. In 1987, when he proposed family leave, I was his cosponsor, with a lot of turmoil just on this side of the aisle. We have worked together over the years for education and for children. I commend him for all that he has done. We have added to education some $4.6 billion. We are $100 million more than the President in education this year. We have increased funding tremendously for children and young people in America. The Head Start Program comes, curiously enough, under the Department of Health and Human Services. There is an increase this year of $1 billion to Head Start, coming up to $6.2 billion. We have increased special education by $1.3 billion, bringing it up to $7.3 billion. We have increased innovative State grants by $2.7 billion for more teachers, class size, and for school construction, with the proviso that it is limited. It is up to the local school district if they decide to do something else with it. When it comes to the program the Senator from Connecticut is talking about, the 21st Century Learning Centers, we have added $146.6 million to bring the figure up to $600 million. In fiscal year 1999, it was $200 million. So we are moving right along on it to provide the maximum amount of money we can. It is not an easy matter to allocate $104.5 billion--as much money as that is--for the National Institutes of Health and for drug programs and for school violence programs. We have done the best job we could. It is with reluctance that I raise a point of order. How much time remains, Mr. President? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator has 9 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. I have made the essential arguments which are relevant. In the interest of moving the bill along and saving time, I make a point of order under section 302(b) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Dodd amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget and is not in order. Mr. DODD. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as previously agreed to by unanimous consent, the vote will be delayed to a time agreed upon by the leaders later today. I yield back the remainder of my time so we may proceed with the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts is recognized. [[Page S5955]] Amendment No. 3659 (Purpose: To increase funding for the technology literacy challenge fund) Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3659 and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry], proposes an amendment numbered 3659. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: Sec. . Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the total amount made available under this title to carry out the technology literacy challenge fund under section 3132 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 shall be $517,000,000. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time on the Kerry amendment be 1 hour equally divided. We have already talked about this. I understand there is agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Bingaman and Mikulski be added as original cosponsors of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me pick up, if I may, on the comments made by the Senator from Connecticut. There is a relationship between these amendments that are proposed by Senator Kennedy, Senator Bingaman, Senator Dodd, and myself. They are made with great respect for the leadership of the appropriations subcommittee. I share the feelings expressed by Senator Dodd that they are working within the constraints that have been imposed on them by the Congress in a sense through the budgeting process. What we are asking of our colleagues is to begin a process by which we more accurately reflect the truth of the budgeting process and the choices we as Senators face. The fact is, we have the ability to provide 60 votes to waive and to proceed to make a statement as the Senate that we believe a specific priority is significant enough that we ought to depart from the constraints. The constraints under which we are operating, that were very properly and articulately listed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, are restraints imposed by a Budget Act and by allocations that do not reflect the reality of the budget choice we face as a country because of the level of surplus. Since those allocations were made, we have in fact learned that we have a significant amount of additional funds available to us to begin to choose how we will reflect the priorities of our Nation. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, a lot of us on this side of the aisle joined with them to put in place the fiscal discipline we all laud and believe is appropriate. It was a 1993 vote, in fact, that put in place the Deficit Reduction Act. Many of us are pleased that we finally were able to set this country on a course where we now have the current surpluses. We have to start to be smart about what kind of choices we are going to make. I keep hearing colleagues on both sides of the aisle come to the floor. They lament what is happening to children in America. They lament what is happening with respect to young people who are increasingly feeding into the juvenile justice system of the Nation. We hear the cries of anguish about children having children out of wedlock, about the failure of marriage in this country. But we don't seem to connect our legislative actions to things that really might make a difference in the lives of young people so they will choose a more moral, traditional, affirmative course for their own life. How do kids make those kinds of choices? Traditionally, in the America we always hear Members talking about, we have family, which is the best teacher of all, the most important connection of a child to their future. We have schools and teachers. History in America is replete with great personalities who harken back to a particular teacher who affected their life. We hear less and less of those stories in modern America. Finally, there is organized religion. Organized religion is the other great teaching entity. Not one that we are supposed to, in this body, specifically legislate about, but it is proper to acknowledge the role that religion plays as one of those three great teachers in the lives of children. The truth is, in America today we have an awful lot of young children who don't have contact with any one of those three teachers, not one. Their teachers are the streets. Colin Powell talks about it in his America's Promise, which appeals to people to make a voluntary commitment to try to intervene in the lives of some of those children and replace the absence of those three great teachers. What kids learn in the streets is not the real values of America; it is what I call ``coping skills.'' They learn how to get by. They learn how to survive. They learn the sort of ``law of the jungle,'' as some used to call it. The fact is, we are not doing enough, we Senators are not doing enough, to leverage those things that make a difference in the absence of the three great teachers. I ask any one of my colleagues: How do we break the cycle of a kid having a kid out of wedlock? How do we break the cycle of a child raised in an abusive household, whose role models in life are people who beat up on each other, shoot drugs, get into trouble, such as the role models for that 6-year-old kid who shot a 6-year-old classmate living in a crack house with an uncle, a parent in jail, no one responsible? What is that child's future, unless adults make the decision to somehow provide those positive forces that make a difference? What are the positive forces? Well, the positive forces are often some of the faith-based interventions, whether it is the Jewish Community Center or a Baptist organization or the Catholic Charities; but there are those entities out there that have a wonderful, extraordinary capacity to bring kids back from the brink. And then there are those organized entities that also do it, such as the Boys and Girls Club; Big Brother/ Big Sister; YMCA and YWCA; or a program in Boston called Youth Build, or City Year. All of these provide young people with alternatives and the ability to have surrogate parenting, fundamentally. That is what is really taking place. What is really taking place is those entities is providing an alternative. Now, we will debate in the Senate whether or not we are going to provide 200,000 H-1B visas. I am for it. I think we ought to provide that, or more, because we have an immediate need in this country to provide skilled people in order to keep the economic boom going and provide for critical technologies, to have good working people. But has it not occurred to my colleagues what an insult it is to our own system that we have to go abroad and import skilled labor to the United States, even as we are putting thousands of young kids into prison, into the juvenile justice system, and out into the streets, as the Senator from Connecticut just said, because we don't have afterschool programs? What are we going to do? We are going to import 200,000 skilled people to make up for the unskilled people whom we leave unskilled because we are unwilling to make the adult choices in the Senate that would make a difference in their lives. How can we boast about the extraordinary surplus we have in this country, with the stock market climbing to record levels, the most extraordinary amounts of wealth ever created in the history of any nation on the planet right here in the United States, but poverty among children has increased by 50 percent and the number of kids who are at risk has increased. I don't believe in the Federal Government taking over these programs. I don't believe in Washington dictating the solutions. But I do believe in Washington leveraging the capacity of people at the local level to be able to do what they know they need to do. So we are reduced to a debate where the Senator from Pennsylvania has to say, well, oh, my gosh, under our 201(b) allocation--or whatever the appropriate section is--we don't have enough money to be able to allocate because we have a total cap that has no relationship to the reality of what we must do. We keep saying, isn't it terrific that we have raised the amount of money--and it is terrific--when the real question is, are we doing what we need to do to get the job done? That is the question we ought to be asking. What is it going to take to guarantee that children in the United States of [[Page S5956]] America are safe? What does it take to guarantee that we don't dump 5 million kids out into the streets in the afternoons, unsafe, and exposed to drug dealers and to all of the vagaries of the teenage years and all of the pressures that come with it in a modern society that doesn't have parents around to be able to help those kids make a better choice? We don't have to do that. We ought to make it the goal of the Senate to guarantee that every child in America is going to be safe and secure between the hours when teachers stop teaching and when those parents are coming home. And we can ask 100,000 questions about why it is we are not providing arts and music and sports and libraries that are open full-time, and Internet access. That is where my amendment comes in, Mr. President. Senator Kennedy has an amendment on teacher quality, which is linked to the capacity of kids to fill those high tech jobs that we talk about. Senator Dodd has an amendment talking about making those kids safe after school. My amendment seeks to increase the funding for the technology literacy challenge fund, which is a critically important education program that helps provide technology access, education, professional development, and instruction in elementary and secondary schools. All we say is that to qualify for the money, States have to submit a statewide technology plan that includes a strategy on how the States will include private, State, local, and other entities in the continued financing and support of technology in schools. There are two points that I can't stress enough. One is the importance of providing young people with the opportunity to learn how to use technology. I am not one of those people. I don't want to celebrate technology to the point of it being put up on a pedestal and it becomes an entity unto itself. Technology is not a god; it is not a philosophy; it is not a way of life. Technology is a tool, a useful tool. It is a critical tool for the modern marketplace and the modern world. But we are preordaining that we are going to have to have next year's H-1B plan, and the next year's H-1B plan, and another prison, and another program to deal with a whole lot of young kids for whom the digital divide becomes more and more real, who don't have accessability or the capacity to be able to gain the skills necessary to share in this new world. The fact is that there are too many teachers who don't have the ability to even teach; we have the schools wired; we have the e-rate. We are beginning to get increased access to the Internet. But what do you do with it? How many teachers know how to use the technology to really be able to educate kids? How many kids are, in fact, having the benefit of the opportunity of having teachers who have those skills so that they can ultimately maximize their opportunities? All we are suggesting is that we ought to be doing more to empower-- not to mandate, not to dictate, but to empower--those local communities that desperately want to do this but don't have the tax base to be able to do it. Let's give them that ability. That is the best role the Federal Government can play--to leverage things that represent national priorities, leverage the things that represent the best goals and aspirations of ourselves as a Nation. It is not micromanagement; it is, rather, putting in place a mechanism by which we have national priorities--to have good, strong families, to have kids who are computer literate, and to have more skilled workers. Those are national priorities. But if we turn our heads away and say the only priority in this country is to sort of sequester this money for the senior generation in one form or another, without any regard to the generation that is coming along that needs to fund Social Security, that needs to have a high value-added job so they can pay into it and adequately protect it, that is not Social Security protection. We have gone from 13 workers paying in for every 1 that is taking out--13 workers paying into the system for every 1 worker taking out-- to three paying in and one taking out. Now there are two paying in and one taking out. We have a vested interest as a nation in making sure those two paying in are capable of paying in; that they have a high value-added job that empowers them to pay in; when they pay in, it doesn't take so much of their income that they feel so oppressed by the system that they are not able to invest in their own children and in their own future. That is in our interest. That is a national priority. If we don't begin in the Senate tomorrow to adequately reflect the needs of our children in the money that we allocate, we will be seriously missing one of the greatest priorities the country faces. All of us understand the degree to which there is an increase in the digital divide of the country. The technology literacy challenge fund is a critical effort to try to provide those kids with an opportunity to close that gap. Last year, my home State of Massachusetts received $8.1 million. Some of the programs it put in place are quite extraordinary. Let me share with my colleagues one of the examples of this program that works so effectively. It is called the Lighthouse Technology Grant. The Lighthouse Technology Grant incorporates new technologies into the State curriculum framework so that it better motivates children to be able to learn. One of the schools in my State--the Lynn Woods Elementary School in Lynn--is integrating technology into the classroom by virtue of this grant. Fifth grade students at the Lynn Woods school are studying Australia. They have been able to videoconference directly with Australian students who are studying the Boston area. You have students engaging in a very personal and direct way, all of which encourages their learning and enhances their interest in the topic. They have also developed writing skills through special e-mail pen pal programs with Australian students. In addition, they have been able to connect more directly with the experience of life, thereby asking very direct questions and engaging in a personal exchange that they never could have experienced before because of telephone rates and because of the difficulties of communication under any kind of telephone circumstance. The Lighthouse Technology Grant is only one of eight programs funded by this challenge grant in Massachusetts. It also provides grants to a virtual high school program which enables school districts to offer students Internet courses ranging from advanced academic courses to technical and specialized courses. Let me emphasize the importance of that to my colleagues. A few weeks ago, I visited a high school in Boston, an inner-city high school, Dorchester High. I found that in this high school of almost 1,000 students in the inner city they are not able to provide advanced placement courses. I ask everybody here to imagine a high school that is supposed to be state of the art that doesn't have advanced placement courses. Yet, because of the virtual high school and because of the access to the Internet, if we close the digital divide, we can in fact make it affordable and accessible for schools that today have difficulty finding the teachers, affording the teachers, and providing the curriculum--and be able to do so immediately. That is the difference between somebody being able to go to college or being college ready or being able to go to college and advance rapidly in the kinds of curriculum and courses that will make even a greater difference in their earning capacity and in their citizen- contributing capacity at a later time. We need to recognize that unless we encourage this to happen, the transformation could take a lot longer than we want it to take. For example, it has taken only 7 years for the Internet to be adopted by 30 percent of Americans. That is compared to 17 years for television to be adopted by 38 percent, and for the telephone, 38 percent during the same amount of time. The world of work is obviously so much different and at a faster rate. But if we leave kids behind for a longer period of time, we will greatly restrain their learning capacity as well as our growth capacity as a country. The technology literacy challenge fund has been funded under the committee's mark at about $425 million. The administration actually asked for $450 million. The House has set a figure [[Page S5957]] of $517 million. I think that is more reflective of the level of funding that is necessary in order to achieve the kind of transition that we wish for in this country. Some might argue we could even do more. But it is clear to me that by measuring the priorities as expressed by other colleagues we can, in fact, do more if we will challenge the system a little bit, if we will push the limits a little bit, and if we will look at the reality of the budget choices that the Congress faces. I think nothing could be more important for all of us as Senators and as Congress this year. I hope my colleagues will embrace the notion that we can in fact do an appropriate waiver of the budget and set this as a priority of the Senate. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, here again, there is little doubt that technology literacy is a very important matter for America. There is no doubt about that at all. Here again, it is a matter of how our allocations are going to run. We debated the Dodd amendment earlier today about afterschool programs--again, a good program. There is a question about the amount of money and where the priorities are. We debated the Kennedy amendment about teacher recruitment--another good program. We had to turn down amendments yesterday by Senator Wellstone who wanted more money for title I; Senator Bingaman, also more money for title I; Senator Murray asked for an additional $325 million on top of $1.4 billion which was supplied for class size. There is no doubt that so many of these programs are excellent programs. The Senator from Massachusetts in offering this amendment noted the constraints we are operating under with respect to how much money we have in our allocation. We have established priorities. We have greatly increased the education account by some $4.6 billion. That is a tremendous increase, coming to a total of $40.2 billion. In our education account, we have $100 million more than the President asked for. I have already today gone over a long list of items where we have increased funding on education on very important items. It is a matter of making the appropriate allocation and the setting of priorities. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts that the House of Representatives has established a mark of $517 million in this account. It is entirely plausible that the figure that is in the Senate bill will be substantially increased. We will certainly keep in mind the eloquence of Senator Kerry's arguments. There is no doubt about technology and about the need for more funding in technology. I believe that a country with an $8 trillion gross national product can do better on education. I said earlier today and have said many times on this floor that I am committed to education, coming from a family which emphasizes education so heavily, my parents having very little education and my siblings and I being able to succeed--I guess you would call it success to come to the Senate--because of our educational opportunities. That is the essence of our position. We have substantially more time. I inquire of the Chair: How much time remains? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 26 minutes remaining. The Senator from Massachusetts has 8 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could direct a question to the manager of the bill, it is my understanding Senator Wellstone will offer one of his amendments next. Mr. SPECTER. That is fine. Mr. REID. I will also have Senator Wellstone agree to a time limit. Mr. SPECTER. Speaking of the time limit with Senator Wellstone on the floor, may we agree to 30 minutes equally divided, 20 minutes equally divided, 15 minutes equally divided? How much time does Senator Wellstone desire? Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I did not hear the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I suggested a time agreement of 30 minutes equally divided, perhaps 20 minutes equally divided. Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Pennsylvania, my guess is it will take me about 40 minutes on my side. I prefer not to agree to a time limit. I don't think I will go more than that. Mr. SPECTER. Would the Senator from Minnesota be willing to enter a time agreement of an hour, 40 minutes for the Senator from Minnesota, and 20 minutes for our side? Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to do so. Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent the time be set on the Wellstone amendment at 1 hour, with the Senator from Minnesota having 40 minutes and our side having 20 minutes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the vote. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. If the Senator from Pennsylvania wants to yield back time, I am prepared to do the same. I want to reserve one comment. I appreciate everything the Senator has said. I appreciate his comments. I know he wants to do more. Unless we in the Senate tackle this beast called the allocation process, and unless we begin to challenge the constraints within which we are now dealing, we are not doing our job. These votes are an opportunity to try to do that. My plea is to the Senator, the Appropriations Committee, and others, that we begin to try to change these shackles that are keeping us from responding to the real needs of the country. The measurement should not be what we are doing against a baseline set by us. The measurement should be, what will it take to guarantee we can turn to Americans and say we are addressing the problem, we are getting the job done. We need to close that gap. I am happy to yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the vote on the Kerry amendment be deferred, to be stacked later today at a time to be mutually agreed upon by our respective leaders. I raise a point of order under section 302(f) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Kerry amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocations under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget, and is not in order. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive the applicable section of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. KERRY. I thank my colleague. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Amendment No. 3644 (Purpose: To provide funds for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program, with an offset) Mr. WELLSTONE. I call up amendment 3644. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] proposes an amendment numbered 3644. Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 71, after line 25, add the following: Sec. ____. (a) In addition to any amounts appropriated under this title for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program under section 428K of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1078-11), an additional $10,000,000 is appropriated to carry out such program. (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, amounts made available under titles I and II, and this title, for salaries and expenses at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, respectively, shall be reduced on a pro rata basis by $10,000,000. [[Page S5958]] Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer a very simple amendment. This amendment asks only that we appropriate an additional $10 million to fund the loan forgiveness program which was authorized under the Higher Education Act. This is a loan forgiveness program for women and men who go into child care work. This would be taken from administrative expenses in the overall budget. Despite the fact that we know that child care workers struggle to pay back their student loans, and that all too many of them earn poverty- level wages without benefits, which means in turn that many of them are forced to leave their work for higher paid work, we have yet to appropriate one penny for this forgiveness program. I originally offered this amendment calling for loan forgiveness for those men and women who go into the child care field with Senator DeWine. My thought was this is sacred work. This is important work. This is work with small children. If people are going to be paid miserably low wages--many having no health care benefits at all, and we understand the importance of early childhood development--then let's at least have a loan forgiveness that will encourage men and women to go into this area. Right now the child care situation in the United States is critical. We have a system in place where child care is prohibitively high for working families. It is not uncommon for a family to be paying $6,000 per child, $12,000 per year, $10,000 per year. Maybe the family's overall income is $35,000 or $40,000. At the same time, we have child care workers who are taking care of children during the most critical years of development and they don't even make poverty wages. It seems counterintuitive. How can it be that on the one hand child care is so expensive, but on the other hand those men and women who work in this field are so underpaid? The problems of the high costs and the low wages are inevitable under the current system of child care delivery in the United States. Colleagues, this amendment is just one vote, but this is a central issue of American politics. Talk to working families in this country and they will list child care as one of their top concerns. They are not just talking about the cost of child care, but they are also saying when both parents work, or as a single parent working, they worry most of all that their child is receiving the best care--not custodial, not in front of a television for 8 hours, but developmental care. On a personal note, I can remember as a student at the University of North Carolina, barely age 20, Sheila and I had our first child. I will never forget, 6 weeks after David was born, Sheila had to go back to work. That is all the time she could take off. Six weeks is not enough time to bond with a child. We had hardly any money. We asked around and we heard about a woman who took care of children. We took David over. After about 3 days of picking him up, every day he was listless. Before he had gone to this child care, this home child care setting, he was engaged and lively. It was wonderful. I was at school, I was working; Sheila was working. At 5 o'clock or 5:30 we would come to pick him up and he was listless. Finally, after 3 days I got concerned and I showed up at her home in the middle of the day. The problem was she had about 20 children she was trying to take care of. Most of them were in playpens and she had stuck a pacifier in their mouth and they were receiving no real care. There was no real interaction. Parents worry about this. I argue today on the floor of the Senate, one of the keys to making sure there is decent developmental child care--not custodial child care--is to have men and women working in this field being paid a decent wage. Right now, we have a 40-percent turnover in this field. Who pays the price? The children. I have said on the Senate floor before, when I was teaching at Carleton College as a college teacher for 20 years, I had conversations with students who came to me and said: Look, don't take it personally. We think you are a good teacher, Paul, and we really appreciate your work as a teacher. But we would like to go into early childhood development. The problem is, when you make $8 an hour, with no health care benefits, and you have a huge student loan to pay off, especially at a college like Carleton, you can't afford to do it. Some of the people want to go into this field, which we say is so important, but they can't afford to do it. The least we could do is have a small loan forgiveness program. The result of the system we have right now is poverty-level earnings for the workforce. By the way, who are the child care providers in the country today? Mr. President, 98 percent of them are women, and one-third of them are women of color. We can do a lot better. We pay parking lot attendants and men and women who work at the zoos in America twice as much as we pay those men and women who take care of our small children. Something is profoundly wrong when we pay people who care for our cars and our pets more money than we do for those who care for our children. Let me go over the facts. The average teacher based at a child care center earns roughly $7 an hour. Despite above average levels of education, roughly one-third of the child care workers earn the minimum wage. Even those at the highest end of the pay scale, who are likely to have a college degree and several years of experience, make about $10 an hour. Family child care providers--a lot of child care is in homes-- make even less money. People who care for small groups of children in their home make on average about $9,000 per year after all expenses are figured in. A recent study by the Center For The Childcare Workforce finds that family child care providers earn on the average, when you take into account their costs, $3.84 an hour, given their typical 55-hour week. Not only that, but the majority of child care workers in our country receive no health benefits, despite high exposure to illness. A lot of kids, when they come, have the flu and they pass it around. Fewer than one-third of the child care providers in this country today have health insurance, and an even smaller percentage of child care workers have any pension plan whatsoever. A recent study in my State of Minnesota found that only 31 percent of child care centers offered full-time employees fully paid health care. The consequences of these dismal conditions are clear. Let me just put it into perspective for colleagues. In the White House Conference on the Development of the Brain, they talked about how important it is that we get it right for children in the very early years of their lives. The medical evidence is irrefutable and irreducible that these are the most critical years. We all want to have our pictures taken next to children --the smaller the children are, the better. Yet at the same time we have done so precious little to make a commitment to this area. We have child care workers, men and women who work in these centers, who do not even make half of what people make who work in our zoos. I think work in the zoo is important, but I also think work with small children is important. We have the vast majority of child care workers barely making minimum wage or a little bit above, only about a third at best having any health care coverage whatsoever. Senator DeWine and I, several years ago, help pass a bill that authorized some loan forgiveness so you would have men and women who could go to college, with the idea they would go into this critically important field and their loans would be forgiven. What I am trying to do, taking it out of administrative expenses, is just finally to get a little bit of appropriation; start out with $10 million so we finally set the precedent that we are willing to fund this. We have not put one penny into this program so far. What happens is that we have this high turnover. As I said before, probably about 40 percent or thereabouts of child care workers in any given year go from one job to another. That figure may be a little high, but it is a huge turnover. Who pays the price? The children pay the price. As I look at my own figures, I guess it is about a third, a third of this country's child care workforce leaves the job each year because they are looking for better work. This leads to a dangerous decline in the quality of child care for our families. The most dangerous decline in quality is the care for toddlers, for infants. [[Page S5959]] They are exposed to the poorest care of all. We have not appropriated one cent for the loan forgiveness program we authorized 2 years ago, and at the same time you have 33 percent of child care workers every year leaving, and you don't have the continuity of care for our children, for families in this country. At the same time, it is the infants and the toddlers who are the ones who are most in jeopardy. At the same time, we have not made any commitment whatsoever to at least--at least, this doesn't change everything in the equation--make sure we have a loan forgiveness program. Another thing that is happening is that as we begin to see a severe teacher shortage, a lot of child care workers are saying that they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits. A lot of younger people say they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits and a big loan to pay off. They now become our elementary school teachers or middle school teachers. As a result, what you have is, at the same time the number of child care providers is decreasing, the number of families who need good child care for their children is dramatically increasing. That is not just because of the welfare bill, but because the reality of American families today, for better or for worse--sometimes I wonder--is that you just don't have one parent staying at home. In most families, both parents are working full time. This is a huge concern to families in this country. We could help by passing this amendment. I want to talk about one study in particular that I think, in a dramatic way, puts into focus what I am talking about. It was a recent study by the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University. They found that a million more toddlers and preschoolers are now in child care because of the welfare law. That wouldn't surprise anyone, given the emphasis on people going to work. So far, so good. But they also found that many of these children are in low-quality care, where they lag behind other children in developmental measures. This was a study of 1,000 single mothers moving from welfare to work. They wanted to know where were their children. What they found out was their children were, by and large, placed in child care settings where they watched TV all the time, wandered aimlessly, and there was little interaction with caregivers. Here is the tragedy of it. Many of these toddlers from these families showed developmental delays. Would anybody be surprised? Anyone who has spent any time with small children would not be surprised. When asked to point to a picture of a book from among three different pictures, fewer than two in five of the toddlers in the study pointed to the right picture compared to a national norm of four out of five children. One of the study's authors is quoted as saying: We know that high quality child care can help children and that poor children can benefit the most. So we hope that this will be a wake-up call to do something about the quality of child care in this country. The quality of daycare centers is not great for middle class families, but it is surprising and distressing to see the extent to which welfare families' quality was even lower. I simply want to point out that just because a family is a welfare family or just because a family is a poor family does not mean these small children are not as deserving of good child care. That is not the situation today in the country. Ironically, as we see the child care system deteriorating, we are now putting more and more emphasis on the importance of developmental child care. We are saying at the same time that we want to make sure single parents work and families move from welfare to work. We are putting the emphasis on work, and more families have to work to make it. The median income in our country today is about $40,000 a year. The income profile is not that high. We know investment in early childhood development pays for itself many times over. We know good child care programs dramatically increase the chances for children to do well in school, for children to go on beyond K-12 and go to college and do well in their lives, and we know the lives of low-income families, in particular, quite often lack some of the advantages other families in this country have. Children from low-income families do not always have the same vocabulary; there is not always the opportunity for a parent or parents to read to them. Therefore, the learning gap by kindergarten is wide. Some children start way behind, and then they fall further behind. I cite one study which began in the seventies on the effects of early childhood intervention. Children who received comprehensive, quality, early education did better on cognitive, reading and math tests than children who did not. This positive effect continues through age 21 and beyond. Parents benefit as well. I do not understand where our priorities are. We should want to make a commitment to working families in this country and make a commitment to children. I want to give some evidence from the State of Minnesota, and then I will finish up at least with my first comments. This loan forgiveness program works. First, it gives people an opportunity to go to college who want to become child care workers. Second, the turnover is reduced. Third, this means we get better people. My own State of Minnesota has experimented. We have a State level loan forgiveness program. In 1998, we offered child care providers up to $1,500 in forgivable student loans for the first time. Fifty percent of the money was set aside for what we call the metro area, and 50 percent of the money was set aside for greater Minnesota, outside the metro area. The money was awarded on a first come, first served basis. People began lining up on the first day. In the metro area, all the money was gone by 5 p.m. on the second day, and all of the money for rural Minnesota was awarded within 2 weeks. This year, Minnesota has made over $900,000 available through their loan forgiveness program. They started accepting applications in March, and they have committed nearly half the money to family care providers and 50 percent to center-based providers. A lot of it goes to rural Minnesota and a lot of it goes to urban Minnesota. I am saying to my colleagues, I am hoping I can win on this amendment. I take it out of administrative expenses. We know the budget is going to be better for this Health and Human Services bill. We know we do not have a good budget with which to work right now. We know the cap is going to go up. We know we are going to have more resources with which to work. We all say we are committed to developmental child care. It is one of the top issues of working families. It seems to me several years ago--I did this with Senator DeWine--we authorized legislation that called for loan forgiveness to men and women who want to go into this critical area, and we have not appropriated one penny. We can at least find it in our hearts and find our way to put some appropriations into this legislation. I am calling for $10 million as a start. I am saying to Senators today--and I do not think anybody can argue with me--there is not one Senator who can dispute the clear set of facts that we have to get it right for children. We have to get it right for them before age 3, much less before age 5. Nobody can argue with that. Nobody can argue these are not critical developmental years. Look at the spark in their eyes. They are experiencing all the unnamed magic in the world before them, as long as we encourage them. No one can argue that for working families this is not a huge issue, both the expense of child care, which I cannot deal with in this amendment, and the quality of the care for their children. If both parents are working or a single parent is working, there is nothing more important to them than making sure their child is receiving the best care. They do not want their child warehoused. They do not want their child in front of a television 8 hours a day. They want to make sure their child is stimulated. They want to make sure there is nurturing for their child. They want to make sure there is interaction with their child. I do not know how some of the people who work in the child care field do it. They are saints; they do it out of love for children; but they should not be the ones who subsidize this system. We are not going to have good people in the child care field if they are making $8 an hour. We are not going to have good people if they do not have any health [[Page S5960]] care benefits. I cannot deal with that in this amendment, but I can deal with one thing. I can call on my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, who say they are committed to good child care, who say they are committed to family values. If they are committed to family values, what better way to value families than to make sure that when people are working, their children are receiving good care? What better way to make sure that happens than to do something about the one-third turnover every year? How can we best deal with the one-third turnover? We need to do a lot of things, but this amendment in its own small way helps. I am simply saying we ought to at least put $10 million into this loan forgiveness program so we can encourage men and women--frankly, I would like to see more men in this field; it is almost all women in this field. At least they know their loan will be forgiven. That will make a huge difference. That is all this amendment is about. I also say to my colleagues, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator DeWine. I am so pleased Senator DeWine is a cosponsor. I have done a number of different bills and legislation with Senator DeWine. We did the Workforce Investment Act together, and we did this authorization together. I do not think we are asking too much. This is actually a crisis. The fact is, the studies that have come out about the quality of child care in this country are pretty frightening. Sometimes it is downright dangerous, but almost always it is barely adequate, and we have to do something about it. One of the best ways we can show we care is to at least begin putting some funding into this loan forgiveness program. I reserve the remainder of my time if, in fact, there is substantive debate on this issue. Otherwise, I will make a few other points. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time on the amendment? The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of the committee, we are prepared to accept this Wellstone amendment which provides $10 million for loan forgiveness for child care providers. The program was authorized by the Higher Education Amendment of 1998 and has never been funded. The administration did not request funding, I might add. A $10 million offset in administrative expenses will pay for this amendment. If the Senator is agreeable, I will accept the amendment to forgive loans for child care providers who complete a degree in early childhood education and obtain employment in a child care facility located in low-income communities. That is acceptable to us. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alaska. And if this is not presumptuous of me to say, normally I like to call for a recorded vote, but I would be pleased to have a voice vote, if that is what my colleague wants. And there is one reason why. I can't get an ironclad commitment from the Senator from Alaska, but I make a plea to him to please try to help me keep it in conference. It would be a small step toward getting funding for this. I know the Senator is very effective. I don't need to have a recorded vote if he can at least tell me he will certainly try. Mr. STEVENS. The Senator does not need a recorded vote. This amendment probably applies to my State more than any other State in the Union. I assure him I will be asserting his position in conference. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am very glad to hear that. I think I would be pleased to go forward with a voice vote. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we ask for the adoption of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Do both Senators yield back their time? Mr. STEVENS. I yield back our time. Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield back my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 3644) was agreed to. Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. WELLSTONE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are awaiting clearance--I understand there is a Kennedy amendment on job training. We would like to get a time agreement on that. I would urge that we consider that at this time. Does the Senator wish the floor? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada. Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to the manager, the chairman of the full committee, Senator Stevens, we would like to have Senator Reed of Rhode Island offer the next amendment. He is on his way over to do that. Mr. STEVENS. Is it possible to get a time agreement on that? Mr. REID. Yes, it is. Mr. STEVENS. We would like to get time agreements so it would be possible to stack votes later, if that is possible. Is the Senator prepared to indicate how long it might be? Mr. REID. We will wait until he gets here, but I don't think he will take a lot of time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, might I ask my colleagues, there is some order here. There is going to be a Reed amendment--is that correct?--next, and then a Kennedy amendment. I have an amendment with Senator Reid that deals with mental health and suicide prevention. Might I add that I follow Senator Kennedy? I am ready to keep rolling. Mr. STEVENS. I am not prepared to agree to that yet. We are not sure Senator Kennedy wants to offer his amendment yet. We are prepared to enter into a time agreement on the Kennedy amendment. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I might state for the information of the Senate, we are trying to arrange amendments from each side of the aisle. We urge Members on the Republican side of the aisle to come forward with amendments if they wish to call them up today. For the time being, I ask unanimous consent that on the amendment offered by Senator Reed of Rhode Island there be a time limit of 30 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote on or in relation to that amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. We presume that there may be a Republican amendment offered after the Reed amendment. But in any event, the next Democratic amendment to be offered would be that of Senator Kennedy, his job training amendment, and prior to that vote, there would be--let's put it this way, that time on that amendment be limited to 60 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote. It is my understanding there would be 2 minutes on each side. Is that the procedure now prior to the vote? Is that correct, may I inquire? Is that your desire? Mr. REID. That is appropriate. Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that on each of these consents there be a 4-minute period prior to the vote to be equally divided. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. WELLSTONE. Can I ask my colleague in that sequence, that following Senator Kennedy there be a Republican and then I be allowed-- -- Mr. STEVENS. It is my understanding the third Democratic amendment to be offered would be the amendment from Senator Wellstone. We are awaiting the Republican amendments to see. But it will be the Reed amendment, then a Republican amendment, then the Kennedy amendment, then a Republican amendment, and then the Wellstone amendment. [[Page S5961]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. REID. Senator Wellstone has agreed to 1 hour evenly divided. Mr. STEVENS. I don't know what the subject matter is. Mr. REID. Mental health. Mr. WELLSTONE. Suicides. Mr. REID. It deals with suicides. Mr. STEVENS. We haven't seen it, but we will be pleased to consider an hour on that amendment and get back to the Senator. Mr. REID. If you need more time, we don't care. If you decide you do, we will add it on to ours. Mr. STEVENS. Let's decide the time on that amendment once we have seen it. Mr. President, while we are awaiting the next amendment, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). Without objection, it is so ordered. Amendment No. 3638 (Purpose: To provide funds for the GEAR UP Program) Mr. REED. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 3638, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed], for himself, Mr. Kennedy, and Mrs. Murray, proposes an amendment numbered 3638. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: SEC. . GEAR UP PROGRAM. In addition to any other funds appropriated under this Act to carry out chapter 2 of subpart 2 of part A of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, there are appropriated $100,000,000. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. REED. Mr. President, this amendment would increase funding for GEAR UP by $100 million. GEAR UP is a critical component of our efforts to provide disadvantaged young people a chance to go on to college. GEAR UP reaches out very early in their educational careers, giving them the mentoring, the support, and the information necessary to succeed, not only in high school but to go beyond, to enter and complete college. I offer this amendment along with Senator Kennedy and Senator Murray. We are offering it because we believe--as I am sure everyone in the Chamber believes--that the opportunity to go on to postsecondary education is central to our country and central to our aspirations in the Senate. This opportunity is particularly difficult to achieve if one is a low-income student in the United States. The GEAR UP program is specifically designed to reach out early in the career of a child, the sixth or seventh grade, and give them not only the skills but the confidence and the expectation that they can succeed and can go on to college. Both these skills and information, together with the confidence that they can succeed, are essential to their progress and to our progress as a Nation. GEAR UP is based upon proven early intervention models such as the I Have a Dream Program and Project GRAD. These programs have succeeded in improving low-income student achievement, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment rates. We are building on a successful set of models. GEAR UP provides students with very specific services tailored to help them prepare for college. These services include tutoring, mentoring, and counseling. They are critical to ensure that students are equipped both academically and emotionally to succeed in college. We often hear about the lack of opportunities available to low-income families. This is particularly the case when we talk about entering and succeeding in college. Low-income children are the least likely individuals in the United States to attend college. In fact, if we look at high-achieving students from low-income schools and backgrounds, they are five times less likely to attend college as comparable students in higher-income schools across this country. By focusing on college preparation for these needy students, GEAR UP is directly targeted at eliminating this disparity. There is something else that is important about GEAR UP. There are many talented young people who, if they are the first child in their family to seriously contemplate college, do not have the advantage of parents who are knowledgeable about the system. Their parents often do not have the information and the incentives to provide the kind of support and assistance these young people need. That, too, must be addressed, and GEAR UP does that. In fact, GEAR UP addresses the needs not only of students but also of parents. In a recent survey, 70 percent of parents indicated they have very little information or they want more information about which courses their child should take to prepare for college. Eighty-nine percent of parents wanted more information about how to pay for college. This information disparity is particularly acute in low-income areas. Again, GEAR UP provides that type of information and assistance. It is well documented that continuous programs that are integrated into the daily school life of a child are the best types of programs to provide for successful outcomes. That is exactly what GEAR UP does. It starts early in a career, sixth and seventh grade, follows the child through their middle school years and into high school, and is integrated with other subjects so there is both continuous support and an integrated approach to preparing a child for college. GEAR UP does this through partnerships and collaborations among State departments of education, high-poverty school districts, institutions of higher education, businesses, and other private or non-profit community organizations. GEAR UP is a college preparatory program, a Federal program that focuses on children in early grades. As such, the existence of other programs such as TRIO does not eliminate the need to fully fund GEAR UP. We have to recognize that we have not only the responsibility but also an opportunity to fully fund the GEAR UP program. I commend Senator Harkin and Senator Specter. They have dealt with a variety of educational issues in a budget that constrains their choices--indeed, their desires--significantly. They have done remarkable work, including funding for the LEAP program, which provides low-income students with funds to go to college. But if you don't have the first piece, if you don't have a GEAR UP program that gives students the skills, the confidence, the insights to get into college, Pell grants and LEAP grants are irrelevant because these deserving young students won't even be in the mix. GEAR UP is important. It is fundamental. The budget that Senators Specter and Harkin were dealing with did not give them the full range of choices they needed to ensure they could fund these important priorities. That is why we are here today, to provide a total of $325 million for GEAR UP, an increase of $100 million over what is in this current appropriations bill. If we do this, it will allow every State to have a GEAR UP program. As a result of the additional $100 million, GEAR UP

Major Actions:

All articles in Senate section

THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued
(Senate - June 28, 2000)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages S5954-S5994] THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Continued Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a vote on or in relation to the Dodd amendment not take place at the conclusion of argument; that it be stacked later this afternoon at a time to be mutually agreed upon after consulting with the leaders on both sides. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is not too much need for me to respond to the Senator from Connecticut. I think he has already stated my position in toto. I do think this afterschool program, which he has proposed to add to, is a worthwhile program. But it is beyond the limits with which our subcommittee has to work. He is correct that I will make a motion that it exceeds the allocation to our committee at the appropriate time. Afterschool is very important. It is sort of a twin brother to day care. Last year, I agreed with the Senator from Connecticut to scrimp and save and use a sharp pencil to find $817 million more to bring day care up to $2 billion, which we did. I thought that kind of an allocation might have satisfied the Senator from Connecticut for a year. But it has not. So we will have to face this when it comes along. He said to me: That is day care. I said: Day care is very important. Bringing it up by more than $800 million to $2 billion was a tough job, Senator Dodd. I called him Chris at the time. We thought that being a twin brother to afterschool, we might have avoided an amendment. Mr. DODD. If my colleague will yield. Mr. SPECTER. I will be glad to yield. Mr. DODD. I was as complimentary as I could be. But I will be even more complimentary. I am deeply grateful to the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. It is very tough being the manager of a bill that funds the Department of Education because there is no priority higher than education. The only one on a level with it is health care. And we have the funding coming out of the same pool of money. We made the allocations as best we could. I know of the devotion of the Senator from Connecticut to this cause. He and I were elected at the same time. He withstood the Reagan landslide in 1980 to be one of two Democrats elected to open seats, when 16 Republicans came in. And he and I cochaired the Children's Caucus at that time. In 1987, when he proposed family leave, I was his cosponsor, with a lot of turmoil just on this side of the aisle. We have worked together over the years for education and for children. I commend him for all that he has done. We have added to education some $4.6 billion. We are $100 million more than the President in education this year. We have increased funding tremendously for children and young people in America. The Head Start Program comes, curiously enough, under the Department of Health and Human Services. There is an increase this year of $1 billion to Head Start, coming up to $6.2 billion. We have increased special education by $1.3 billion, bringing it up to $7.3 billion. We have increased innovative State grants by $2.7 billion for more teachers, class size, and for school construction, with the proviso that it is limited. It is up to the local school district if they decide to do something else with it. When it comes to the program the Senator from Connecticut is talking about, the 21st Century Learning Centers, we have added $146.6 million to bring the figure up to $600 million. In fiscal year 1999, it was $200 million. So we are moving right along on it to provide the maximum amount of money we can. It is not an easy matter to allocate $104.5 billion--as much money as that is--for the National Institutes of Health and for drug programs and for school violence programs. We have done the best job we could. It is with reluctance that I raise a point of order. How much time remains, Mr. President? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator has 9 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. I have made the essential arguments which are relevant. In the interest of moving the bill along and saving time, I make a point of order under section 302(b) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Dodd amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocation under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget and is not in order. Mr. DODD. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as previously agreed to by unanimous consent, the vote will be delayed to a time agreed upon by the leaders later today. I yield back the remainder of my time so we may proceed with the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts is recognized. [[Page S5955]] Amendment No. 3659 (Purpose: To increase funding for the technology literacy challenge fund) Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3659 and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry], proposes an amendment numbered 3659. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: Sec. . Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the total amount made available under this title to carry out the technology literacy challenge fund under section 3132 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 shall be $517,000,000. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time on the Kerry amendment be 1 hour equally divided. We have already talked about this. I understand there is agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Bingaman and Mikulski be added as original cosponsors of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me pick up, if I may, on the comments made by the Senator from Connecticut. There is a relationship between these amendments that are proposed by Senator Kennedy, Senator Bingaman, Senator Dodd, and myself. They are made with great respect for the leadership of the appropriations subcommittee. I share the feelings expressed by Senator Dodd that they are working within the constraints that have been imposed on them by the Congress in a sense through the budgeting process. What we are asking of our colleagues is to begin a process by which we more accurately reflect the truth of the budgeting process and the choices we as Senators face. The fact is, we have the ability to provide 60 votes to waive and to proceed to make a statement as the Senate that we believe a specific priority is significant enough that we ought to depart from the constraints. The constraints under which we are operating, that were very properly and articulately listed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, are restraints imposed by a Budget Act and by allocations that do not reflect the reality of the budget choice we face as a country because of the level of surplus. Since those allocations were made, we have in fact learned that we have a significant amount of additional funds available to us to begin to choose how we will reflect the priorities of our Nation. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, a lot of us on this side of the aisle joined with them to put in place the fiscal discipline we all laud and believe is appropriate. It was a 1993 vote, in fact, that put in place the Deficit Reduction Act. Many of us are pleased that we finally were able to set this country on a course where we now have the current surpluses. We have to start to be smart about what kind of choices we are going to make. I keep hearing colleagues on both sides of the aisle come to the floor. They lament what is happening to children in America. They lament what is happening with respect to young people who are increasingly feeding into the juvenile justice system of the Nation. We hear the cries of anguish about children having children out of wedlock, about the failure of marriage in this country. But we don't seem to connect our legislative actions to things that really might make a difference in the lives of young people so they will choose a more moral, traditional, affirmative course for their own life. How do kids make those kinds of choices? Traditionally, in the America we always hear Members talking about, we have family, which is the best teacher of all, the most important connection of a child to their future. We have schools and teachers. History in America is replete with great personalities who harken back to a particular teacher who affected their life. We hear less and less of those stories in modern America. Finally, there is organized religion. Organized religion is the other great teaching entity. Not one that we are supposed to, in this body, specifically legislate about, but it is proper to acknowledge the role that religion plays as one of those three great teachers in the lives of children. The truth is, in America today we have an awful lot of young children who don't have contact with any one of those three teachers, not one. Their teachers are the streets. Colin Powell talks about it in his America's Promise, which appeals to people to make a voluntary commitment to try to intervene in the lives of some of those children and replace the absence of those three great teachers. What kids learn in the streets is not the real values of America; it is what I call ``coping skills.'' They learn how to get by. They learn how to survive. They learn the sort of ``law of the jungle,'' as some used to call it. The fact is, we are not doing enough, we Senators are not doing enough, to leverage those things that make a difference in the absence of the three great teachers. I ask any one of my colleagues: How do we break the cycle of a kid having a kid out of wedlock? How do we break the cycle of a child raised in an abusive household, whose role models in life are people who beat up on each other, shoot drugs, get into trouble, such as the role models for that 6-year-old kid who shot a 6-year-old classmate living in a crack house with an uncle, a parent in jail, no one responsible? What is that child's future, unless adults make the decision to somehow provide those positive forces that make a difference? What are the positive forces? Well, the positive forces are often some of the faith-based interventions, whether it is the Jewish Community Center or a Baptist organization or the Catholic Charities; but there are those entities out there that have a wonderful, extraordinary capacity to bring kids back from the brink. And then there are those organized entities that also do it, such as the Boys and Girls Club; Big Brother/ Big Sister; YMCA and YWCA; or a program in Boston called Youth Build, or City Year. All of these provide young people with alternatives and the ability to have surrogate parenting, fundamentally. That is what is really taking place. What is really taking place is those entities is providing an alternative. Now, we will debate in the Senate whether or not we are going to provide 200,000 H-1B visas. I am for it. I think we ought to provide that, or more, because we have an immediate need in this country to provide skilled people in order to keep the economic boom going and provide for critical technologies, to have good working people. But has it not occurred to my colleagues what an insult it is to our own system that we have to go abroad and import skilled labor to the United States, even as we are putting thousands of young kids into prison, into the juvenile justice system, and out into the streets, as the Senator from Connecticut just said, because we don't have afterschool programs? What are we going to do? We are going to import 200,000 skilled people to make up for the unskilled people whom we leave unskilled because we are unwilling to make the adult choices in the Senate that would make a difference in their lives. How can we boast about the extraordinary surplus we have in this country, with the stock market climbing to record levels, the most extraordinary amounts of wealth ever created in the history of any nation on the planet right here in the United States, but poverty among children has increased by 50 percent and the number of kids who are at risk has increased. I don't believe in the Federal Government taking over these programs. I don't believe in Washington dictating the solutions. But I do believe in Washington leveraging the capacity of people at the local level to be able to do what they know they need to do. So we are reduced to a debate where the Senator from Pennsylvania has to say, well, oh, my gosh, under our 201(b) allocation--or whatever the appropriate section is--we don't have enough money to be able to allocate because we have a total cap that has no relationship to the reality of what we must do. We keep saying, isn't it terrific that we have raised the amount of money--and it is terrific--when the real question is, are we doing what we need to do to get the job done? That is the question we ought to be asking. What is it going to take to guarantee that children in the United States of [[Page S5956]] America are safe? What does it take to guarantee that we don't dump 5 million kids out into the streets in the afternoons, unsafe, and exposed to drug dealers and to all of the vagaries of the teenage years and all of the pressures that come with it in a modern society that doesn't have parents around to be able to help those kids make a better choice? We don't have to do that. We ought to make it the goal of the Senate to guarantee that every child in America is going to be safe and secure between the hours when teachers stop teaching and when those parents are coming home. And we can ask 100,000 questions about why it is we are not providing arts and music and sports and libraries that are open full-time, and Internet access. That is where my amendment comes in, Mr. President. Senator Kennedy has an amendment on teacher quality, which is linked to the capacity of kids to fill those high tech jobs that we talk about. Senator Dodd has an amendment talking about making those kids safe after school. My amendment seeks to increase the funding for the technology literacy challenge fund, which is a critically important education program that helps provide technology access, education, professional development, and instruction in elementary and secondary schools. All we say is that to qualify for the money, States have to submit a statewide technology plan that includes a strategy on how the States will include private, State, local, and other entities in the continued financing and support of technology in schools. There are two points that I can't stress enough. One is the importance of providing young people with the opportunity to learn how to use technology. I am not one of those people. I don't want to celebrate technology to the point of it being put up on a pedestal and it becomes an entity unto itself. Technology is not a god; it is not a philosophy; it is not a way of life. Technology is a tool, a useful tool. It is a critical tool for the modern marketplace and the modern world. But we are preordaining that we are going to have to have next year's H-1B plan, and the next year's H-1B plan, and another prison, and another program to deal with a whole lot of young kids for whom the digital divide becomes more and more real, who don't have accessability or the capacity to be able to gain the skills necessary to share in this new world. The fact is that there are too many teachers who don't have the ability to even teach; we have the schools wired; we have the e-rate. We are beginning to get increased access to the Internet. But what do you do with it? How many teachers know how to use the technology to really be able to educate kids? How many kids are, in fact, having the benefit of the opportunity of having teachers who have those skills so that they can ultimately maximize their opportunities? All we are suggesting is that we ought to be doing more to empower-- not to mandate, not to dictate, but to empower--those local communities that desperately want to do this but don't have the tax base to be able to do it. Let's give them that ability. That is the best role the Federal Government can play--to leverage things that represent national priorities, leverage the things that represent the best goals and aspirations of ourselves as a Nation. It is not micromanagement; it is, rather, putting in place a mechanism by which we have national priorities--to have good, strong families, to have kids who are computer literate, and to have more skilled workers. Those are national priorities. But if we turn our heads away and say the only priority in this country is to sort of sequester this money for the senior generation in one form or another, without any regard to the generation that is coming along that needs to fund Social Security, that needs to have a high value-added job so they can pay into it and adequately protect it, that is not Social Security protection. We have gone from 13 workers paying in for every 1 that is taking out--13 workers paying into the system for every 1 worker taking out-- to three paying in and one taking out. Now there are two paying in and one taking out. We have a vested interest as a nation in making sure those two paying in are capable of paying in; that they have a high value-added job that empowers them to pay in; when they pay in, it doesn't take so much of their income that they feel so oppressed by the system that they are not able to invest in their own children and in their own future. That is in our interest. That is a national priority. If we don't begin in the Senate tomorrow to adequately reflect the needs of our children in the money that we allocate, we will be seriously missing one of the greatest priorities the country faces. All of us understand the degree to which there is an increase in the digital divide of the country. The technology literacy challenge fund is a critical effort to try to provide those kids with an opportunity to close that gap. Last year, my home State of Massachusetts received $8.1 million. Some of the programs it put in place are quite extraordinary. Let me share with my colleagues one of the examples of this program that works so effectively. It is called the Lighthouse Technology Grant. The Lighthouse Technology Grant incorporates new technologies into the State curriculum framework so that it better motivates children to be able to learn. One of the schools in my State--the Lynn Woods Elementary School in Lynn--is integrating technology into the classroom by virtue of this grant. Fifth grade students at the Lynn Woods school are studying Australia. They have been able to videoconference directly with Australian students who are studying the Boston area. You have students engaging in a very personal and direct way, all of which encourages their learning and enhances their interest in the topic. They have also developed writing skills through special e-mail pen pal programs with Australian students. In addition, they have been able to connect more directly with the experience of life, thereby asking very direct questions and engaging in a personal exchange that they never could have experienced before because of telephone rates and because of the difficulties of communication under any kind of telephone circumstance. The Lighthouse Technology Grant is only one of eight programs funded by this challenge grant in Massachusetts. It also provides grants to a virtual high school program which enables school districts to offer students Internet courses ranging from advanced academic courses to technical and specialized courses. Let me emphasize the importance of that to my colleagues. A few weeks ago, I visited a high school in Boston, an inner-city high school, Dorchester High. I found that in this high school of almost 1,000 students in the inner city they are not able to provide advanced placement courses. I ask everybody here to imagine a high school that is supposed to be state of the art that doesn't have advanced placement courses. Yet, because of the virtual high school and because of the access to the Internet, if we close the digital divide, we can in fact make it affordable and accessible for schools that today have difficulty finding the teachers, affording the teachers, and providing the curriculum--and be able to do so immediately. That is the difference between somebody being able to go to college or being college ready or being able to go to college and advance rapidly in the kinds of curriculum and courses that will make even a greater difference in their earning capacity and in their citizen- contributing capacity at a later time. We need to recognize that unless we encourage this to happen, the transformation could take a lot longer than we want it to take. For example, it has taken only 7 years for the Internet to be adopted by 30 percent of Americans. That is compared to 17 years for television to be adopted by 38 percent, and for the telephone, 38 percent during the same amount of time. The world of work is obviously so much different and at a faster rate. But if we leave kids behind for a longer period of time, we will greatly restrain their learning capacity as well as our growth capacity as a country. The technology literacy challenge fund has been funded under the committee's mark at about $425 million. The administration actually asked for $450 million. The House has set a figure [[Page S5957]] of $517 million. I think that is more reflective of the level of funding that is necessary in order to achieve the kind of transition that we wish for in this country. Some might argue we could even do more. But it is clear to me that by measuring the priorities as expressed by other colleagues we can, in fact, do more if we will challenge the system a little bit, if we will push the limits a little bit, and if we will look at the reality of the budget choices that the Congress faces. I think nothing could be more important for all of us as Senators and as Congress this year. I hope my colleagues will embrace the notion that we can in fact do an appropriate waiver of the budget and set this as a priority of the Senate. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, here again, there is little doubt that technology literacy is a very important matter for America. There is no doubt about that at all. Here again, it is a matter of how our allocations are going to run. We debated the Dodd amendment earlier today about afterschool programs--again, a good program. There is a question about the amount of money and where the priorities are. We debated the Kennedy amendment about teacher recruitment--another good program. We had to turn down amendments yesterday by Senator Wellstone who wanted more money for title I; Senator Bingaman, also more money for title I; Senator Murray asked for an additional $325 million on top of $1.4 billion which was supplied for class size. There is no doubt that so many of these programs are excellent programs. The Senator from Massachusetts in offering this amendment noted the constraints we are operating under with respect to how much money we have in our allocation. We have established priorities. We have greatly increased the education account by some $4.6 billion. That is a tremendous increase, coming to a total of $40.2 billion. In our education account, we have $100 million more than the President asked for. I have already today gone over a long list of items where we have increased funding on education on very important items. It is a matter of making the appropriate allocation and the setting of priorities. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts that the House of Representatives has established a mark of $517 million in this account. It is entirely plausible that the figure that is in the Senate bill will be substantially increased. We will certainly keep in mind the eloquence of Senator Kerry's arguments. There is no doubt about technology and about the need for more funding in technology. I believe that a country with an $8 trillion gross national product can do better on education. I said earlier today and have said many times on this floor that I am committed to education, coming from a family which emphasizes education so heavily, my parents having very little education and my siblings and I being able to succeed--I guess you would call it success to come to the Senate--because of our educational opportunities. That is the essence of our position. We have substantially more time. I inquire of the Chair: How much time remains? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 26 minutes remaining. The Senator from Massachusetts has 8 minutes remaining. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could direct a question to the manager of the bill, it is my understanding Senator Wellstone will offer one of his amendments next. Mr. SPECTER. That is fine. Mr. REID. I will also have Senator Wellstone agree to a time limit. Mr. SPECTER. Speaking of the time limit with Senator Wellstone on the floor, may we agree to 30 minutes equally divided, 20 minutes equally divided, 15 minutes equally divided? How much time does Senator Wellstone desire? Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I did not hear the Senator. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I suggested a time agreement of 30 minutes equally divided, perhaps 20 minutes equally divided. Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Pennsylvania, my guess is it will take me about 40 minutes on my side. I prefer not to agree to a time limit. I don't think I will go more than that. Mr. SPECTER. Would the Senator from Minnesota be willing to enter a time agreement of an hour, 40 minutes for the Senator from Minnesota, and 20 minutes for our side? Mr. WELLSTONE. I am pleased to do so. Mr. SPECTER. I ask unanimous consent the time be set on the Wellstone amendment at 1 hour, with the Senator from Minnesota having 40 minutes and our side having 20 minutes. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that no second-degree amendments be in order prior to the vote. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KERRY. If the Senator from Pennsylvania wants to yield back time, I am prepared to do the same. I want to reserve one comment. I appreciate everything the Senator has said. I appreciate his comments. I know he wants to do more. Unless we in the Senate tackle this beast called the allocation process, and unless we begin to challenge the constraints within which we are now dealing, we are not doing our job. These votes are an opportunity to try to do that. My plea is to the Senator, the Appropriations Committee, and others, that we begin to try to change these shackles that are keeping us from responding to the real needs of the country. The measurement should not be what we are doing against a baseline set by us. The measurement should be, what will it take to guarantee we can turn to Americans and say we are addressing the problem, we are getting the job done. We need to close that gap. I am happy to yield back the remainder of my time. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the vote on the Kerry amendment be deferred, to be stacked later today at a time to be mutually agreed upon by our respective leaders. I raise a point of order under section 302(f) of the Budget Act, as amended, that the effect of adopting the Kerry amendment provides budget authority in excess of the subcommittee's 302(b) allocations under the fiscal year 2001 concurrent resolution on the budget, and is not in order. Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive the applicable section of that act for consideration of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. KERRY. I thank my colleague. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Amendment No. 3644 (Purpose: To provide funds for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program, with an offset) Mr. WELLSTONE. I call up amendment 3644. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] proposes an amendment numbered 3644. Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: On page 71, after line 25, add the following: Sec. ____. (a) In addition to any amounts appropriated under this title for the loan forgiveness for child care providers program under section 428K of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1078-11), an additional $10,000,000 is appropriated to carry out such program. (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, amounts made available under titles I and II, and this title, for salaries and expenses at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, respectively, shall be reduced on a pro rata basis by $10,000,000. [[Page S5958]] Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer a very simple amendment. This amendment asks only that we appropriate an additional $10 million to fund the loan forgiveness program which was authorized under the Higher Education Act. This is a loan forgiveness program for women and men who go into child care work. This would be taken from administrative expenses in the overall budget. Despite the fact that we know that child care workers struggle to pay back their student loans, and that all too many of them earn poverty- level wages without benefits, which means in turn that many of them are forced to leave their work for higher paid work, we have yet to appropriate one penny for this forgiveness program. I originally offered this amendment calling for loan forgiveness for those men and women who go into the child care field with Senator DeWine. My thought was this is sacred work. This is important work. This is work with small children. If people are going to be paid miserably low wages--many having no health care benefits at all, and we understand the importance of early childhood development--then let's at least have a loan forgiveness that will encourage men and women to go into this area. Right now the child care situation in the United States is critical. We have a system in place where child care is prohibitively high for working families. It is not uncommon for a family to be paying $6,000 per child, $12,000 per year, $10,000 per year. Maybe the family's overall income is $35,000 or $40,000. At the same time, we have child care workers who are taking care of children during the most critical years of development and they don't even make poverty wages. It seems counterintuitive. How can it be that on the one hand child care is so expensive, but on the other hand those men and women who work in this field are so underpaid? The problems of the high costs and the low wages are inevitable under the current system of child care delivery in the United States. Colleagues, this amendment is just one vote, but this is a central issue of American politics. Talk to working families in this country and they will list child care as one of their top concerns. They are not just talking about the cost of child care, but they are also saying when both parents work, or as a single parent working, they worry most of all that their child is receiving the best care--not custodial, not in front of a television for 8 hours, but developmental care. On a personal note, I can remember as a student at the University of North Carolina, barely age 20, Sheila and I had our first child. I will never forget, 6 weeks after David was born, Sheila had to go back to work. That is all the time she could take off. Six weeks is not enough time to bond with a child. We had hardly any money. We asked around and we heard about a woman who took care of children. We took David over. After about 3 days of picking him up, every day he was listless. Before he had gone to this child care, this home child care setting, he was engaged and lively. It was wonderful. I was at school, I was working; Sheila was working. At 5 o'clock or 5:30 we would come to pick him up and he was listless. Finally, after 3 days I got concerned and I showed up at her home in the middle of the day. The problem was she had about 20 children she was trying to take care of. Most of them were in playpens and she had stuck a pacifier in their mouth and they were receiving no real care. There was no real interaction. Parents worry about this. I argue today on the floor of the Senate, one of the keys to making sure there is decent developmental child care--not custodial child care--is to have men and women working in this field being paid a decent wage. Right now, we have a 40-percent turnover in this field. Who pays the price? The children. I have said on the Senate floor before, when I was teaching at Carleton College as a college teacher for 20 years, I had conversations with students who came to me and said: Look, don't take it personally. We think you are a good teacher, Paul, and we really appreciate your work as a teacher. But we would like to go into early childhood development. The problem is, when you make $8 an hour, with no health care benefits, and you have a huge student loan to pay off, especially at a college like Carleton, you can't afford to do it. Some of the people want to go into this field, which we say is so important, but they can't afford to do it. The least we could do is have a small loan forgiveness program. The result of the system we have right now is poverty-level earnings for the workforce. By the way, who are the child care providers in the country today? Mr. President, 98 percent of them are women, and one-third of them are women of color. We can do a lot better. We pay parking lot attendants and men and women who work at the zoos in America twice as much as we pay those men and women who take care of our small children. Something is profoundly wrong when we pay people who care for our cars and our pets more money than we do for those who care for our children. Let me go over the facts. The average teacher based at a child care center earns roughly $7 an hour. Despite above average levels of education, roughly one-third of the child care workers earn the minimum wage. Even those at the highest end of the pay scale, who are likely to have a college degree and several years of experience, make about $10 an hour. Family child care providers--a lot of child care is in homes-- make even less money. People who care for small groups of children in their home make on average about $9,000 per year after all expenses are figured in. A recent study by the Center For The Childcare Workforce finds that family child care providers earn on the average, when you take into account their costs, $3.84 an hour, given their typical 55-hour week. Not only that, but the majority of child care workers in our country receive no health benefits, despite high exposure to illness. A lot of kids, when they come, have the flu and they pass it around. Fewer than one-third of the child care providers in this country today have health insurance, and an even smaller percentage of child care workers have any pension plan whatsoever. A recent study in my State of Minnesota found that only 31 percent of child care centers offered full-time employees fully paid health care. The consequences of these dismal conditions are clear. Let me just put it into perspective for colleagues. In the White House Conference on the Development of the Brain, they talked about how important it is that we get it right for children in the very early years of their lives. The medical evidence is irrefutable and irreducible that these are the most critical years. We all want to have our pictures taken next to children --the smaller the children are, the better. Yet at the same time we have done so precious little to make a commitment to this area. We have child care workers, men and women who work in these centers, who do not even make half of what people make who work in our zoos. I think work in the zoo is important, but I also think work with small children is important. We have the vast majority of child care workers barely making minimum wage or a little bit above, only about a third at best having any health care coverage whatsoever. Senator DeWine and I, several years ago, help pass a bill that authorized some loan forgiveness so you would have men and women who could go to college, with the idea they would go into this critically important field and their loans would be forgiven. What I am trying to do, taking it out of administrative expenses, is just finally to get a little bit of appropriation; start out with $10 million so we finally set the precedent that we are willing to fund this. We have not put one penny into this program so far. What happens is that we have this high turnover. As I said before, probably about 40 percent or thereabouts of child care workers in any given year go from one job to another. That figure may be a little high, but it is a huge turnover. Who pays the price? The children pay the price. As I look at my own figures, I guess it is about a third, a third of this country's child care workforce leaves the job each year because they are looking for better work. This leads to a dangerous decline in the quality of child care for our families. The most dangerous decline in quality is the care for toddlers, for infants. [[Page S5959]] They are exposed to the poorest care of all. We have not appropriated one cent for the loan forgiveness program we authorized 2 years ago, and at the same time you have 33 percent of child care workers every year leaving, and you don't have the continuity of care for our children, for families in this country. At the same time, it is the infants and the toddlers who are the ones who are most in jeopardy. At the same time, we have not made any commitment whatsoever to at least--at least, this doesn't change everything in the equation--make sure we have a loan forgiveness program. Another thing that is happening is that as we begin to see a severe teacher shortage, a lot of child care workers are saying that they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits. A lot of younger people say they can't make it on $8 an hour with no health care benefits and a big loan to pay off. They now become our elementary school teachers or middle school teachers. As a result, what you have is, at the same time the number of child care providers is decreasing, the number of families who need good child care for their children is dramatically increasing. That is not just because of the welfare bill, but because the reality of American families today, for better or for worse--sometimes I wonder--is that you just don't have one parent staying at home. In most families, both parents are working full time. This is a huge concern to families in this country. We could help by passing this amendment. I want to talk about one study in particular that I think, in a dramatic way, puts into focus what I am talking about. It was a recent study by the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University. They found that a million more toddlers and preschoolers are now in child care because of the welfare law. That wouldn't surprise anyone, given the emphasis on people going to work. So far, so good. But they also found that many of these children are in low-quality care, where they lag behind other children in developmental measures. This was a study of 1,000 single mothers moving from welfare to work. They wanted to know where were their children. What they found out was their children were, by and large, placed in child care settings where they watched TV all the time, wandered aimlessly, and there was little interaction with caregivers. Here is the tragedy of it. Many of these toddlers from these families showed developmental delays. Would anybody be surprised? Anyone who has spent any time with small children would not be surprised. When asked to point to a picture of a book from among three different pictures, fewer than two in five of the toddlers in the study pointed to the right picture compared to a national norm of four out of five children. One of the study's authors is quoted as saying: We know that high quality child care can help children and that poor children can benefit the most. So we hope that this will be a wake-up call to do something about the quality of child care in this country. The quality of daycare centers is not great for middle class families, but it is surprising and distressing to see the extent to which welfare families' quality was even lower. I simply want to point out that just because a family is a welfare family or just because a family is a poor family does not mean these small children are not as deserving of good child care. That is not the situation today in the country. Ironically, as we see the child care system deteriorating, we are now putting more and more emphasis on the importance of developmental child care. We are saying at the same time that we want to make sure single parents work and families move from welfare to work. We are putting the emphasis on work, and more families have to work to make it. The median income in our country today is about $40,000 a year. The income profile is not that high. We know investment in early childhood development pays for itself many times over. We know good child care programs dramatically increase the chances for children to do well in school, for children to go on beyond K-12 and go to college and do well in their lives, and we know the lives of low-income families, in particular, quite often lack some of the advantages other families in this country have. Children from low-income families do not always have the same vocabulary; there is not always the opportunity for a parent or parents to read to them. Therefore, the learning gap by kindergarten is wide. Some children start way behind, and then they fall further behind. I cite one study which began in the seventies on the effects of early childhood intervention. Children who received comprehensive, quality, early education did better on cognitive, reading and math tests than children who did not. This positive effect continues through age 21 and beyond. Parents benefit as well. I do not understand where our priorities are. We should want to make a commitment to working families in this country and make a commitment to children. I want to give some evidence from the State of Minnesota, and then I will finish up at least with my first comments. This loan forgiveness program works. First, it gives people an opportunity to go to college who want to become child care workers. Second, the turnover is reduced. Third, this means we get better people. My own State of Minnesota has experimented. We have a State level loan forgiveness program. In 1998, we offered child care providers up to $1,500 in forgivable student loans for the first time. Fifty percent of the money was set aside for what we call the metro area, and 50 percent of the money was set aside for greater Minnesota, outside the metro area. The money was awarded on a first come, first served basis. People began lining up on the first day. In the metro area, all the money was gone by 5 p.m. on the second day, and all of the money for rural Minnesota was awarded within 2 weeks. This year, Minnesota has made over $900,000 available through their loan forgiveness program. They started accepting applications in March, and they have committed nearly half the money to family care providers and 50 percent to center-based providers. A lot of it goes to rural Minnesota and a lot of it goes to urban Minnesota. I am saying to my colleagues, I am hoping I can win on this amendment. I take it out of administrative expenses. We know the budget is going to be better for this Health and Human Services bill. We know we do not have a good budget with which to work right now. We know the cap is going to go up. We know we are going to have more resources with which to work. We all say we are committed to developmental child care. It is one of the top issues of working families. It seems to me several years ago--I did this with Senator DeWine--we authorized legislation that called for loan forgiveness to men and women who want to go into this critical area, and we have not appropriated one penny. We can at least find it in our hearts and find our way to put some appropriations into this legislation. I am calling for $10 million as a start. I am saying to Senators today--and I do not think anybody can argue with me--there is not one Senator who can dispute the clear set of facts that we have to get it right for children. We have to get it right for them before age 3, much less before age 5. Nobody can argue with that. Nobody can argue these are not critical developmental years. Look at the spark in their eyes. They are experiencing all the unnamed magic in the world before them, as long as we encourage them. No one can argue that for working families this is not a huge issue, both the expense of child care, which I cannot deal with in this amendment, and the quality of the care for their children. If both parents are working or a single parent is working, there is nothing more important to them than making sure their child is receiving the best care. They do not want their child warehoused. They do not want their child in front of a television 8 hours a day. They want to make sure their child is stimulated. They want to make sure there is nurturing for their child. They want to make sure there is interaction with their child. I do not know how some of the people who work in the child care field do it. They are saints; they do it out of love for children; but they should not be the ones who subsidize this system. We are not going to have good people in the child care field if they are making $8 an hour. We are not going to have good people if they do not have any health [[Page S5960]] care benefits. I cannot deal with that in this amendment, but I can deal with one thing. I can call on my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, who say they are committed to good child care, who say they are committed to family values. If they are committed to family values, what better way to value families than to make sure that when people are working, their children are receiving good care? What better way to make sure that happens than to do something about the one-third turnover every year? How can we best deal with the one-third turnover? We need to do a lot of things, but this amendment in its own small way helps. I am simply saying we ought to at least put $10 million into this loan forgiveness program so we can encourage men and women--frankly, I would like to see more men in this field; it is almost all women in this field. At least they know their loan will be forgiven. That will make a huge difference. That is all this amendment is about. I also say to my colleagues, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and Senator DeWine. I am so pleased Senator DeWine is a cosponsor. I have done a number of different bills and legislation with Senator DeWine. We did the Workforce Investment Act together, and we did this authorization together. I do not think we are asking too much. This is actually a crisis. The fact is, the studies that have come out about the quality of child care in this country are pretty frightening. Sometimes it is downright dangerous, but almost always it is barely adequate, and we have to do something about it. One of the best ways we can show we care is to at least begin putting some funding into this loan forgiveness program. I reserve the remainder of my time if, in fact, there is substantive debate on this issue. Otherwise, I will make a few other points. I reserve the remainder of my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time on the amendment? The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, on behalf of the committee, we are prepared to accept this Wellstone amendment which provides $10 million for loan forgiveness for child care providers. The program was authorized by the Higher Education Amendment of 1998 and has never been funded. The administration did not request funding, I might add. A $10 million offset in administrative expenses will pay for this amendment. If the Senator is agreeable, I will accept the amendment to forgive loans for child care providers who complete a degree in early childhood education and obtain employment in a child care facility located in low-income communities. That is acceptable to us. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Alaska. And if this is not presumptuous of me to say, normally I like to call for a recorded vote, but I would be pleased to have a voice vote, if that is what my colleague wants. And there is one reason why. I can't get an ironclad commitment from the Senator from Alaska, but I make a plea to him to please try to help me keep it in conference. It would be a small step toward getting funding for this. I know the Senator is very effective. I don't need to have a recorded vote if he can at least tell me he will certainly try. Mr. STEVENS. The Senator does not need a recorded vote. This amendment probably applies to my State more than any other State in the Union. I assure him I will be asserting his position in conference. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am very glad to hear that. I think I would be pleased to go forward with a voice vote. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we ask for the adoption of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Do both Senators yield back their time? Mr. STEVENS. I yield back our time. Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield back my time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment. The amendment (No. 3644) was agreed to. Mr. STEVENS. I move to reconsider the vote. Mr. WELLSTONE. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Alaska. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are awaiting clearance--I understand there is a Kennedy amendment on job training. We would like to get a time agreement on that. I would urge that we consider that at this time. Does the Senator wish the floor? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada. Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to the manager, the chairman of the full committee, Senator Stevens, we would like to have Senator Reed of Rhode Island offer the next amendment. He is on his way over to do that. Mr. STEVENS. Is it possible to get a time agreement on that? Mr. REID. Yes, it is. Mr. STEVENS. We would like to get time agreements so it would be possible to stack votes later, if that is possible. Is the Senator prepared to indicate how long it might be? Mr. REID. We will wait until he gets here, but I don't think he will take a lot of time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, might I ask my colleagues, there is some order here. There is going to be a Reed amendment--is that correct?--next, and then a Kennedy amendment. I have an amendment with Senator Reid that deals with mental health and suicide prevention. Might I add that I follow Senator Kennedy? I am ready to keep rolling. Mr. STEVENS. I am not prepared to agree to that yet. We are not sure Senator Kennedy wants to offer his amendment yet. We are prepared to enter into a time agreement on the Kennedy amendment. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I might state for the information of the Senate, we are trying to arrange amendments from each side of the aisle. We urge Members on the Republican side of the aisle to come forward with amendments if they wish to call them up today. For the time being, I ask unanimous consent that on the amendment offered by Senator Reed of Rhode Island there be a time limit of 30 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote on or in relation to that amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and, it is so ordered. Mr. STEVENS. We presume that there may be a Republican amendment offered after the Reed amendment. But in any event, the next Democratic amendment to be offered would be that of Senator Kennedy, his job training amendment, and prior to that vote, there would be--let's put it this way, that time on that amendment be limited to 60 minutes equally divided, with no second-degree amendments prior to a vote. It is my understanding there would be 2 minutes on each side. Is that the procedure now prior to the vote? Is that correct, may I inquire? Is that your desire? Mr. REID. That is appropriate. Mr. STEVENS. I ask unanimous consent that on each of these consents there be a 4-minute period prior to the vote to be equally divided. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mr. WELLSTONE. Can I ask my colleague in that sequence, that following Senator Kennedy there be a Republican and then I be allowed-- -- Mr. STEVENS. It is my understanding the third Democratic amendment to be offered would be the amendment from Senator Wellstone. We are awaiting the Republican amendments to see. But it will be the Reed amendment, then a Republican amendment, then the Kennedy amendment, then a Republican amendment, and then the Wellstone amendment. [[Page S5961]] The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. REID. Senator Wellstone has agreed to 1 hour evenly divided. Mr. STEVENS. I don't know what the subject matter is. Mr. REID. Mental health. Mr. WELLSTONE. Suicides. Mr. REID. It deals with suicides. Mr. STEVENS. We haven't seen it, but we will be pleased to consider an hour on that amendment and get back to the Senator. Mr. REID. If you need more time, we don't care. If you decide you do, we will add it on to ours. Mr. STEVENS. Let's decide the time on that amendment once we have seen it. Mr. President, while we are awaiting the next amendment, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gregg). Without objection, it is so ordered. Amendment No. 3638 (Purpose: To provide funds for the GEAR UP Program) Mr. REED. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 3638, and I ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed], for himself, Mr. Kennedy, and Mrs. Murray, proposes an amendment numbered 3638. Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The amendment is as follows: At the end of title III, insert the following: SEC. . GEAR UP PROGRAM. In addition to any other funds appropriated under this Act to carry out chapter 2 of subpart 2 of part A of title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, there are appropriated $100,000,000. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island. Mr. REED. Mr. President, this amendment would increase funding for GEAR UP by $100 million. GEAR UP is a critical component of our efforts to provide disadvantaged young people a chance to go on to college. GEAR UP reaches out very early in their educational careers, giving them the mentoring, the support, and the information necessary to succeed, not only in high school but to go beyond, to enter and complete college. I offer this amendment along with Senator Kennedy and Senator Murray. We are offering it because we believe--as I am sure everyone in the Chamber believes--that the opportunity to go on to postsecondary education is central to our country and central to our aspirations in the Senate. This opportunity is particularly difficult to achieve if one is a low-income student in the United States. The GEAR UP program is specifically designed to reach out early in the career of a child, the sixth or seventh grade, and give them not only the skills but the confidence and the expectation that they can succeed and can go on to college. Both these skills and information, together with the confidence that they can succeed, are essential to their progress and to our progress as a Nation. GEAR UP is based upon proven early intervention models such as the I Have a Dream Program and Project GRAD. These programs have succeeded in improving low-income student achievement, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment rates. We are building on a successful set of models. GEAR UP provides students with very specific services tailored to help them prepare for college. These services include tutoring, mentoring, and counseling. They are critical to ensure that students are equipped both academically and emotionally to succeed in college. We often hear about the lack of opportunities available to low-income families. This is particularly the case when we talk about entering and succeeding in college. Low-income children are the least likely individuals in the United States to attend college. In fact, if we look at high-achieving students from low-income schools and backgrounds, they are five times less likely to attend college as comparable students in higher-income schools across this country. By focusing on college preparation for these needy students, GEAR UP is directly targeted at eliminating this disparity. There is something else that is important about GEAR UP. There are many talented young people who, if they are the first child in their family to seriously contemplate college, do not have the advantage of parents who are knowledgeable about the system. Their parents often do not have the information and the incentives to provide the kind of support and assistance these young people need. That, too, must be addressed, and GEAR UP does that. In fact, GEAR UP addresses the needs not only of students but also of parents. In a recent survey, 70 percent of parents indicated they have very little information or they want more information about which courses their child should take to prepare for college. Eighty-nine percent of parents wanted more information about how to pay for college. This information disparity is particularly acute in low-income areas. Again, GEAR UP provides that type of information and assistance. It is well documented that continuous programs that are integrated into the daily school life of a child are the best types of programs to provide for successful outcomes. That is exactly what GEAR UP does. It starts early in a career, sixth and seventh grade, follows the child through their middle school years and into high school, and is integrated with other subjects so there is both continuous support and an integrated approach to preparing a child for college. GEAR UP does this through partnerships and collaborations among State departments of education, high-poverty school districts, institutions of higher education, businesses, and other private or non-profit community organizations. GEAR UP is a college preparatory program, a Federal program that focuses on children in early grades. As such, the existence of other programs such as TRIO does not eliminate the need to fully fund GEAR UP. We have to recognize that we have not only the responsibility but also an opportunity to fully fund the GEAR UP program. I commend Senator Harkin and Senator Specter. They have dealt with a variety of educational issues in a budget that constrains their choices--indeed, their desires--significantly. They have done remarkable work, including funding for the LEAP program, which provides low-income students with funds to go to college. But if you don't have the first piece, if you don't have a GEAR UP program that gives students the skills, the confidence, the insights to get into college, Pell grants and LEAP grants are irrelevant because these deserving young students won't even be in the mix. GEAR UP is important. It is fundamental. The budget that Senators Specter and Harkin were dealing with did not give them the full range of choices they needed to ensure they could fund these important priorities. That is why we are here today, to provide a total of $325 million for GEAR UP, an increase of $100 million over what is in this current appropriations bill. If we do this, it will allow every State to have a GEAR UP program. As a result of the additional $100 million,