the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, thank you for your

love that never gives up on us. bless our lawmakers today, guiding their thoughts, words and actions. inspire them to live as your servants, always striving to honor you through their labors. may they conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the sacrifice you have made for their salvation. empower them to continue to grow in knowledge and understanding so that they will be instruments for your glory. continue the work you have begun in them until it is finally finished. we pray in your great name. amen.

the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., december 15, 2013. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable mark r. warner, a senator from the commonwealth of virginia, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore.

mr. reid: i notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the call of the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection, and under the

previous order, the leadership time is reserved. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask the chair lay before the senate a message from the house with respect to h.j. res. 59. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate the following message. the clerk: resolved, that the house proceed from its amendment to the amendment of the senate for the resolution h.j. res. 59, entitled a joint resolution making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, and concur with the house amendment to a senate amendment. mr. reid: mr. president, i move to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment h.j. res. 59. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to concur. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to concur in the house amendment to senate amendment to h.j. res. 59. mr. reid: mr. president, i have a cloture motion at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: we, the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, hereby move to bring to a close

the debate on the motion to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.j. res. 59, the bipartisan budget act, signed by 18 senators as follows -- reid of nevada, murray, baucus, begich, boxer, blumenthal, udall of new mexico, stabenow, whitehouse, mccaskill, hirn, coons -- hirono, coons, tester, schock, gillibrand. mr. reid: i move to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.j. res. 59 with an amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.j. res. 59, with amendment number 2547. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask for the yeas and nays on my motion. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have an amendment which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes amendment numbered 2548 to the

instructions of amendment 2547. mr. reid: i move to refer the house message with respect to h.j. res. 59 with instructions. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to refer the house message on h.j. res. 59 to the committee on budget with instructions to report back with the following amendment numbered 2549. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays on that motion. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have an amendment to the instructions. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes amendment numbered 2550 to the instructions on the motion to refer of amendment numbered 2549. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have a second-degree amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes

amendment numbered 2551 to amendment numbered 2550. mr. reid: i ask the chair lay before the senate a message from the house with respect to h.r. 3304. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate the following message from the house. the clerk: resolved, that the house concur in the senate amendment to the title of the bill, h.r. 3304, entitled an act to authorize and request the president to award the medal of honor to benny j. atkins and donald p.sloat for acts of valor during the vietnam conflict and authorize the award of the medal of honor to certain other veterans who were previously recommended for the medal of the award of the medal of honor, and be it further resolved that the house concur in the first three senate amendments to the text of aforesaid mentioned amendment bill and be further resolved that the house concur in the fourth senate amendment to the text of the aforementioned bill, with the following amendment,

house amendment to senate amendment. mr. reid: i move to concur in the house amendments to the senate amendment to h.r. 3304. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 3304. mr. reid: i have a cloture motion at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the pryingses -- provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the motion to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendments to h.r. 3304, the department of defense authorization act for fiscal year 2014, signed by 17 senators as follows -- reid of nevada, levin, murray, donnelly, murphy, coons, tester, udall of new mexico, rockefeller, carper, stabenow, manchin, king, hirono, heinrich, nelson and baucus. mr. reid: i move to concur in

the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 334 with an amendment. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to concur in the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 3304, with the following amendment numbered 2553. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays on my motion. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have an amendment that i have asked the chair to order reported. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes an amendment numbered 2553 to the instructions of amendment numbered 2552. mr. reid: i now move to refer the house message with respect to h.r. 3304 with instructions. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motions. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to refer the house message on h.r. 33004 to the -- 3304 to the committee on armed services with instruction toss report back with the following amendment

numbered 2554. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays on that matter. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. reid: i have an amendment to the instructions. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, proposes amendment numbered 2555 to the instructions on the motion to refer to the amendment number 2554. mr. reid: i ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. viefd second-degree amendment at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: mr. reid proposes amendment numbered 2556 to amendment number 2555. mr. reid: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes itses business tatted, it adjourn until 3:00 p.m. monday, december 16 rntle following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later i in the day. following leader remarks, theree

be a period of morning business until 5:30, with the time equally divided. further, the filing deadline for the amendments to the motion to concur on the budget resolution, the national defense authorization act be 4:00 p.m. monday and finally, at 5:30 p.m., the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of executive calendar number 406, the nomination of ann w. patterson, as provided under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be done away with. the. the presiding officer: without objection. viemed a told that 1*z 1824 is due for another reading. -- mr. reid: i am told that s. 1824 is due for another reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title. the clerk: a bill tommed the safe drinking water act to exempt certain lead pipes, fit, fixtures and solider and flux that contain brass. the presiding officer: i object to any further proceedings with respect to the reading of this bill at this time. the presiding officer: without objection, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. reid: mr. president, on monday, there will be a series of roll call votes starting at 5:30 in the evening. those votes will be on

confirmation of the patterson nomination for assistant secretary of state, cloture on the johnson nomination, to be secretary of homeland security, confirmation of the johnson nominee initial and potentially additional procedural votes. if floss further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

>> this could be a movie. it needed to be a book about both of them in their relationship and how they do things for one another and support one another. >> is it in assessing what their relationship or a little bit above? >> a little bit above, a little bit of john adams meets war and peace, and in that sense you get a sense of the war of 1812 in the global politics involved but

you also get a sense of their strength and their relationship between the two of them and how they, together, one the czar of russia over to favor the united states. and he was so successful that the breast -- british prime minister said that the czar was now have an american. you would never hear that today. it is a good success story that way. >> and do you have another project coming up? >> i have been working on white house phoenix which is about the burning of the white house, dahlia, james madison, and a little bit about the star spangled banner because next year is the 200th anniversary of the war of 1812 and the star spangled banner when we, you know, ended in 1814. >> great. thank you for your time. >> the decline of character education and moral education and kind of a move to replace it with things like self-esteem programs, various therapeutic approaches that are full of

merit. we have a tried and true method of civilizing. coaches, moral guidance, certainly from parents come most of all from parents, but reinforced by teachers. and i just find we are moving away from that. the second problem the boys, and that there -- there a problem with curls to, right down talking about boys. just, i believe now the boys have become second-class citizens in our schools. and their problems are severely neglected. a young man today is far less likely to go to college than his sister. you know, you look at all ethnic groups and racial groups and socioeconomic groups and you find that boys are behind their female counterparts. they are far less literate. the average 15 year-old boy has the writing skills of a 13 year-old girl. he's reading about a year-and-a-half behind there.

and most importantly, they are more disengaged. there may have been a time when this was not a big problem. an economy where you could get a high-school degree and go out there and work hard and make it into the middle-class. and educators at the harvard graduate school of education, the passport to the middle classes to be nuys school diploma, not anymore. there is a new economy, and a new passport to the middle class is education beyond high school. in girls seem to be getting it, and boys not. that problem, major organizations, government groups, the part of education is still talking about the short changed crow because they were influenced by the early research that said crows were shortchanged in the 1990's. and so they have not adjusted or adapted to the times.

we have a white house that is consent of the education of girls. rows of fall behind. and when it is boys, every significant devout almost every significant metrics significantly behind girls. so i think many of white house council on boys as well. >> host: christina hoff sommers in a recent atlantic article you're right that women in the u.s. now are 62 percent of the associates' degrees, 57 percent of bass's degrees, 60 percent of master's degrees, 52 percent of doctorates, college admissions officers were at first baffled in and concerned and finally panicked over the male applicants. male enrollment fall below 40%, fiesta inns began to flee. officials at schools at or near the tipping point are helplessly watching as their campuses become like retirement villages with women competing for a handful of surviving men.

>> there are campuses that admissions officers are looking at 60 percent female, 62%, 65. seems to get worse each year. and they are, yes, i would say panicked. the administrator at the college of william and mary said to you know, we have to attract more men. we are the college of william and mary, not the college of marion barry. well, there is one statistician, a statistician who says that if current trends continue by the year 26 al qaeda, the last male will graduate from college. he was being facetious, but they're is a grain of truth. it is quite a mystery. why the girls, so much more aware of the importance of education. higher aspirations. some people say, oh, no criticism among poor kids

outperforming the boys. just this year there's a new study that shows among the highest, but rules are not only getting far more a's in a-plus is and take far more advanced placement classes, but there are more ambitious. the higher percentage aspire to get a graduate in law school. again, i celebrate this, what has happened with curls. it is inspiring. and, you know, some of it may be because of the initiative. i don't say that everything that they did was wrong. i just wish that when they discovered that there were gender differences in education, i wish it happened instead of becoming a girl partisan movement command has become a movement to improve the educational prospects of all children and health girls where they were behind in out boys when they were falling behind rules. and that would have meant, yes, more grows in math and science

because there were not doing as well of one. time and we have managed to close that gap. but having boys in just about everything else, reading, writing, school engagement, just in general, class from comportment, pretty good research that shows, teachers have a bias against unruly students. understandable. but the students can be five or six years old. i don't know that is something you want to blame or punish them for every want to find a way to make the class and a happy place for them and run for their i spiritedness. i feel that we have not done a good enough job. >> host: is there a shortage of male teachers? does this have an effect, if there is? >> guest: there are very few male teachers in elementary school. anyme