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quorum call: a senator:

mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: mr. president i rise to address an amendment that i am proposing to the bill that's under discussion, the every child achieves act. i'm not going to ask to call up the amendment at this time, but i certainly would like to do so at a later point in the day. i hope that this amendment will be part of any effort to wrap up debate on this bill because it addresses an important component that is being left out of the discussion on the every child achieves. the every child achieves act is the authorization act that lays out the provision for school policy. it is a bipartisan bill. it's a bill that will give a lot of flexibility to our states. i think it's been a very important effort to address many shortcomings in the former act no child left behind act that in fact left a lot of children

behind. in my discussions with educators throughout the state of oregon, with parents and administrators and teachers, they found great great -- a great number of difficulties and problems with an act that was undermining the success of our public schools and in fact leaving a huge number of children behind in focusing really on what these educators referred to as the bubble. that is, those children who were close enough to the testing line to get them over the top while decreasing attention that was paid to those children who could already meet the testing line or those that they did not think were able to get to that line. that certainly is not a holistic comprehensive education system addressing the needs of all of our children. and so i am delighted to see this reform here on the floor of the senate and this focus on assisting every child in achieving is appropriate.

but we cannot achieve a world-class education system that responds to a world knowledge economy preparing our children to be full, successful members of that world knowledge economy if we do not provide the resources necessary for our schools to thrive. and it strikes me as a real failure of our legislative process that here a generation after i went through elementary and secondary education, we we are a far richer nation, but our schools have far fewer resources. and my children have been attending public school in the same blue-collar school district that i grew up in, and so i have a firsthand view of the difference between what the school provided when i was there and what it provides while my children are there and the

short conclusion is that our classrooms are more crowded and our school is unable to provide the same range of options that my generation benefited from. so how is it that we are a much richer nation but we are undervaluing underfunding our elementary and secondary education system in this nation? well we can tie that back to a lot that has transpired, including a huge growth in inequality in our nation, but here is the key thing. while we sit here on the floor debating better education policy shouldn't we also be recognizing explicitly about this huge failure to provide basic resources to the elementary and secondary education system? the funding cuts that are currently anticipated under the sequester would bring federal

investments in programs under the elementary and secondary education act to their lowest levels since fiscal year 2002. let me repeat that. to the lowest level since fiscal year 2002 of the lowest achieving 5% schools that receiving funding under part a of title 1 of such act about two-thirds of students are not meeting their grade level standards, and it's certainly a more difficult task for teachers to enable students to meet those standards when our classrooms are more crowded. the proposed appropriation act cuts funding for title 1 by $850 million as compared to the president's budget and the democratic funding alternative. the presiding officer: all time for debate has expired. mr. merkley: mr. president i ask extension of the time allotted to complete my

statement. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: thank you. and research shows that high-quality early education is critical to education development in every child and there too we are underfunding the effort. the proposed appropriations act provides no funding for preschool developments grants and a cut of $750 million as compared to the president's budget and the democratic alternative. now this is happening. this underfunding of education is happening within the construct known as the sequester. and the sequester was partially alleviated two years ago by a budget deal known as ryan murray. and that ryan-murray agreement led to saying according to sequester principle, which is defense spending and non-defense spending would be treated equally. if one is capped,s the other is capped. if one is raised, the other is

raised. that fundamental understanding led to an improvement over the last two years. that improvement is gone. so at the very moment we're talking about better education policy we're talking about worse education funding. and that's simply wrong wrong for our children, wrong for the next generation and the success of america. so let's embrace that second half of the conversation and call for through my amendment amendment 2203, call for an intense negotiation to occur essentially to restore appropriate funding on the non-defense programs. this is a rational counterpart to the debate over the bill that we have before us right now and it's certainly important for america to recognize that you cannot on the one hand call for better education policy and on the other hand devastate the funding for early childhood education and devastate the

funding for k-12 education and feel like you've done something to make american education work better. because you have not. if you have underfunded education, you have undervalued our children and you have undermined the future success of our nation. so mr. president i hope that amendment 2203 which calls upon the house and senate to come together and address this failure of funding will be a significant part of our conversation as we work to wrap up debate on the every child achieves act. thank you, mr. president and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

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mr. alexander: mr. president the presiding officer: the senator from ten tep of the. mr. alexander: i ask consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i ask consent the national from maine be allowed to speak following my comments for five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: four the information of senators -- for theness of of senators, within a few minutes twheep have a cloture bill. so we're still working on an agreement, but we hope to have that done within a very few minutes and may begin to move on that shortly after the senator from maine finishes his remarks. mr. king: mr. president i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business for five minutes. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. king: fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. we of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves ourselves, no personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. the fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. that was abraham lincoln in a message to congress, december 1 1862. and i think his words echo today as we talk about the serious and solemn issues before us and the one that will be coming up within 60 days, the consideration of the agreement with iran. we are embarked, mr. president on an historic process a process that will result in one of the most important votes that any of us will ever take in this

body a vote that entails risks of war and peace of life and death, of relationships in the middle east and throughout the world. i've been thinking in the last 24 hours how to approach this decision and i'd like to sthair that today. -- share that today. this is a solemn responsibility. the first step for me is to read the agreement to read the agreement word for word and to note in the margins the questions and data and analysis that we think we need in order to make this decision. that's number one. number two is to seek expertise to reach outside of this body to people in the nuclear field. you need to be literally a nuclear physicist to understand some parts of this agreement. to arms inspection people, to economists to foreign policy experts -- i hope and expect that this will happen in hearings before the foreign

relations committee and other committees of this senate. but it also, i think is incumbent upon us as individuals to reach out to try to gain as much knowledge and expertise in the facts of this agreement as we possibly k can. then i think we need to debate, to really debate, with the senators here in the chamber face to face. our legal system is based upon the principle of an adversarial system where truth emerges from the fire of argument, and i believe that's something we owe the american people, not the strange debate that we have where one person comes and speaks to an empty chamber anden this another person comes and speaks to an empty an empty chairman. but i think this is an occasion where senators should confront one another with their best arguments, their best facts and listen to one another and make their decisions based upon what they learn and they hear.

and, of course, the context of thedditionofdecision is important. we must consider the alternatives. what happens if we don't accept this agreement? what happens if we do? no agreement can be -- like this can be judged solely in isolation. it has to be viewed in terms of what are the alternatives? what if nothing happens? what does iran do then? what are the relationships in the middle east? what is iran's path to a bomb if this agreement is not approved? mr. president, i did not plan to come to the floor today but i'm here because i've been shocked and, frankly surprised at the outpouring of reaction from people who haven't read the agreement, who haven't studied the implications, who haven't gained the facts. to denounce an agreement or a deal before the ink is even dry strikes me as an abdication of our responsibility. my message today is, let's slow

down appeared take a deep breath -- and take a deep breath. let's listen to one another. let's gain the facts. i have not yet made my decision, and i commend that position to my colleagues. this is too important to become just another political issue. even though we're headed in a presidential year, even though there are partisan differences even though there are differences with this president this is an historic vote and it is a solemn responsibility. we owe our constituents, we owe the people of our states and america a close reading of the facts, a balanced weighing of the alternatives, and our best judgment. that's what the people of maine expect of me. and i believe that is what the people of america expect of us. the senate has an extraordinary opportunity to regain its place

in this country as the world's greatest deliberative body, and that means we have to deliberate and listen and learn the facts and that's how we should approach this momentous decision. history will judge us, mr. president. history will judge us, not only on our ultimate decision but how we reached it, how we wrestled with the facts and the alternatives and the consequences and how we made this decision that will have long-term implications for this country, for the middle east, for our allies, and for the world. mr. president, i have confidence in this institution. i have confidence that we can make this decision in a thoughtful deliberative, and consciously deliberate way to reach a conclusion that is in the best interests of the people of america. thank you mr. president.

i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

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the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule -- the presiding officer: senate is in a quorum call.

the presiding officer: ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: i ask that there be ten minute us of debate equally divided before the vote to invoke cloture on the alexander-murray substitute amendment. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: madam president, for the information of senators, we have an agreement on the amendments to our legislation to fix no child left behind and the agreement represents all of the amendments that we'll be dealing with. the exact time of the final passage will be determined by the republican and democratic leaders. here's how we will proceed: first, we will adopt a managers' -- we will propose and hopefully adopt by consent a managers' package of 21 amendments. second, we will lock in an agreement by consent to vote on 21 more amendments. that voting will begin this

afternoon, perhaps at 2:30 or 3:00. there are slightly more democratic amendments than republican amendments in that group of 42 amendments. following the reading of that, we will then senator murray and i, each have three or four minutes of remarks we'd like to make and then we will have a cloture vote, and that will be all we'll do before lunch. following lunch as i said, about 2:30 or 3:00, we will -- we will move to vote. so i now am going to move to the managers' package a list of 21 amendments that have been cleared by both the republican and democratic side. and i would ask unanimous consent the following amendments be called up and agreed to en bloc: mccain-reed 2111, bennet-ayotte, 2141, ayotte 2145.

udall 2149. feinstein-cornyn-gardner 2150, carper-ayotte 2151, modified with changes at the desk, king-capito, 2154, thune 2155, flake 2157, lee 2234. booker 2170. coons-reed-blunt 2178, mccain 2181 whitehouse 2185, blunt-cardin-mikulski collins 21 the 5 gillibrand 2116, graham 2199 -- pardon me, 2216. graham 2199, alexander 2201, bennet 2225, booker 2224, cornyn 2227. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. alexander: thank you madam president.

now, i ask unanimous consent notwithstanding rule 22 on behalf of myself and senator murray if cloture is invoked on the alexander amendment number 289, the following amendments be made pending en bloc: coons 2243, cruz 2180, heitkamp 2171 hatch 2082, warren 2106, burr 2247, as modified with changes at the desk, murphy 2186 brown 2100, wicker 2144, markey 2176, murphy 2241, sanders 2177, casey 2242, schatz 2130 nelson 2215, as modified with changes at the desk, manchin 2222, bozeman 2231 is

baldwin 2188, capito 2156, thune 2232 king 2256, schatz 2240, warren 2249, following that, at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the democratic leader, either today or tomorrow, the senate vote in relation to the following amendments: brown 2100 heitkamp 2171, 60-vote threshold, coons 2243, 60-vote threshold kirk 2161, burr 2247 as modified with the changes at the desk, hatch 2082, warren 2106 wicker 2144, 60-vote threshold, markey 2176, 60-vote threshold, murphy 2241, 60-vote threshold, sanders 2177, 60-vote threshold, casey 242 60-vote

threshold, cruz 280 schatz 2130, if you murphy 2186, nelson 2215, with changes at the desk, manchin 2222, bozeman 2231, baldwin 2188, capito 2156 king 2256 schatz 2240. warren 249. with no second-degree amendments in order to any of the amendments prior to the votes that there be two minutes equally divided prior to each vote and that all after the first vote in each series be ten minutes in length also that the warren amendment number 2120 with withdrawn and the following amendments in this agreement be set subject to a 60 affirmative vote threshold for adoption. coons, 2243, heitkamp 2171, kirk 2161 wicker 2144, markey 2176, murphy 2241, sanders 217, casey

224 if. 2. -- 2242. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. alexander: madam president, in just a few minutes, after brief comments by senator murphy and me, we'll proceed to a cloture vote and then our next votes will be at 2:30. think from the reading of the amendments that senators can see that we've had a fair and open amendment process. just to give an example in our committee consideration to no child leftfixno child left behind, we a partisan dod 29 amendments an the committee was pleased enough with the process that they reported the bill unanimously. the substitute amendment one of the amendments i just listed, adopts the priorities of 35 52 amendment into that substitute amendment. on the senate floor already since last week we've adopted 2k-7 amendments. the and i just read the two consent requests. the managers' package has 21

amendments in it. those have been adopted and then there are 21 more votes that we just secured approval to vote on either by voice or in fact. so the vote we're about to have is a vote on whether to end debate on our bill to fix no child left behind, and i think the question before senators is, do you think there's been a fair process? do you think it's open enough? do you think the bill is wurnlgy of having these votes and going towards final passage? i hope every single senator will agree that, yes it has been. this is -- this is the way the senate is supposed to work. basically we are concluding the bill by a unanimous consent agreement, which is to say that virtually every senator who wants an amendment has had that amendment considered, and we're going to dispose of it one way or another. we're going to adopt it or vote on it, whatever the senate likes. that's important for the country to see. this is a bill that "newsweek" magazine said is the education

bill everyone wants fixed. there is a remarkable consensus that we need to do it. after seven years this bill is overdue and a vote "yes" today on cloture says we recognize that governors teachers, school board members and school superintendents have united in a remarkable coalition to support the way we propose to fix it. so we have a consensus it needs to be fixed and we have a scun success on how -- consensus on how to fix it. the and this is a vote about are we ready to do that to do our job? i want to thank senator murray principally for her leadership in this respect making it possible to create this environment in which we've been able to have a good process. i with a nts to thank the want to thank the majority leader for putting the bill on the floor and giving us more than a week to deal with it. i want to thank the majority whip for his efforts. i want to thank the democratic leader senator reid, as well as senator schumer and durbin and

patty murray for woat creating the kind of working environment to give senators a chance to go home and say we fixed no child left behind. i had my say in it and we're going to restore responsibility -- we're going to keep the important measurements of student achievement but restore to classroom teachers and governors and legislation legislators and the parents the responsibility for student achievement. so i thank the chair and i urge my colleagues to vote "yes" on cloture so we can move towards these remaining 21 amendments on the bill. mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: thank you. i wanted to rise again to encourage all of our colleagues to support this vote, to move us to a negotiated conclusion to this really important bill. and i want to thank the senior senator from tennessee, as well as the majority leader, for working with us to get this agreement so we can continue moving toured in a bipartisan

way -- forward in a bipartisan way to get this done. across the country students ant parents and teachers and communities are really counting on us to fix the no child left behind and i've been very glad to work with chairman alexander a on this bipartisan bill called the every child achieves act. this bill will give our states more flexibility but it will also include some federal guardrails to make sure all of our students do have access to quality education. it passed through our committee unanimously and for the past week or so we have made good progress on the senate floor and there's still some work to be done. there are a number of amendments that we will be voting on this afternoon and into tomorrow. the senior senator from pennsylvania is offering a very important bill -- amendment i support to expand high-quality early childhood education. we have an amendment to strengthen the federal guardrails, the accountability amendment from senators murphy, booker war preen be, and coons to representhelp make sure all of

of our students have what they need. there are many more amendments from democrats and republicans to finish this bill, but i want to urge our colleagues to vote "yes" on cloture. we are finishing this bill and working to make sure that we can fix a broken law enforcement i will have more to say about the amendments as we go through the process. at this moment, i urge all of our colleagues to support this voargts continue this bipartisan process. let's work to get this bill done. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. i yield back our time. mr. alexander: madam president, i have nine unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the aapproval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. murray: i yield back all our time. mr. alexander: yield back. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the

alexander amendment number 2089 to is $1177 an original bill trough authorize the elementary and secondary education act of 1965 to ensthiewr every child dwsh to ensure that every child achieves. signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: the mandatory quorum call has been waived. question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on amendment number 208 offered by the senator from tennessee mr. alexander, to s. 1177 shall shall brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote:

vote:

vote p: vote:

the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are -- are there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not on this vote the yeas are 86. the nays are 12. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the affirmative the motion is agreed to. cloture having been invoked under the previous order the 23 amendments enumerated earlier are now pending en bloc and the warner amendment 2120 is withdrawn. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: i ask to address the senate as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: needless to say yesterday's announcement about our ongoing stature and status with iran is, in my view, a

dangerous step forward in advancing not only the illicit nuclear program that they've had until now but the clear nuclear weapons capability they had under this agreement. i think the agreement confirms the president was too willing to get a deal with iran at any price. the concessions made by the administration based on the starting point of these discussions, i believe to be stunning. all we have to do is go back maybe and just review a little bit of recent history to see that today iran's advancement of instability, of terrorism of violence in the world continues unabated and not hampered by the agreement that has just been announced. in the not-too-distant tomorrow we see all of those things still continue unabated and unfortunately much better

positioned and much better funded than they are right now. supported by iran, assad and syria has been massacring his own people resulting in the deaths of at least 191,000 people in syria. that's according to the u.n. and that's according to u.n. numbers a year ago. assad stepped forward to praise this agreement supported by iran shiite militias are continuing to support assad and promote division and violence throughout the country of iraq. supported by iran, houthi rebels have seized key territory in yemen and continue to work to destabilize that country. supported by iran, hezbollah and lebanon wages terrorism and calls for the annihilation of israel. supported by iran, palestinian

terrorist groups in gaza continue to lob mortars and rockets into israel. last april iran's islamic revolutionary guard navy stopped a marshal islands flag ship as it tried to go into the straits of hormuz. and this is at a time when iran is strieg to get major -- is trying to get major countries in the world to negotiate with them. iran continues to hold its hostages within any reasonable way of finding hostages. three americans: abedini former u.s. marine amir kontaki. "washington post" journalist jason rezaian they remain totally uncooperative in helping to locate former f.b.i. official robert levinson.

when the secretary of state is asked about why these people weren't part of the negotiations he says, well, this was negotiation about nuclear weapons but not about people unlawfully and wrongly detained. well it quickly became a negotiation about not just nuclear weapons but all kinds of other weapons that we have prevented the iranians from having access to in a worldwide marketplace that that quickly was added to the topic but we couldn't get three americans released and find out more about one american than we know now. the concessions laid out by yesterday's announcement were also, i thought pretty stunning. on the idea of uranium enrichment the obama administration said a year and a half ago that iran didn't have the right to enrich. in november of 2013, the secretary of state told abc news -- quote -- "we do not recognize the right to enrich."

it's clear in the nonproliferation treaty, it's very very clear that there was no right to enrich." end quote. under the agreement iran is allowed to enrich. inspections, the president said we would have to be able to verify iran's compliance or iran's cheating through anywhere at any time inspections. it's widely understood that any good deal must allow inspections trust but verify. the president may say that's there but it's clearly not there. in fact last p april the president's deputy national security add -- add advisor proudly proclaimed under this year we will have anywhere any time 24/7 access to iran's nuclear facilities. as a turns out under this deal inspectors will be forced to wait up to 24 days for access to

suspicious sites once they ask for access to suspicious sites. that is a brand-new definition of "anywhere any time." possibly you can have access in 24 days, and obviously lots of things can and would change in 24 days. militarily the president said we would disclose and find the possible military dimensions of the research and where iran's illegal nuclear program headed. the president said this information is critical to knowing what iran's true breakout potential and their true intentions would be. under this agreement however the option of examining the possible military dimensions of iran's nuclear program is off the table. sanctions the administration said is that removing all sanctions was a nonstarter until

iran demonstrated that it's complying with the agreement. a little over a year ago in march 2014, secretary kerry said iran's not open for business until iran is closed for nuclear bombs. however, we know now that iran will in fact be open for business much sooner than that, this deal will not only allow them to be open for business but they'll be rewarded with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sanctions relief return of assets that didn't have to be returned. and under this agreement all sanctions, even those related to arms missiles and proliferation will be removed. not be suspended. these will be removed. we have some of the most aggressive arms suppliers in the world in iran now being given access is to all kinds of arms that they couldn't get legally or easily up till now.

all economic and banking sections as well as those imposed on transport on insurance, on petrochemical industries and valuable materials will be removed. dismantling, the president said that iran would have to dismantle its illegal nuclear program. in december of 2013, the chief negotiator wendy sherman told pbs that a final agreement should include -- quote -- "a lot of dismantling of their infrastructure." end quote. yet under this deal, we're seeing that iran's program will in fact almost all be preserved not dismantled. the length of the agreement the p-5 plus 1 initially speculated and stipulated that iran must accept restrictions on its nuclear program for 20 years plus another 25 years and then later they said 20 years plus another 10 years. finally their last offer was just 20 years, which was in the

end reduced to 10 years. and i think over the next 60 days as people read the fine print of the agreement they might find out that it's even less than 10 years. but they certainly know now that it's not 25 -- 20 years plus 25 years, mr. president. this is a bad deal for the united states and one that will embolden our enemies jeopardize the security of our allies, further lead our friends to not believe they can trust us, and our enemies not to be afraid of us. what worse place could we be in in a dangerous world than that? the stated goal of the negotiations was to ensure iran never develops the capability to produce a nuclear weapon. why he want, the president agreed to a -- yet the president agreed to a deal that does just the opposite. by allowing iran to become nuclear weapons-capable and failing to provide for any time, anywhere inspections this deal

gives iran a free pass to cheat at its military sites and no access to u.s. inspectors. meanwhile, just last week iran continued the calls for the destruction of israel. these are the people we just allowed, are all lowg in the process to more weapons and to become nuclear weapons-capable. just last week iran called, as it has for decades for the destruction of israel. and the death to america. in fact, as iran's supreme leader stood by calling for the need to fight the u.s., even if there is an agreement. i don't know that we've ever entered into an agreement with another country before that while we enter into the agreement they say and by the way, no matter whether there is agreement or not we want to continue to see the u.s. as an enemy that we need to fight. this deal undermines the security of our friends and allies it legitimatizes iran's

unapologetic sponsorship of terrorism throughout the middle east. interesting what could be included, by the way mr. president, what couldn't be included. iran has repeatedly refused to abide by international agreements that require inspection of nuclear facilities details of facility designs, acquisition and production of nuclear materials and what makes us think that iran is going to change that behavior now? the negotiations themselves should lead us to believe that the old iran is still the new iran? this is a bad deal, it's a deal that just hopes that in the next eight or ten years the iranian government totally changes the iranian attitude totally changes, our relationship with them totally changes and just hopes that in the interim between the time that we have that hoped for change, the iranians don't cheat. this is a hope, not a strategy, and it is a hope, not a strategy

that we let the world much more destabilized on top of. after months of negotiations, iran hasn't released a single american prisoner or they haven't announced any intentions to do so. the iranians, the russians, the chinese, the syrians -- or at least syrians that still are controlled by assad may like this deal, but this is a bad deal for the united states of america. it's a bad deal for world stability. it is a bad deal for our friends. and frankly i think that the law that the congress passed that now gives the congress of the united states 60 days to look at it will turn out to be 60 days that the president himself is about to find out what's in the deal that he and the administration signed. this is a serious matter for every member of the senate. i was asked earlier today are you going to -- are you going to

lobby members of the senate as to how they should vote on this agreement when it came up. i said i'm going to do everything i can to talk about the real shortcomings of this agreement, the destabilizing of this agreement but every member of the senate is going to have to answer for this agreement and this vote for a long time. members of the senate on their own are going to have to decide what side of this to wind up on, and, mr. president i predict that a majority and maybe a substantial majority in the senate will wind up understanding that this is a bad deal for america and a bad deal for the future of world security, and i would yield the floor. and call for a quorum call. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bennet: thank you mr. president. as we wait for colleagues to arrive on the floor i thought i'd take a few minutes to talk a little bit about accountability in this bill. as you know, no child left behind and now this new version the elementary and secondary school act requires annual tests, and they're not popular. i believe that we are overtesting kids in this country. it's not the federal requirement that is causing that. it's the relationship of the federal requirement to state and local tests that are administered that by the time you get to a classroom inhabited by one of my three daughters who go to the denver public schools for example kids end up

spending too much time being tested. and part of that is because we haven't done a good job i don't think, of distinguishing between tests that are used for accountability purposes, how's the school doing and tests that are used for teaching and learning purposes, which are assessments that have to happen all the time during the school year. when i was in school, we called those quizzes and we dreaded them just like people dread them today but that was the way that teachers were able to keep an eye on how students were doing in their classrooms throughout the year so that they could course correct so that they could make changes based on the individual needs of the kids in their classroom. teaching and learning and accountability aren't the same thing, and i think we put too much freight on some of these assessments. i hope that what we're going to see as we come out of this new reauthorization is an understanding about the importance of the accountability why do we have

it. and better i am supplementation of tests at the state and local level. there is no reason for the federal government to be involved in education really. i mean, we only spend 9% of what we spend is federal money. the rest of it is state and local money. but except for one reason, and that is the civil rights imperative in this bill that is at the heart of this bill, that is -- that it is said to us that we can't just look the other way when it comes to kids of color kids living in poverty in this country, which we did for decades, for decades without knowing where we were headed. the one great benefit of no child left behind is that it required that data about kids living in poverty kids of color to be published and kids of special needs english language learners as well, to be

published so that we could see the huge gaps that exist all across this country in educational attainment. we can't go backward on that. i agree that allowing states to have more flexibility in the design of these systems is important. it's an important step forward in this bill. as i mentioned yesterday when i was the superintendent of the denver public schools the best job i will ever have, i had that honor. i used to wonder all the time why people in washington were so mean to our teachers and to our kids. i got here and i realized they weren't me, they just absolutely have in idea what's going on in our schools and our classrooms. mr. president, where you and i are right now right here in this place -- and i mean this literally -- is as far away as you can get from a school or a classroom in this country as you can get and still be in this universe. we are very, very distant.

we may think we know what's going on there. we don't know. this institution doesn't know. while i as that superintendent have developed a very strong view that i didn't want to be told how we should do things by washington and i didn't want washington telling my teachers how to do things, our principals how to do things, kids and families how to do things. i think it is important and imperative that we have a national expectation for what kids ought to be able to do at certain grade levels. and that we have a national imperative around the achievement gap in this country. we also have a national imperative -- you may not like to know this -- but to figure out how we're going to replace the million and a half teachers that are going to retire in this country over the next several years. those are all things of national concern. but our federal system tells us that there are certain

responsibilities that we -- we provide to the states, certainly responsibilities we provide to the federal government, and we've gotten that twisted up when it comes to education. so i think that's an important step forward. we're not going to be telling people how to do it, but we need to remind people that they need to do it, that it's not okay that we live in a country where if you're born poor, if you're unlucky enough to be born poor, that your chances of getting a college degree or its equivalent are roughly nine in 100. that's not okay, and that's a matter of national concern and that's why the accountability provisions in this bill are so important. and to be honest with you that's why the annual testing is so important if it's done wisely and well. and if the data is used in a thoughtful way to measure student growth. no child left behind not only was a huge overreach by the federal government, it also asked and answered the profoundly wrong question. it said how did this group --

how did this year's group of fourth graders do compared to last year's fourth graders? that's how we evaluated schools mr. president, on that basis. that's crazy. they're not the same kids. the question we should be asking, the question we are asking now in many states, in many communities across the country, we're asking how did this group of sixth graders do compare to how they did as fifth graders, compared to how they did as fourth graders and then compare to all the kids in the state, this is the way we do it in colorado, that had a statistically similar test history. that reveals a lot of information. no child left behind -- we used to have a may tricks in -- a matrix in denver. it was four squares. in the upper right-hand corner were high -- there are two measures here, one is growth, one is status. how much did you grow this year? that would be like saying how much weight did you gain or lose

this year versus status, which is how much did you weigh, what is your achievement level? those are two different ideas. and in those four boxes that i mentioned earlier, in the upper right, we had high-growth high-status schools. in this, we had high-growth but low-status schools. i'm sorry. high-status but low-growth schools. those are schools we called excellent schools under no child left behind. those were blue ribbon schools even though kids were losing ground in those schools. and arguably shouldn't have been because they didn't -- those schools didn't have the struggles that schools have with kids living in poverty. those were blue ribbon schools. those were schools when we were telling moms and dads and kids everything's fine, even though kids were losing ground when they showed up at the schoolhouse doors. the reverse was also true. the reverse was also true because we were saying to schools that were below the

threshold of high status, low status schools that they were failing schools even though they might have been schools where what we were seeing was two years of growth for kids who had started out way behind because they come to kindergarten with that stubborn word gap that 30 million word gap that kids have who are living in poverty who show up in kindergarten. by the way we're not doing anything almost as a country to deal with that problem. you know, i mentioned yesterday we've had a debate, we are having a debate in washington about income redistribution sometimes, a discussion of what the tax code should do, and there are people here who believe that it shouldn't do anything, and that's a principled position, but if that is your position, you better be working day and night to make sure every single kid in america has access to high-quality early childhood education. you better make sure that every kid in america's got access and

a choice to go to a high-performing k-12 school, and you better be sure you're doing everything you can to make it easier not harder to go to college, to get a higher education degree, because this unforgiving international economy is not going to change its mind about whether or not a high school degree is enough or dropping out of high school is enough. we need to be focused on education in this country. it's the single most important public good we provide domestic stickally. -- domestically. if you ask me as a parent what would i take a risk on for my kids? the number one thing i wouldn't take a risk on is their education, and that's how we ought to be feeling about all the kids in the united states of america. we should stop treating america's children like they are someone else's kids. they're not someone else's kids. they're our kids. and if you extrapolate the

academic outcomes that we're seeing in this country the college graduation rates that we're seeing, the high school graduation rates, if you extrapolate those against the changing demographics in the united states, we're not going to recognize ourselves in the 21st century. and when you constrain a child or a human being an american citizen to the margin of this economy, a margin of the democracy simply because they're born into poverty and we can't do the work to provide a high-quality education that's all the evidence you need that we're treating people like they're someone else's kids. that's why, by the way there's more we need to do on equipment. that's why we've made progress on a lot of this bill and i'm extreme grateful for the work of chairman alexander from tennessee and the ranking member of the committee patty murray, people pleased to see the bill passed out of committee unanimously.

remember esea is fundamentally civil rights law. we should measure growth. we should identify the bottom 5% of schools in this country. we need to ensure that subgroups in high performing schools are not left behind. and that's the power of the data that's collected and the power of what's called the disaggregation of that data so we can see -- see my colleague from new jersey is here. through the chair i'd ask whether or not he wants to speak. i will stop, then. i was filling time and i do want to talk about the comparability loophole but i'll come back to that and yield to my colleague from new jersey. mr. booker: i'm really grateful. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: i appreciate that, mr. president. i'm really grateful for senator bennet. senator bennet and i met around education issues. senator bennet led the school system the largest public school system in the state of

colorado. senator bennet has been in the weeds of education for years if not decades. and i am grateful that senator bennet led his remarks by saying all the things that have been wrong with no child left behind. that was a bad piece of legislation and we saw the aspects of it that were causing problems that have created a bipartisan push to fix them. i want to give credit to lamar alexander, senator alexander and to patty murray for joining together and doing the things necessary to improve that bill. the culture of education had shifted in this country to high-stakes testing to looking at measures that made no sense to educate artificial deadlines that could not be met. for even doing things that undermine the very goals and aspirations we have for our

country which is to lead the globe in educational excellence. and so i'm encouraged that senator bennet and myself and the majority of this body agrees that this legislation needs to be changed, it is a left-right coalition that is encouraging to me. but i want to echo senator bennet's concerns about a problem that is not being addressed, that is a -- as the pendulum swings away from the problems of no child left behind that we do not create new ones that cut against the very ideals in which this legislation was put in place by lyndon johnson. lyndon johnson said clearly that this was a bill to bridge the gap in this country between help and the helpless, between those children who are suffering on the educational margins of our

society, drowning in the eddies of educational lack of opportunity, caught in the quicksand of poverty and race and challenges that undermine and contribute to the dysfunction and inequality in our nation. this was to be the bridge. it's why this body acted under president johnson. and so now senator bennet, i have a distressed heart because what this amendment we're trying to do -- put forward does, is doesn't allow us to get to a point when we're now not even putting a spotlight on where we are failing to live up to our values. this amendment calls for us to at least acknowledge that there

are children in our country that are stuck in so-called dropout factories, children that are perpetually underachieving schools, that are failing the genius of our children. what this amendment is seeking to do is to say that we cannot ignore those children, we cannot turn our back on them, we cannot cover it over and say dint exist because we do have a problem in our nation. now, it anguishes me about this problem is the children we're turning our back on and not focusing on are children that are poor and children that are disproportionately minority. to paraphrase martin luther king he said what we will have to repent for in this day and age is not the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people but the appalling

silence and inaction of the good people. i hear time and time again that we love our children in america. well if we love them, we should do something about the challenges that are afflicting a small percentage of our kids that do not get the educational environment that they deserve. those a peculiar -- this is is a peculiar form of american insanity insanity being defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. we are not going to change this problem of perpetual failure in too many of our schools that affect poor and minority by not having some attention to that problem. now, let's be clear. we've learned lessons. this amendment 2241, the esea

accountability amendment does not do the things that this body in its majority don't think should be done by the federal government anymore. let me be clear. this amendment does not reinstate any type of adequate yearly progress or a.y.p. in fact, the underlying bill it's repealed. a.y.p. is repealed. it does not establish artificial deadlines like no child left behind did saying things like all children will be proficient by 2014. it does not establish federal goals for our students. states will be -- will have the prerogative to set their own. it does not impose test-based accountability on states. states must include a range of factors in their state-signed accountability systems. it does not require schools to implement a one-size-fits-all

intervention. local districts will design the intervention for underperforming schools. stage is not -- this legislation is not prescriptive, this legislation is not washington telling local districts what to do, this legislation does -- this amendment does not design programs it simply says that there must be a commitment made when you have these dropout factories when you have these populations that are not being served. this amendment would ensure that states identify certain low-performing schools so that students in these schools receive the support they need. it would require locally designed evidence-based interventions to schools identified in the following

categories. the lowest performing 5% of our schools. high schools where less than two-thirds of students graduate. and schools where subgroups including low-income students, students of color students with disabilities, and english learners miss state-established goals on multiple measures for two consecutive years. this amendment says we cannot ignore those children that we're failing to serve. that we can't turn our back on these kids. we salute this flag and say liberty and justice for all well i'm telling you every issue i hear discussed in this august body that affects kids, we cannot deal with these issues unless we deal with all children.

the achievement gap in america will not be addressed unless we focus on all children. the poverty gap in america will not be addressed unless we focus on all children. the opportunity gap in america will not be addressed unless we deal with all children. the truth even issues on which i'm passionate about like mass incarceration will not be addressed unless we focus on all children. and the competitive economy the productivity of our nation will not reach its full strength unless we focus on all children. and so i'm distressed today that this body will put into place a piece of educational legislation that ignores those children who this original legislation dedicated years ago this

original legislation years ago was dedicated to serving. we cannot be a great nation if we have parts of our country be they neighborhoods or schools, that fail to experience what should be the bedrock of our country, equal opportunity, a great education education, the opportunity of through your grit, sweat and hard work that that will result in success. we don't have that now. and if we in this legislation pouring millions of dollars into the states say hey, if you choose to ignore these kids, if you choose to turn your back on the children that need it most, if states don't even want to put forth an idea how they're going to address this persistent problem, we say hey we're okay president.

to me we belie the oath we took the pledge we give to bring justice to all children. we speak of accountability in this country. well, we should be accountable to the government dollars we spend for america. we should be accountable for the ideals of this nation. and so i hope i can get my colleagues to support this bill as senator murphy and senator bennet are leading so well. i hope that we can stand up as a chore us of -- choreus of conviction saying whatever station you're born, no matter how poor your parents are no matter what your background, color, creed or religion, that you can have hope and opportunity in our public schools. i recognize senator murphy and would like to with the permission of the president --. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado.

mr. bennet: i'm just going to be very brief because the senator from pennsylvania here, senator murphy from connecticut is here and i thank him for his leadership on this amendment. he has stuck with it week after week after week. but i just want to say to my friend from new jersey through the chair how much i appreciate his words and his aspiration for our country. because we're falling down on the job. i can't think of anything -- we have issue after issue after issue that comes here to the senate floor sometimes resolved sometimes not. education almost never is in front of us, and i cannot think -- and i sometimes hear people say and it really gravels me when i hear them say it. sometimes people say michael don't you now not everybody is going to go to college? don't you now not everybody is going to go to college? and you know what? that's okay with me as long as it's their decision that they're making. that they're an educated 12th grader but they're deciding i'm not going to go to college. that's the choice they're making.

but the reality is, it's not that we're sort of, kind of getting it right when it comes to kids in this country. let's do a little math. if you're born poor in the united states because of the way our k-12 system works and access to higher ed, you stand in a 9 in 100 chance of getting a college degree. not an 80% chance, nine in a hundred. those desks if bee were poor kids in this place instead of senators it would be those desks in the front row the desk in the row right behind them and three desks in that row. the entire rest of -- rest of this senate would be a sea of people without a college degree. that's the condition for poor kids living in the united states of america. that is the circumstance they face. we ought to start believing that there are -- they're our kids, not someone else's kids. we learned for the first time a month ago -- and this is not a

measure of poverty in the same sense that i was just using the word but for the first time in this country's history over half our public school children are poor enough that they qualify for free and reduced lunch. we didn't change the standard for a free and reduced lunch. thesethat's the effect of an economy that's not driving wages up and the worst recession since the great depression. every school level this ought to be our number-one priority because, as the senator from new jersey said, all the other stuff that we want to fix -- he mentioned what we need to do with sentencing re-forel. 85% of the people in our prisons are high school dropouts. that tells us something about what you might do to cure that problem. this ought to be our number-one issue. it ought to be our number-one issue, and it ought to be our number-one issue at home, and

with that, i yield the floor. mr. booker: plaintiff before or our leader speaks i do want to he echo what senator bennet said. he has been leading this charge in a bipartisan manner, trying to get this across. i just want to echo that last point that senator bennet made. we as a nation have this ideal that america is the best country if you're poor to be born into. that you can make it here. this is the country. the statue of liberty give us your tired your hungry. this is the country that you can make it in. well unfortunately social mobility, which is a measurable indice the ability for somebody to make it out of poverty into the middle class, we have fallen -- we have fallen on that list compared to our peers from other nations.

if you just have the simple goal of making it out of poverty america is no longer the number-one country to do that. and the principle principal reason for this is that that tried and true pathway to the middle class must be the schoolhouse door. that path must lead through educational systems. and if our children don't have that access or if we leave some children behind, we shut those doors to quality education then we are -- it is an affront to the very ideal of the american dream. and we are failing the purpose the greatness the glory that is america. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: i rise to speak on an amendment that's offered by the senior senator from north carolina and it's an amendment that would change the formula for how title 1 funds are allocated among the states. so first by way of background,

mr. president, the title 1 is the largest category of federal financial assistance for k-12 education. so we're talking about a large pot of money. this is the biggest single source of federal funding for primary and secondary education. and under current law the formula for how that money is allocated to the school districts is based really on two things. it's based on the number of children who live in poverty in these respective districts but it's also related to the average amount that the various states spend on education. so let me be very clear. it is not a single uniform amount per student. it was never meant to be. it still is not. and there's a reason for that. the reason is that it is meant -- this correlation to not only the number of kids in poverty but also the amount of money that states spend on education is designed that way in order to reflect the fact that there are different costs much costs of living

in different states. nobody would dispute that, i don't think. some states, the real estate on which you build the school is nor expensive. some states have a higher general wage level and so teachers get paid more. states just have different expenses. and, in addition, there is an incentive element here. the incentive is for states that are willing to commit more resources -- and that means taxing their residents more to fund education -- then there is that little bit more that comes from the federal government. so this is a finite amount of money, and what this amendment goes to is the question of how does this get allocated? the amendment originally offered by the senior senator from north carolina was very troubling to me because it would profoundly change the formula effectively like immediately and this is a zero-sum game. and so some states would win a lot, other states would lose a

lot. pennsylvania stood to lose a lot of funding under the formulation that was originally constructed for this amendment. the gist of it being to convert the funding to an almost uniform amount per student. i can assure you, i was hearing loud and clearly from the folks who run especially the large school districts in pennsylvania about how cornered they were because it was multimillion-dollar-per-year hit that they were going to take. i spoke with dr. hight the superintendent of the philadelphia schools and dr. lane from the pittsburgh school district as they would have been hit the hardest in the commonwealth of pennsylvania. in total had the original amendment become law it would have cost pennsylvania over $120 million per year, and every one of pennsylvania's 500 school districts except one would have lost. so 499 school districts would have had to do with less and one would have had a little bit more. many of them would have lost

huge amounts of their funding. so i want to first say i appreciate the fact that the senator from north carolina and other senators worked with my office and other offices across the aisle to take a different approach and so the original amendment is no longer under consideration. my understanding is the unanimous consent agreement which was struck he recallier abandons -- he recallier abandons -- which was struck he recallstruckearlier, abandons that approach. under the form that the amendment now takes and that we will be voting on maybe later today, the current levels of funding will continue under the current formula. and, in fact, that funding level as it naturally tends to grow each year because the federal government increases funding on this for a while that growth

will also occur according to the current formulation. but at some point in the not-too-distant future, the total spending on title 1 funding will reach about $17 billion. now it is about $14.5 billion. it gets to $17 billion and from that point forward prospectively, the increment -- the increments each year will then be allocated according to the new formula, which is by the design -- the same design as the original amendment, which is nearly uniform spending per child, disregarding, in my view, the important consideration of the different costs of living in the various states. so this is a huge improvement from my point of view over what we were looking at before. pennsylvania will not have a dime cut from its spending. and the formula doesn't change next year or the year after and i'm not sure exactly when we'll reach that $17 billion figure. but at some point if this amendment passes, this reform

lated amendment from the senior senator from north carolina, if it does pass, then at some point, we start to move incremental funding into this sort of uniform formulation rather than the current formulation where we take into account the varying costs of education. so while this is a huge improvement over the original version of this amendment, it is still something that i think is very problematic and so i will be voting "no" on this. i would just summarize mr. president, by saying that i think the amendment is mistaken in two respects. one is, it fundamentally fails to recognize the varying costs of living in the various states. that's a very big difference. and secondly it really penalizes those states that are willing to ask their citizens to invest more in education by eliminating the current mechanism. so, i would urge my colleagues to vote "no" on that amendment

and with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: first let me ask unanimous consent that russell armstropping be granted -- armstrong be granted floor privileges for the rest of the month. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. murphy: thank you mr. president. i thank my great friends senator booker and senator bennet for their really passionate and moving remarks about the task ahead of us to make sure that, as we reauthorize no child left behind as we reorder our priorities that we remember that this law is an education reform law but it has to be a civil rights law as well. it has to make sure that in the best traditions of this country that we are requiring that every single child gets a quality education. and i want to talk about my amendment that is cosponsored by senators booker and warren,

coons, durbin, mikulski, and others and i want to start by tell agotelling a story that is, unfortunately, not familiar with probably every corner of this country. i'm going to talk about a 16-year-old african-american boy, an eighth grader in an urban middle school in connecticut -- i'll call him james for today's purposes. james had a habit of walking out of class in the middle of instruction, and he'd walk out of class and he'd wander the hallways until he'd eventually run into a teacher an administrator, a school resource officer who would hall him down to the principal's office. his grandmother would get a phone call. she'd come pick him up and then the suspension proceedings would play out. it would play out again and again such by the middle of his first semester of his eighth-grade year he had been out of school, suspended more days than he had been in school.

and one day he was so frustrated when an assistant principal stopped him once again as he was wandering the halls that he had an ampleght he was a argument. he was a big kid for his age. he was a teddy bear, but he never hurt anybody. that day when he talked back to the assistant principal they called the police. now he's go to a criminal record. the reason why he was walking you out of class day after day week after week, was pretty simple. james was an eighth grader who couldn't read. he couldn't read. he could barely read. so he had this toxic mixture of frustration and embarrassment every day that he sat in class such that it had no relevance to him and he walked out. and the worst of it is is that the school knew that he couldn't read because he had an identified learning disability. it wasn't a mystery it wasn't a

secret. yet james got promoted year after year because it was just easier to pass him along easier to push him out as the suspensions and eventual arrest were on its way to doing rather than actually give james an education. now, i only know this story because my wife, who was then a legal aid lawyer in connecticut represented james. his grandmother would call my wife in tears every time james was found in the hallways and suspended again and again. my wife actually got the services that james needed but james' story is not unique, and most kids don't have legal aid lawyers fighting on their behalf. most kids in james' situation have the deck stacked against them. disabled kids who are hard to teach, poor kids who are warehoused in failing schools black and hispanic kids struggling to overcome generations of discrimination,

and they don't all have lawyers. they have us, the united states congress. this place, washington d.c., has had its finest moments when it stands up for educational civil rights; the idea that a child in this country should get a quality education no matter their race or address or disability. and whether we like it or not there are these political pressures in america that cause minority kids and disabled kids and poor kids to get an education that is not equal to that of their white or nondisabled or more affluent peers, and the facts are just really tub born here. i -- really stubborn here. i can't say them better than senator booker did he recallier today. half score below the basic level of reading. just one out of every seven african-american eighth-grade students scores at a basic proash levelsproash levelproficiency

level in math. these statistics, they represent a stain on the conshefns conscience of our nation. if this body wants to stand true to its history of standing up for civil rights, then we've got to make a stand to make sure that this every child achieves act ensures that minority and poor and disabled kids get a fair shot at a good education. now, right now mr. president this bill doesn't meet this test. and that's why the nation's leading civil rights organizations from the in naacp to la raza oppose this bill in its current form and that's why they join together with business groups to want to make sure that our educational system remains competitive for everyone to propose a fairly simple problem to a problem that is also --

propose a simple solution to a problem that is also fairly simple. so this bill requires that schools continue to assess student performance while getting rid of these annual high-stakes tests. that was unquestionably bad for schools and for students. no child left behind was a bad bill for citizens united and for the nation, so i'm glad -- for was a bad bill for my state and for the nation, so i'm glad that the senate has come together. thethe problem is this: when schools are failing or when minority or disabled students are falling way behind their peers, the bill doesn't require or even ask states or school districts to do anything to fix it. nothing. now, as a civil rights matter, that's unacceptable. now, no child left behind