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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the fiscal year 2000 budget request for the programs administered by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE). President Clinton continues to make elementary and secondary education a key domestic priority. The Administration is committed to policies that will hold schools accountable for student achievement; reduce class size in grades 1-3; support school reform; ensure that all children master the basics; improve teacher quality; integrate technology into the curriculum; expand educational choice within the public school system; and ensure that students are educated in safe and drug-free schools. Partially in response to the President's initiatives such as Goals 2000 and Title I, States and local districts have set higher academic standards and are beginning to make schools accountable for improved student achievement. States are showing signs of progress, but we need to focus our attention on helping all students achieve to high standards in the classrooms, particularly in high-poverty schools.
In the last five years, with support from OESE programs, States and school districts have taken significant steps in establishing high standards for all students, particularly poor and educationally disadvantaged students. More importantly, there are promising signs of real student progress toward meeting those standards. For example, the results of the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) demonstrate increases in student achievement in mathematics and reading. Average scores on the 1998 NAEP reading test showed an increase over 1994 for students in grades 4, 8, and 12; lower-performing students and middle-school students made especially significant progress. This was the first time in the history of NAEP that there was a statistically significant increase at all three grade levels. The 1996 NAEP mathematics test also showed significant gains, and the achievement gap in math between high- and low-poverty schools narrowed significantly from 1992 to 1996. It is very encouraging that we are beginning to close the gap between the low- and high-achieving students.
Our budget would build on this progress to help bring high standards to the classroom, provide additional resources to help States and local school districts take immediate, more intensive actions to improve low-performing schools, and hold schools accountable for improvement.
I should note that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which will expire at the end of fiscal year 1999, authorizes most OESE programs. Although we have presented the 2000 budget request under current law, the Administration is working on a detailed reauthorization proposal that we will submit to Congress very shortly.
Of the $320 million increase, $200 million would specifically support strengthening Title I accountability for student progress. This money would be allocated to States through the Title I formula; specifically, each State would reserve 2.5 percent from its Title I allocation to take immediate action to identify and improve the lowest performing schools. The additional funds will help States and districts implement a range of interventions, including intensive technical assistance, and taking immediate corrective actions for schools that persistently fail to improve.
The Reading Excellence program recognizes that when it comes to success in school, the ability to read well and independently makes a major difference. Children who learn to read well by the end of the third grade are prepared to use their reading skills to learn other subjects in the later grades. Children who don't learn to read well are more likely to drop out of school and face a lifetime of problems. This program addresses the problems of the Nation's children with critical learning needs by supporting high-quality, research-based reading instruction and tutoring for elementary and preschool children through professional development for teachers; extended learning opportunities before and after school and in weekend and summer reading programs; help for parents to advance their children's literacy; and early childhood education and transitional kindergarten programs to ensure that children enter school ready to learn. The 2000 budget includes $286 million for this program, an increase of $26 million over the 1999 level.
The National Academy of Sciences 1998 report on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children and other recent national studies have concluded that the majority of reading problems faced by today's adolescents and adults could have been avoided or resolved in the early years of childhood. The Even Start family literacy program focuses on those early years by serving low-income families with children from birth through age 7, and the $145 million request for the program would support more than 800 projects in all States to improve school readiness, improve literacy and parenting skills of parents, and help every child read independently by the end of third grade.
As part of the Administration's effort to focus budget resources on programs that can help Hispanic Americans and other limited English proficient individuals succeed educationally and enter the economic mainstream, the request includes significant increases for the Title I Migrant Education program and the High School Equivalency and College Assistance Migrant programs. Migrant workers and their children are among the Hispanic community's (and the Nation's) most economically and educationally disadvantaged groups -- an estimated 45-65 percent of migrant children drop out of school. The increases requested for these three programs will help the children of migrant workers, and young migrant workers themselves, stay in school, complete high school, and enter college.
About 90 percent of Indian children are enrolled in public schools; these students are the primary focus of our Indian Education program. Our $77 million request would provide level funding for Grants to Local Educational Agencies, our primary vehicle for improving the education of Indian children, $4 million to continue the Special Programs for Indian Children and to develop needed data on Indians' educational needs and status, and $10 million to initiate the American Indian Teacher Corps initiative which would, over 5 years, provide scholarships, train, and recruit over 1,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives to become teachers in areas with high concentrations of Indian students.
The Impact Aid program provides financial assistance to compensate local educational agencies for the loss of revenues attributable to Federal activities. Although our overall Impact Aid request would reduce program funding for Basic Support Payments from $704 million to $684 million, it would make payments on behalf of the 292,000 children who are children living on Indian lands, children of members of the uniformed services who live on Federal property, children of Federal employees who both live and work on Federal property, and children of foreign military officers living on Federal property. The average per-child payment on behalf of those categories of children would increase by 6 percent. We are asking to eliminate funding for the Payments for Heavily Impacted Districts program because recent amendments further weakened the poorly designed payment formula, resulting in ineffective targeting.
In 2000, we are requesting $461 million for Goals 2000 State and Local programs, the same as the 1999 appropriation, to provide support for the educational reform efforts of approximately 5,000 districts and 12,000 schools. Goals 2000 provides flexible resources that support States and districts in their efforts to set high standards, develop assessments of student performance linked to those standards, and prepare educators to teach to high standards. A 1998 General Accounting Office report found that "State and local officials said that...without this funding, some reform efforts either would not have been accomplished or would not have been accomplished as quickly." State officials support the flexible funding provided and said that the program achieves its purpose of "...supporting systemic education reform in states and districts."
We are requesting $30 million for the Parental Assistance program, which provides parents with training, information, and support to better understand their children's educational needs and how to help their children achieve to high standards. This request will continue support for these centers to build a solid foundation of learning for all children.
An important resource for school reform is the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstrations program, which began in 1998. This program enables schools to implement comprehensive programs that are based on reliable research and effective practices. The 2000 request for the OESE portion of the program would provide $150 million, a $30 million increase, to continue existing projects and to support a second round of grants to allow more Title I schools to implement research-based reforms.
Our request for the Advanced Placement (AP) Incentives program represents the beginning of a 3-year initiative to bring challenging AP courses to all high schools in the Nation. The 1998 Higher Education Act reauthorization expanded the program to authorize competitive grants to States for activities that encourage greater participation by low-income students in advanced placement courses, as well as payments for AP test fees. The $20 million request would permit States to create advanced placement and other challenging programs in more schools that serve concentrations of students from low-income families, and to train teachers to teach in those classes.
The Department's Comprehensive Regional Assistance Centers provide technical assistance in support of State and local education reforms to improve teaching and learning for all children. The request includes $32 million for these Centers, an increase of $4 million over the 1999 level.
What teachers know and can do is one of the most important influences on what students learn. Only intensive and ongoing, high-quality professional development will provide educators with the skills and knowledge they need to prepare their students to meet high standards. The Eisenhower Professional Development program, for which we request $335 million in 2000, is the Department's largest effort dedicated solely to teacher professional development.
The Administration is requesting $450 million, an increase of $25 million, for the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund. This is the fourth installment of the President's plan to provide States and districts with $2 billion over 5 years to enable all schools to integrate technology fully into their curricula. We know that, when properly used, computers can increase student learning and motivation, improve classroom management, and increase family involvement. The Department is again encouraging districts to use a significant portion of their funds to provide training for teachers so that they are prepared to use technology effectively in their classrooms.
We are also requesting a $10 million dollar increase for the Magnet Schools Assistance program, specifically for a special competition for inter-district magnet programs. Inter-district programs would support the reduction of minority group isolation in large metropolitan areas by bringing minority and non-minority students from urban and suburban districts together in schools more reflective of the racial and ethnic diversity of the larger community.
To improve the targeting and effectiveness of the program, the budget request includes appropriations language that would require State educational agencies to allocate 30 percent of their State Grant funds competitively to local educational agencies based on the severity of their schools' drug or safety problems and the quality of the proposed prevention programming. National Programs will continue to fund a variety of activities to improve the design, implementation, and effectiveness of drug and violence prevention programs, including the "Safe Schools/Healthy Students" initiative that the Department is implementing jointly with the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services-- this initiative supports community-wide strategies for creating safe and drug-free schools and for promoting healthy childhood development. The Coordinator Initiative will help half the Nation's middle schools to hire and train drug prevention and school safety coordinators to select and implement appropriate early intervention efforts for students who are at the age where they often begin an involvement with drugs and crime.
Under Project SERV, the Department, in collaboration with other Federal agencies, would provide emergency services, such as mental health crisis counseling and increased security, to schools affected by a shooting or other violent disaster, as well as other services that help schools and communities prepare for and respond to such crises.
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