James M. Jeffords: “I did not say it was. I carefully deleted that and said it is the cost of educating a child. Mr HARKIN. A child? Then…”

“I did not say it was. I carefully deleted that and said it is the cost of educating a child. Mr HARKIN. A child? Then the Senator is correct. Usually it is stated the other way around. The Senator correctly stated the law. But back to the point I wanted to make. Should we reach that 40- percent goal? Absolutely. We should have reached it a long time ago. I agree the Federal Government has fallen down on its effort to reach that goal. What I rise in opposition to is how my friend from Vermont does this. What my friend is doing is he is taking money out of title VI, which was put in there for school construction and modernization--$1.3 billion. He is taking that money and saying it should be used to help meet our goals on IDEA. Again, it is a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Do we have a need for the Federal Government to educate kids with disabilities and meet its goals to our States? Yes. We ought to fully fund IDEA. Do we also have a responsibility to help States and our local school districts rebuild our dilapidated and crumbling schools? I believe the answer to that is yes. The average school in America now is over 40 years old. They are crumbling. They need to be modernized. They need to be updated. I say to my friend from Vermont--and he is my friend and he is a great supporter of education, I know that--but I ask my friend to consider this: When we modernize schools and rebuild schools, one of the biggest beneficiaries is a kid with a disability.…”