Lynn C. Woolsey: “H.R. 3248 continues to be a bad bill. It is not that I do not trust the schools and the school districts, as my good…”

“H.R. 3248 continues to be a bad bill. It is not that I do not trust the schools and the school districts, as my good chairman would make us think. I do not trust the Congress and our funding priorities. Claiming that Dollars to the Classroom Act will increase education funding really means that we need some remedial lessons in math and history here on this floor. The only way dollars to the classroom can increase funds for schools is for Congress to appropriate more money for the block grant. Then each individual program can get more. We already know that that is not going to happen. We have seen the fiscal year 1999 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill. We know that the programs being block granted in the Dollars to the Classroom Act are being cut by 20 percent; 20 percent. That comes as no surprise to those of us who know our history. We know that block grants historically lose funds. A 1995 GAO report found that when Congress created a series of block grants in the early eighties funding for those programs declined significantly. Here is what the State Superintendent of Public Education in California, Delaine Eastin, wrote to me about H.R. 3248. She said, and I quote, ``H.R. 3248 leaves future education funding extremely vulnerable at a time when schools are managing record levels of student enrollment.”