Tom Harkin: “As a member of the authorizing committee, and as now chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on education, we put…”

“As a member of the authorizing committee, and as now chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on education, we put two programs in here in 1994. One was the targeted program. That is fine. But then we also put in there what we call the education finance incentive grant, which is otherwise known as effort in equity. In other words, a lot of States that need targeted grants, their State governments are not doing enough to target their money towards the poorer school districts. So we added--not just targeted--but we added-- effort and equity. We wanted to see what was the State doing to equalize the funding between the richest districts and poorest districts. So we added that in as a formula also. This amendment only speaks to the targeted program and does nothing about effort and equity. A 1998 GAO report found that Federal education programs provide an additional $4.73 for each poor student for every dollar provided for all children. In contrast, States provided 62 cents for each poor child for every dollar provided for all children. Senator Landrieu's amendment seeks to improve this record for the Federal dollars. We can always do better, but Federal dollars alone cannot correct the serious deficiency experienced by many low-income school districts. We must also encourage states to help these districts.”