Pete Hoekstra

You would love the story that our colleague from Arizona and I can share with you about the student at the charter school who was, I think, in his previous school had been labeled as a difficult student or whatever.

The real difference here is when you empower local communities and parents, the standards reflect community standards. When you empower bureaucrats here in Washington, you get an agenda from Washington that they are trying to impose on…

We do not want to lose one child. We want to give every child the opportunity to develop their full skills.

We saw that in Arizona when we went to, I do not remember the name of the school but we went to one of the gentleman's charter schools, we have seen it in the public schools as we have gone around, in all the different kinds of schools…

Explain this. This is the guy that was part of the group that developed what may or may not be a national test, correct?

Think of that. Empowering parents and teachers and all of that, some people in this Washington establishment down the road believe that that is a radical idea.

I thank my colleague and, just for a moment, yield again to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg] who has a great definition because, remember, if it is national testing from the Federal Government, you really will not have an option as…

Tell us about the math test. This is the kind of math test that I think, actually this is the kind of math test that bureaucrats would give to bureaucrats, is that not correct?

We want that 90 cents to go to a local school district, but we want to give them a lot of flexibility as to what they do with it. We do not want to give them 90 cents and then give them a three-ring binder and say, here is how you spend…

You bring up a couple of good points. The President has not involved parents, teachers, administrators, governors, as a matter of fact, the President has not even involved Congress. We are going to embark on national testing and it is…

But good news on the direct loan program. Right? We had to shut it down this year because they cannot consolidate the loans. I did not bring it with me, oh, I do have it with me. A letter from 75 college students who want to consolidate…

I ask the gentleman, how do some of our colleagues describe trying to consolidate programs, get rid of red tape, empower parents and local school boards, and get the money back to the local school?

We are hearing and we are finding that we feed parental control, we need a focus on basic academics, and we need to get dollars in the classroom.

No, I do not think so. What we have is we have a group of people here in Washington, and you have some other interesting statistics on tests, but the people here in Washington who developed the test that they expect to work in Holland…

I have still yet to hear someone say, it is that new Federal program, or it is this Federal program. The schools that are doing well are typically where a group of parents, administrators, and teachers have taken back their school and…

I believe that if the Teamsters election had only been an U.S. election, the result would have been different. But because the American taxpayer picked up the tab for the Canadian election, the result was different, and that is what pushed…

We are saying that, as a result of the American taxpayer picking up the tab for the 1996 election, the American taxpayer spent $20 million that the Teamsters organization did not have to spend itself. I do not know what they did with that…

It went on to say that the decree embodies the consent of the Union defendants to governmental supervision, not the consent of Congress. The consent decree states that the Federal Government has the option of running the Teamsters election…

Just in closing, I think the gentleman is right, the exciting days are in front of us. We will get to a surplus budget. When we get there, we will have a whole new range of options, debates and issues and new directions that we can talk…

I think it is good news, the amount of progress we have made. I came in 1993. We were looking at $260 billion deficits as far as the eye could see. We were looking at increasing taxes. We were looking at proposals that said to stimulate…

And it has been led by Tommy Thompson. We talked about this issue last year; and we said, just let the governor and just let the State legislature in Wisconsin do what they feel needs to be done and what is going to work in Wisconsin…

I think it is interesting. I have two of my colleagues who came here in January 1993, the three of us came here. What we were faced with was raising taxes, growing rapidly the size of government, nationalizing health care, no concern about…

I thank my colleagues for participating tonight. We are going to continue this dialogue on education. It is a very important one. We are going to continue hearings. This President in many cases has the same vision of quality education for…

If we put in the prevailing wage provision without the people here in Washington determining the wages, we will lose, I say to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger], anywhere from 10 to 20 percent, maybe more of the purchasing…

It is kind of interesting what the woman has outlined. It is that would make the people in this building feel very uncomfortable because they do not believe that competitive bidding actually works in the construction industry. Even though…