Education

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, we have an issue in Louisiana--I wouldn't call it a problem--that I would like to talk about. Perhaps some of our sister States can learn from our struggles in my State. And the issue is education. I can't think of a more important subject. That is the future of my State. I think it is true in many other States.

I believe that Louisiana's future can be better than its present or its past, but the key to determining whether that is going to be the case or not is education--and I am talking specifically about elementary and secondary education--because that is what counts. In my State, it is not the price of oil; it is not what the unemployment rate is; it is not who the United States Senator is; it is not who the Governor is; it is education, pre-K through 12.

It is frustrating, I know. You know, Americans can do extraordinary things. We can unravel the human genome. We can take a diseased human heart and replace it with a brandnew one and make that thing beat. We can send a person to the Moon. But we in America struggle and we in Louisiana struggle to teach our children how to read and write and do basic math when we have 18 years to do it. I am not blaming anyone. We all share the frustration. And it is not just Louisiana; it is all across America. I understand that.

But decades ago in Louisiana, we made a decision. In fact, it was during my first job in government. I was working as legal counsel to a brandnew, reform Governor in Louisiana. He decided, and the people of Louisiana agreed with him--we all agreed on two things: No. 1, every child can learn. Now, it takes some a little bit longer. Kids mature at different times. But every child can learn. The second thing we agreed on was this: That which is measured gets done. That which is measured gets done.

We decided to implement, 30 years ago, standards for our elementary and secondary schools. One of those standards was and I think still is--that is the subject of my remarks today; I hope it still is--a graduation exam. We call it our Graduation Exit Examination 21, G-E-E. So if I say ``G-E-E'' or ``GEE,'' I am talking about our graduation exam.

We said we are going to get serious about kids. We can't have our children graduate if they can't read their diploma, and so we are going to test them. The test is not terribly rigorous. It is four subjects. It is English, it is math, it is science, and it is social studies. We grade those exams--and you don't have to pass all four. You have to pass English and math and then either social studies or science. So, really, three out of four.

There are five different grades: advanced, mastery, basic, approaching basic, and unsatisfactory. Let me tell you what that really means: A, B, C, D, and F.

You only have to make a D on your graduation examination. You only have to make a D to pass--not an A, not a B, not a C, a D. So you take four exams. You have to make a D on English, a D on math, and at least a D on either social studies or science. If you don't pass, we will give you another chance, but you have to pass to get a diploma.

Now our Board of Elementary and Secondary Education--we call it BESE--which governs elementary and secondary education in Louisiana, has decided to take us back to the Dark Ages. By a one-vote margin, supported, quite frankly, by my Governor, who is lameduck--he will be leaving soon--he makes three appointments to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Everybody in America is entitled to their opinion, but I think my Governor and his team are wrong on this. They are going to send us back to the Dark Ages.

Here is the new rule: You have to pass the Graduate Exit Examination in the way I just described--unless you fail. Then you have to go to your teacher, and he or she can give you an extra-points project. Come on. Come on. Who are we kidding here?

Now, why do some want to do this? It is not the kids who want to do this; it is the adults, because not only do we grade our kids, we grade our schools, and if schools have kids who don't pass the GEE, the Graduate Exit Examination, it counts against the grade of the school. So this is all coming from the adults. They are putting themselves first, and they are not putting the kids first.

This is a massive step backward. This is an announcement to the rest of America that Louisiana has given up, that our kids are not smart enough, they are not good enough, even when we give them second or third chances, to be able to get a D on the Graduate Exit Examination, and as a result, we have to give them a special extra-points project so they can get a diploma that is not really a diploma.

The people behind this ought to hide their head in a bag. Our kids are better than that. Every one of my kids in Louisiana can learn. Sometimes they need a little bit longer. But it is not going to do them any good to give them a diploma that they can't read. It is not going to do them any good to give them a diploma that the rest of America and, frankly, the world is going to look at and go: That is not really a high school diploma because we know you failed the exam. You just got an extra-points project so the adults wouldn't look bad.

I am embarrassed by this.

This isn't the only problem we have in elementary and secondary education. I will give you one other statistic. Seventy percent of our high schools are graded A or B. Forty percent of the schools below that are graded A or B. Seventy percent of my high schools in Louisiana are not A or B schools, OK? I wish they were--not when 40 percent of the lower grades are only A or B. Once again, the adults who don't want to be embarrassed are inflating those grades, too, and now they have started on the Graduate Exit Examination. But this is a bridge too far.

All is not lost. BESE, which, as I said, passed this rule change by one vote--and by the way, our superintendent of education was against it.

This rule change is going in front of the Louisiana Legislature for an oversight hearing and the Senate Education Committee and the House Education Committee. I hope that either the Senate or House and hopefully both will say no--no--because this change represents what George Bush, President Bush, called ``the soft bigotry of low expectations''--``the soft bigotry of low expectations.'' It has no place in this country, and it has no place in my State.

I am embarrassed that the people who are part of the education establishment in Louisiana are telling the rest of the world: Our kids are not good enough. They can't learn. So we are going to give them a diploma that is not really a diploma.

Thank you for the time today, Madam President. I wanted my colleagues to know what is going on in Louisiana. We are going to turn this rule back, and we are going to put our kids first in Louisiana, not the adults.

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