Speech #1030067321

Mr. Speaker. today I am joining Congressman BILL FORD. the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee. In Introducing legislation to dramatically reform our current Chapter 1 Migrant Education Program. Both Chairman FORD and I have a strong Interest In the welfare of our Nations migrant families. I was reared on a farm and have personal knowledge of the hardships endured by migrants and their children as they move from State to State and community to community to harvest crops. Our current Migrant Education Program has helped reduce the dropout rate among migrant students. but unfortunately almost half of the children of migrant families still drop out of school before graduation. We have. therefore. proposed to restructure the program to focus on those children with the greatest needs. Approximately half of the children receiving services under this law are categorized as formerly migrant students. which may mean they and their families have not actively migrated for 5 years. It Is. however. easier to Identify and recruit these children than those who are still migrating and this reduces the incentives for States to Identify and serve actively migratIng children. This legislation restricts eligibility for the Migrant Education Program to those children who have moved with a 24month pedod. We will. therefore. be focusing on those children with greatest needs and provide some pressure on the States to increase their efforts to locate and serve children who experience actual disruptions in their education. At the same time. we will be working to insure that children who are no longer eligible for services under this program are served by the chapter 1 basic program and other relevant Federal education programs. We have also changed the eligibility definition for migrant education to include emancipated youth. During testimony provided to the National Commission on Migrant Education. we learned about the growing number of youth between the ages of 15 and 21 who migrate from Mexico to the United States each year and are employed as migrant laborers. Many of these youth will eventually settle in the United States. but a large percentage have had a limited formal education. Our legislation would allow them to benefit from the migrant education program. Another provision in our proposed legislation requires the Secretary to develop a new summer formula for programs which serve migrant children during the summer months. Summer programs are important as they provide children with the extra educational support they need to keep upor catch upwith their classmates. However. summer programs vary and we need to take Into account the different costs of different models of summer programs. Our bill also provides incentive grants to States to enter Into consortia with other States. universities or regional laboratories to assist them in providing services for Interstate students. These grants will be awarded on a competitive basis. but there will be a priority for funding programs for States which have allocations of less than $1 million. which often hinders their ability to operate an effective migrant education program. Finally I would like to mention a provision In the bill which would eliminate the migrant student record transfer system [MSRTS]. If you add together all of the related expenses. this system costs approximately $25 million per year. The MSRTS was originally created to ensure the timely transfer of health and education records of migrant children to ensure they were appropriately served as they traveled from school district to school district. While MSRTS has served the States In a variety of capacities. we have heard numerous complaints from schools and teachers about the time it takes to transfer records and the fact that the Information they receive Is often not in usable form. In other words. the system is not working.