We have a truly significant opportunity now to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act at a time when the majority of the country sees education as the most important issue facing our nation.  We must seize this moment and produce a common sense, bi-partisan approach to strengthening our nation’s educational system. 

As I have stated in my written testimony, I am deeply concerned about two issues in this bill – the first is President Bush’s voucher proposal, and the second is the lack of provisions for the mental health of our schoolchildren.  Because time is so limited I will focus my remarks on the latter issue, but ask that you consider my full testimony as it was submitted into the record. 

President Bush’s proposal “No Child Left Behind” eliminates the Elementary School Counseling Demonstration program.  This program provides essential support for the development and expansion of counseling activities, which identify children in need, and prevent them from taking out their aggressions with violence. 

As a victim of an accidental shooting at the age of 16, I understand all too well the life-altering consequences of placing a gun in unsteady or careless hands.  No place is immune from accidental or intentional violence, or from other harmful effects of emotional instability. School shootings have occurred in rural Alaska, suburban Colorado, and inner city Atlanta.  More than 30 of my colleagues represent districts where fatal school or workplace shootings have occurred in the past three years alone. 

The Elementary School Counseling Demonstration program provides the only funding for the express purpose of improving the mental health of our students.  Now is not the time to end this critical program, but rather, to expand it.

Currently, the average student-to-counselor ratio is more than twice the recommended ratio of 250:1.  In rural and urban districts the ratio is often much worse.  Large caseloads effectively prohibit counselors from providing the emotional stability and guidance that our students need, and vast geographic distances between schools make timely crisis intervention difficult, if not impossible.

To truly meet the mental health needs of our students we must strengthen counseling initiatives in our schools.  I urge you to increase funding for the Elementary School 
Counseling program from $30 million to $100 million in fiscal year 2002 in order to keep pace with an expanding elementary school population. This increase would enable schools to keep the current student-to-counselor ratio of 560:1, which is still twice the recommended rate.  Furthermore, I ask that you allow high schools to obtain these funds to address the mental health needs of teenagers, among whom we have witnessed so much violence in recent years, including my own district in Rhode Island. 

I respectfully request that the committee enact revolutionary reform for our schools that truly meets the needs of our students both in and outside of the classroom.  It is well past time for reform that starts by making professional mental health services available to all our students and ensures no child is left behind.