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Noting the significant increase since 1990 in food-borne illnesses affecting school children, these hearings transcripts provide testimony on the safety of federal school lunches. Statements by Senator Richard Durbin and Representatives Stephen Horn, Janice Schakowsky, and Carolyn Maloney emphasized the array of federal agencies with various food safety responsibilities, food safety agencies' inability to mandate food recalls, and the need for better cooperation and communication between the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Representative Rosa DeLauro discussed findings of unsanitary conditions and unsafe food handling practices in Chicago area schools, recordkeeping flaws preventing officials from tracing food contamination to its source, the need to consolidate and streamline the number of federal agencies/committees responsible for protecting food, and the need to give the USDA and FDA authority to conduct mandatory recalls. General Accounting Office testimony recommended making schools aware of federal inspection and compliance records of potential food suppliers and described USDA and FDA measures to protect the food supply from deliberate contamination. Officials from the FDA and USDA described their respective roles in ensuring food safety and procedures for responding to illness outbreaks. An official of the Center for Science in the Public Interest discussed gaps in the food safety system and urged passage of the Durbin-DeLauro Safe Food Act. Two parents from a food safety advocacy group testified about their childrens food-borne illnesses, urged trace-back capability and accountability, advocated a single food safety agency, and maintained that overemphasizing consumer education misdirects responsibility for food safety from producers to consumers. Counsel for the National Food Processors Association asserted that mandatory recall is unnecessary because of industry cooperation with federal recall requests and maintained that a single food safety agency is not likely to provide the kinds of benefits proposed. Questions for witnesses related to interagency cooperation and communication, bioterrorism possibilities, specific incidents of foodborne illnesses and the followup investigations, USDA guidance to districts regarding procurement procedures, and concerns about due process. Appended to the transcripts are prepared statements, letters, and charts illustrating the school lunch supply chain and food safety oversight responsibilities. (KB)

The purpose of this hearing was to probe a pattern of fraud and abuse in the Pell Grant Program for postsecondary students, focusing specifically on the IADE American Schools, a for-profit vocational school with campuses in the Los Angeles (California) area and serving primarily Hispanic students. In his opening remarks Senator Roth detailed a history of prior abuses of the program and lax oversight by the Department of Education. Senator Nunn, after summarizing a five-year series of hearings, reports, and recommendations, testified that a year-long investigation of the IADE schools had uncovered serious misconduct, abuses, and possibly fraudulent practices. He charged that the Department was not only incapable of preventing a fraudulent institution from participating in student aid programs but was also unable to detect or pursue such fraudulent activities. Following the senators' opening statements, the Subcommittee team investigating IADE schools reported its findings. David Longanecker, Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education, then reviewed the Department's procedures and policies, stating that oversight was being improved. The final testimony was a report from the U.S. General Accounting Office assessing the Department's effectiveness in using student aid data to ensure compliance and prevent abuses. An appendix contains the texts of the witnesses' prepared statements. 56 exhibit statements are listed separately. (CH)

This report on abuses in federal student aid programs, particularly the Guaranteed Student Loan Program (GSLP), is based on information gathered by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the course of its overall investigation and the testimony and exhibits received during the course of hearings held between February and October, 1990. The hearings, taking place over 8 days, involving nearly 50 witnesses, and dealing with the overall GSLP status, were organized around case studies, specifically: The American Career Training Corporation of Pompano Beach, Florida; The Culinary School of Washington, D.C.; and the collapse of the First Independent Trust Company of Sacramento, California. This investigation was prompted by a large volume increase in the program, a dramatic increase in loan defaults, and reports of waste, fraud and abuse within the GSLP. In four sections the following topics are addressed: the nature and extent of the program (GSLP growth, business over education, industry profits, problem schools, students as victims); the existence of serious problems at all levels (school practices, state licensure, accreditation, financial players); the dismal record of the U.S. Department of Education (failures to monitor eligibility and certification, accrediting agency recognition, financial player regulation/oversight, administration/management, enforcement). A final section offers findings, conclusions, and recommendations. (JB)

These hearings, representing the testimony before the Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in August, 1978, sought to require government contractors to establish and operate alcohol abuse and alcoholism programs and services, or to arrange for referral to such services. Statements are included from witnesses representing such agencies as the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; Health Education Foundation and Association of Labor-Management Administrators and Consultants on Alcoholism, Inc. (Author/BMW)

Testimony concerning innovative state and local programs which expand family choice in education, and the Federal government's role in facilitating such programs, is presented. Testimony reviews research findings that bear on the issue, variables involved in planning educational choice, reforms proposed in the Minnesota plan for K-12 education, Minnesota's Post-Secondary Enrollment Options Act of 1985, private sector alternatives in education, and disadvantages of alternative education programs, such as tuition tax credits and tuition voucher systems. Copious additional material submitted for the record includes: (1) three issues of the periodical "Educational Freedom" which focus on educational vouchers and the advantages and constitutionality of tuition tax credits, (2) discussions of the effectiveness of public and private schools, and the organization of the schools in relation to politics and markets, (3) a description of the Prince George's County school system's "Workplace School," (4) a discussion of how the selection of strategy for designing federal programs influences program operation and effects, (5) arguments against the use of tuition vouchers, (6) a brief position statement of the Minnesota Federation of Citizens for Educational Freedom, Inc., (7) the Minnesota Congress of Parents, Teachers, and Students' statement on legislative proposals concerning open enrollment and parent choice, and the desirability of limiting publicly funded choice to public schools, (8) the brief position statement of associated liberal organizations, (9) recommendations for the fundamental restructuring of Minnesota's educational system, and (10) the Clearinghouse on Educational Choice's analysis of population sectors most likely to support educational vouchers. (RH)

Testimony on the need for building an information base on the changing demographics of an aging society in order to make intelligent policy decisions is presented in this Senate committee hearing. Opening statements by Senators Charles Grassley and John Glenn are provided. Jacob A. Brody, dean of the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago testified on population changes and the need to monitor health and disease in the older population segments. T. Franklin Williams (Director, National Institute on Aging), John G. Keane (Director, Bureau of the Census), Manning Feinleib (Director, National Center for Health Statistics), and Jane Ross (Director, Office of Research, Statistics, and International Policy, Social Security Administration) all testified on coordination among federal agencies on a statistical policy for the aging population and the relevant activities of their agencies. Sam Shapiro (Chairman, Panel on Statistical Requirements for Policy in an Aging Society and Professor Emeritus of Health Policy and Management at the School of Hygiene and Public Health of Johns Hopkins University) and Jack Cornman (Executive Director, Gerontological Society of America) testified on the need for statistical collection by the federal government and submitted written statements and recommendations for a statistical policy. Included in material submitted for the record is a 420-page entry entitled "Inventory of Data Sets Related to the Health of the Elderly" by the National Research Council. (ABL)

It appears that many of the problems plaguing the Federal Student Aid Programs are also undermining the Pell Grant program, not so much from dishonesty on the part of students, but by dishonesty on the part of schools. This document presents testimony and prepared statements concerning the allegations of fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the Federal Pell Grant program and the effectiveness of the Department of Education in detecting and responding to these problems. Two-thirds of the document is an appendix of 96 exhibits of selected documents, letters, affidavits, and reports from witnesses in order of their appearance before the committee. Among the witnesses testifying before the committee were the following individuals: Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island; Richard C. Stiener, Director of the Office of Special Investigations, U.S. General Accounting office; James B. Thomas, Jr., Inspector General, U.S. Department of Education; David A. Longanecker, Assistant Secretary, Office of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education; and Sister Janet Fitzgerald, President of Molloy College, Long Island, New York. (GLR)