Our Nation continues to make strides in closing achievement gaps, improving graduation rates, increasing minority attainment in higher education, but there's much more work that needs to be done.

I think it is important to note that No Child Left Behind had a cookie cutter response that sometimes worked and sometimes did not.

Let's be clear that States and localities were given the authority and flexibility but they were not given a waiver.

I am proud of the role the House Democrats played in producing a new K-12 education law that I believe will fulfill the ESEA's original promise as a fundamental civil rights law.

We do not tell them how to do it, that is local control. If they are not doing it, how do you guarantee they actually get the job done?

We all agree that fulfilling the promise of Every Student Succeeds Act rests on successful implementation that honors Congress' long-standing commitment and intent of the ESEA.

Let's not forget the intent of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act when it was passed in 1965.

The Every Student Succeeds Act improves on No Child Left Behind and builds on the progress we have made since Brown in 1954 and ESEA in 1965.

In response to the chairman's question where we have given much more power to local and State agencies, we tell them what needs to be done, but we do not tell them how to do it.

Getting data on swaps is one of the three main goals of Dodd-Frank.

The CFTC has an important mission and will be unable to complete it without a data system that works.

Good data are essential for good policy decisions.

Mr. President, I join the Nation in offering my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Justice Scalia, who was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. For more than three decades, Justice Scalia devoted himself to the…

Clearly, these are the kind of things that we now know looking back that if we had fully funded them and kept them going, the achievement gap might not be what it is today.

By the way, we were going to be marking up that budget this week; am I correct? I will stand corrected, Mr. Speaker, if I am wrong. We were supposed to be marking up that budget. Now, we have to ask: Why aren't we marking up that budget…

Mr. Speaker, the refusal of my friends on the other side of the aisle to hold a hearing on the President's budget is an unprecedented show of disrespect. The lack of respect I have seen for this President is abominable, it is disgraceful…

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the soldiers who fought to ensure that South Korea could achieve the prosperity and the fulfillment it enjoys today. Without our soldiers, that would not have happened. These soldiers deserve to be…

As legislators, we make laws, and the department as part of the executive branch, you have the responsibility to implement them.