Bob Schaffer: “Our schools are important enough and our children matter enough that we ought to be willing to spend a lot of money…”

“Our schools are important enough and our children matter enough that we ought to be willing to spend a lot of money, frankly, on education, if that spending comes along with real, meaningful reform that has the promise, offers the promise of improving our schools. The President proposed meaningful reform, and he also proposed spending 11.5 percent in increases over last year's spending on education. Now, the reform has been ripped out of the bill. The choice has been taken out of the bill. The President proposed school choice in his Leave No Child Behind provision; that is gone. The flexibility provisions are not even going to be brought up on the floor. That is gone. What we have are some testing provisions, all of which can fit easily within the 11.5 percent increase that the President proposed for the whole plan. H.R. 1 now is just a fraction of the plan, yet we are spending even more money than the President proposed.”