We have to make tough choices now to ensure this important program remains available for the students who need it most.

Despite the near tripling of overall per-pupil funding since 1965, national academic performance has not improved.

Inaction here is one of the biggest threats to the future of this country, to our economic stability and our global competitiveness.

If we don't hold our schools accountable for ALL the children in their classrooms, we fail.

I look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Secretary, about how we can get this country back on track and what we can do to help students succeed.

We have to be truthful with each other and truthful with the American people about what is and isn't working.

I was pleased to see in your budget an elimination of some 13 programs.

It just seems to me that our priorities aren't right.

Our children deserve more. Our country deserves more.

We can't afford to lose a generation of children because our best intentions didn't work as well as they should have.

Responsibility, reform, and results are the hallmarks of our budget and our Administration and the guiding principles as we move forward.

I was always hoping for a bigger step, and I hope that we will get to one of those.

I am sure in many cases we are not. I concur there. But we are so far off.

I think we have a chance to provide some substitution for what has been, you know, a tough Federal role for good reason.

we are either going to put ourselves in a competitive advantage or we are going to continue to lose not the low skill jobs, but the high skill jobs which are really the jobs of the future.

the decision to say no to Pell grants--again, you can use the one Pell grant for summer--is not one that I enjoyed or wanted to make

I don't think that is a place where you should be cutting back and you have to continue to invest.

But my question goes back to we keep spending more money, and at some point it has got to stop.