Heidi Alexander: “I oppose the amendment. Instead of lessening the national school board, this would make it more intrusive. This…”

“I oppose the amendment. Instead of lessening the national school board, this would make it more intrusive. This amendment would say that instead of schools reporting the academic results of five major racial groups, they would do it by country of origin. There are 196 countries of origin. So if we apply the same thinking to White, Hispanic, Black, Native American, we would have an amazing mandate from Washington to States about this amount of data. The Senator's argument should be made to a local school board, which may do this if it wishes, or to a State board, which may make these aggregations if it wishes, but this should not be a Washington mandate to increase from 5 to 16 the number of countries mandated under Asian American and Pacific Islander and to set a precedent for country-of- origin reports for 196 countries. I urge a ``no'' vote. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 2109.”