Political Quotes

“to summarize them, they were simply this: Why not look to the example of our higher education system and try it with kindergarten through the 12th grade? The Pell grants for kids I proposed was to give every single child from a middle- or low- income family a $500 scholarship that would follow them to the school or other accredited academic program of their choice. These would be new Federal dollars so no district would see its share of money from Washington cut, and it would give less wealthy families many of the same choices that families with money already have. As one example, across our country we see art and music lessons cut in schools. As budgets get tight, they are the first things that are cut. The kids who go to the schools from the areas that have less money from property taxes and less money from sales taxes are not able to have the art and music courses. If they had a $500 Pell grant for kids, they might take it to an afterschool program for art or afterschool program for music, or the parents might get together and go to the school the children attend and say: Look, there are 20 of us with these $500 Pell grants. We will all come here if you hire an art teacher part time or a music teacher part time. It would give parents some consumer power, it would give children opportunities, and it would give schools with less money more money. This is an idea I hope we can seriously consider as we look ahead to the future of American public education.”