Political Quotes

“this is a day for opportunity in the Senate. We have an opportunity today to reverse the trend of the last several years toward a national school board. We have an opportunity to make clear that in the future, the path to higher standards, better teaching, and real accountability will be through States, communities, and classrooms and not through Washington, DC. We have an opportunity to vote in favor of what the Wall Street Journal has called ``the largest devolution of Federal control to States in a quarter century.'' We have an opportunity to inaugurate a new era of innovation and excellence in student achievement by restoring responsibility to States and classroom teachers. Tennessee, after all, was the first State that paid teachers more for teaching well. Minnesota educators created the first charter schools. The real advances in higher standards and accountability and appropriate testing have come from classroom teachers and from Governors, not from Washington, DC, and I believe that is where those advances will come from in the future. We have an opportunity today to provide much needed stability and certainty to Federal education policy from some very important people who are counting on us: 50 million children, 3.4 million teachers, and 100,000 public schools. Newsweek magazine recently reminded us what we already know very well: No Child Left Behind is a law everybody wants fixed.…”