Political Quotes

“I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my closing remarks during the conference with the House of Representatives on S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act, be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND CONFERENCE The real winners today are 100,000 public schools which are attended by 50 million children, where three and a half million teachers work and are eager for us to bring some certainty to federal education policy. This is a law that everybody knows needs fixing. But also in fixing this law we know that there were alligators lurking in every corner of the pond, and the fact that we were able to both in the Senate and the House navigate that pond and deal with respectfully with one another--and also recognize in some cases our different points of view couldn't be included--I think, is a great credit to the process. Governors, teachers, superintendents, Republicans and Democrats, wanted us to do this, and we've done it so far. There's not only consensus on the need to fix it, but we have now shown today that in the House and Senate of the United States, there is consensus on how to fix it. And that means we'll keep the important measures of student achievement, but we will restore to states, communities and classroom teachers the responsibility with what to do about the results of the tests. This would not have happened without your leadership and Rep.…”