Asa Hutchinson: “There is no doubt we are facing a crisis in American education, a crisis that is putting us at risk economically. While…”

“There is no doubt we are facing a crisis in American education, a crisis that is putting us at risk economically. While it has been 15 years since the education alarm was sounded in this Nation with the report, ``A Nation at Risk,'' most indicators show that U.S. education is still desperately in need of repair. As I have suggested, mandating the hiring of 100,000 new teachers at the Federal level is not the right answer. I further suggest there is a better way, and that is the dollars to the classroom. If we can take the limited Federal dollars--and I think that is about 67 percent of local funding of the schools right now--if we can take those dollars and assure they actually reach the classroom, we will be far better off. Keep the local control. It will mean more money at the local level. So the sense-of-the-Senate resolution that I am offering as a perfecting second-degree amendment would simply say that we will make our efforts to ensure that 95 cents out of every dollar actually reaches the classroom. Right now, money does not reach the classroom. It is estimated between 15 percent and 35 percent of Federal funds spent on education never reaches the classroom. My colleagues, that is absolutely amazing. That is astounding, that 15 to 35 percent of Federal funds spent on education never reach the classroom. That is as much as $5.4 billion of taxpayer money targeted to education that will get lost in nothing but bureaucracy.”