Frank Riggs: “Mr. Chairman, I wish to be heard on this amendment, and I am very pleased to join with my good friend and colleague on…”

“Mr. Chairman, I wish to be heard on this amendment, and I am very pleased to join with my good friend and colleague on the Subcommittee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer] in offering and sponsoring this amendment. Mr. Chairman, 14 years ago the late Terrence Bell, who served as Education Secretary in the Reagan administration, headed up a group that was charged with studying the conditions of American schools. They issued a breakthrough report, a remarkable report, a report that I think to this day is considered somewhat of the definitive study on American education. It was called A Nation at Risk. Now, 14 years later, 1997, another group that Mr. Bell was involved with until he passed away did a followup study called Reclaiming a Nation at Risk, and they found that the No. 1 and most important aspect of educational reform is decentralized decisionmaking and site-based management, and that is what charter schools are all about. They are a remarkable experiment in a highly regulated, very bureaucratic profession, and that is not a slight on teaching, which I consider to be a missionary occupation, but they are a remarkable experiment in decentralization and deregulation. The early results on charter schools are very, very promising. We have about 600 charter schools in the country today, out of 16,000 primary-secondary schools nationwide, and these charter schools are producing great results.…”