George Miller: “the gentleman wants to suggest that under his bill everyone is going to qualify. We know there are about 17 States that…”

“the gentleman wants to suggest that under his bill everyone is going to qualify. We know there are about 17 States that are prepared to go. If a State is going to do this right, let us not pretend like they are going to do it this school year. They will be making applications for 2000, 2001. That actually coincides with what we told them 5 years ago to be ready to do. The fact is most of the States have not been ready because they thought they could slide by again. That is what this accountability is about saying enough is enough, we have made a decision, and we now want standards of accountability that we can measure how the students are doing. So there is nothing inconsistent with that at all.”