George Miller: “we can talk all we want here, or the Republicans can talk all they want, about what they are going to do in terms of…”

“we can talk all we want here, or the Republicans can talk all they want, about what they are going to do in terms of education, because most of the legislation that was just read by the gentleman in the well is legislation that they have proposed, it is legislation that may have passed this House, it is legislation that they cannot get agreement with the Senate on, or it is legislation that has come out of the committee but their caucus is in disagreement on much of that legislation. I appreciate and I was at the signing with the bipartisan delegation of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. That is what Congress is supposed to do. Congress is supposed to reauthorize that act when it comes due and there is no Congress that has failed to do that. But this Congress has failed to do much more. It has failed to meet the needs of America's schoolchildren by failing to address the need to reduce class size for our younger students. It has refused to meet the need to improve our schools, the crumbling schools, some $12 billion worth of construction that is immediately necessary, not only to make schools safe, not only to make them healthy for our children, not only to modernize those that need it, but also to make them ready for the technology that is the key to much of the educational opportunity for the students. So this Congress has struck out on education.”