Katie Porter: “5 cents out of every $1 spent on education is spent by the Federal Government. Reductions in Federal education spending…”

“5 cents out of every $1 spent on education is spent by the Federal Government. Reductions in Federal education spending in this House bill, H.R. 2127, amount to less than 1 percent of the total money spent on primary and secondary education in the United States. The sky is not falling. There is no hostility to the Federal role in education. What we intend to do is to spend the money better and get better results for America's children. Let me quote Alice Rivlin in her 1992 book, ``Reviving the American Dream.'' She says, ``Presidential speeches and photo opportunities, national testing and assessments, federally funded experimental schools, even new grants spent in accordance with Federal guidelines can only make marginal contributions to fixing the schools.'' What we are attempting to do is to get control over 256 separate programs that even officials in the Department of Education will say are out of control and require huge overhead to administer. These funds do not go to kids, but to directors and staffs in Washington that do nothing to improve education. Let me talk for a moment about title I. Title I evaluations say they do not appear to be helping close the learning gap. The money is spread, Mr. Speaker, all over our country. The money goes to schools that do not need it. What we need to do with title I is to target the money to the schools with large numbers of disadvantaged children so that we get better results for kids that are most at risk.”