Katie Porter: “The money for both classroom size reduction and for school construction has been included in the conference report since…”

“The money for both classroom size reduction and for school construction has been included in the conference report since July 27. It is fully available under title VI of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Under this title the school district, if it decides it does not need the money for school construction, can use the money for other purposes like teacher training or equipping classrooms with technology and computers. So there should be no dispute about the money being available. The dispute is about whether money is to be mandated by Washington to be spent for a particular purpose, or whether the local school district and the parents in that school district will decide the use for that money. The money is there; there has never been a dispute about the money. There is a dispute about Washington control or about local decision-making. We favor local decision-making.”