Lynn C. Woolsey: “I ran for Congress because I believe that our children's education must be the number one priority in our country, and…”

“I ran for Congress because I believe that our children's education must be the number one priority in our country, and that is why I am on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. We must prepare all of our children for the high skill, high wage jobs that will ensure America's leadership in the next century in the entire world market, and at the same time ensure that our children have a good place in the workforce. We also can prevent dependency on welfare here at home. Last year, Congress agreed that small classes are crucial to good learning. We passed the President's class size reduction program to help schools so that they can recruit, train and hire qualified teachers so they will reduce the class size to an average of 18 students in grades 1 through 3. We did this because current research findings prove what parents have known all along what teachers have been telling us for years, is that kids who are in smaller classes learn better, especially in the lower grades. Now we must go the next step, and we must pass the President's school modernization and construction initiative.”