Political Quotes

“I am prepared to close. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about some of my experiences in the charter school movement before joining this body. I had the opportunity to found a public charter school, New America School, now which has five campuses in Colorado and New Mexico. I also had the opportunity to cofound Academy of Urban Learning in Denver, Colorado. New America School seeks to meet the needs of English language learning students who are a little bit older--15, 16, 18, 19--and far too often didn't have a place in the traditional public school system. Many of these students work jobs--might work a day job, might work a night job. That means, if they work a day job, the only school that would be a viable option for them would be an evening school. That is why New America school has flexible scheduling, allowing students to attend day or night, depending on their real-world life circumstances. In addition, many of the young women attending the school have young children of their own, and that is a real-life need that, absent some kind of daycare reimbursement or daycare, many of them would not be able to attend. So New America School offered daycare reimbursement--in some cases, daycare--so that these young women could continue to attend school and get a high school diploma.…”