Political Quotes

“Of course you can look at a bill during its period of initial authorization. There are routinely cleanup bills that move through this body. And I wish--I wish--the No Child Left Behind had a cleanup bill in 2002 or in 2003 or in 2004, all during its initial period of authorization, but President Bush closed the doors on even the changes that I think that we could have had broad consensus that we needed to pass. But of course whatever comes out of this ESEA process, if we can agree on cleanup things and unintended consequences 2 years, 3 years out, let's do them. Look, the answer is not to move the ball. It leads to the spinning of the wheels for a period of years. And rather than working on educating kids, people are working on complying with an ever-changing matrix of Federal, State, and local law. There is a lot that happens after we pass a law in this body. It goes to Federal rulemaking, input from various constituencies, final rules. It goes to States who might change their policies, State Boards of Education, State commissioners. It goes down to districts, busy superintendents who are worried about bus schedules, who are worried about opening new schools, have to worry about recommending to their boards the new policies that will comply with our new Federal law. It takes a lot of time. It might take 2 years, 3 years before it finally reaches those policy implementation levels on the ground at a local level.…”