Political Quotes

“I am proud to bring forward this bipartisan bill. Let me express why it is important. To delay the expansion of a successful charter school for 5 years and prevent States from having the flexibility to deploy these resources after 3 proven years only consigns more kids to failure and lack of opportunity. It is an important amendment because it provides flexibility for States and charter schools to expand what works. And 1 year could be an aberration, 2 years of proven success can be lucky, but 3 years of success is hard to dispute. When a school has 3 years of proven success, to make it wait 5 full years before it's eligible to expand with Federal money only consigns all of those students who would have been served to otherwise reside on the waiting list and are forced to attend schools that provide less educational opportunity. We are only young once in life, and that's why with regard to education and improving the quality of our public schools, we all feel the fierce urgency of now. When a charter school starts out, it is not possible to predict whether it will be successful or not, and that's the purpose of the innovation grants. Without this amendment, charter schools that have proven success could be forced to wait 5 years before being able to replicate and expand, a wait that our Nation can't afford and, most of all, those kids on the waiting list can't afford.…”