Political Quotes

“I thank the ranking member for his time and his staunch advocacy on this. I express my appreciation to Mrs. McMorris Rodgers, as well, for bringing forth this important amendment. Mr. Chairman, this underlying bill has an accountability hole so huge an entire school bus of children will fall through it. In many school districts, 12 to 15 percent of kids have some kind of IEP or are receiving some special ed services. Essentially, absent this amendment, there's no accountability assured for those kids. In fact, a disproportionate share of the Federal investment is for kids with IDEA. We've never met the 40 percent promise that we've made. IDEA and, of course, free and reduced lunch are two of our larger funding streams. If anything, we as custodians for the taxpayers should be interested in more accountability, not less accountability, for students with learning disabilities, not to mention the moral dimension and the surety that families across our country want that the learning needs of all children will be met. Absent this amendment, the underlying bill has a perverse incentive for school districts to do what they used to do for years before the current law was implemented and that is sweep problems under the rug, define success down, and effectively allow schools to have some students that they don't have to account for success for in any way.…”