Michael Bennet: “we are here today to consider the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the bill that has been known for years as No…”

“we are here today to consider the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the bill that has been known for years as No Child Left Behind. It is a bill the Congress was supposed to reauthorize more than 7 years ago. When school kids come to visit me in my office here, I often ask them: What would happen if you showed up and were told that your homework was 7 or 8 years late? That is how long it has taken us to get to this place. As the Presiding Officer may know, before I came to the Senate, I had the honor of being the superintendent of the Denver Public Schools district, which now has 95,000 children in it, 67 percent of whom qualify for free and reduced lunch. I should note that we got some sad news in the last month or two. For the first time in our country's history--for the first time in the history of the United States--over half of the children attending public schools in our country qualify for free and reduced lunch. That is due to two decades of stagnant middle-class family incomes and the effect of the worst recession since the Great Depression. What people in Washington need to understand is that when it comes to education in this country right now, our kids don't have a fair fight, especially our kids living in poverty. If you were born poor in the United States of America, you will have heard 30 million fewer words than your more affluent peers when you show up for kindergarten.…”