Political Quotes

“let me begin my brief remarks by commending our colleague from the State of Washington for her leadership on this issue once again. She has, on numerous occasions over the last few years, raised the issue of class size as one critical to improving the quality of public education in the country, and she is doing so again this afternoon with the introduction of this amendment. I am pleased to be a cosponsor and hope we can build strong bipartisan support for it. There is no question that the size of a class, the number of students in a classroom, and academic performance bear a correlation. My State of Connecticut has one of the lowest ratios between teachers and students in the United States. The most recent statistics indicate that class size in Connecticut hovers just over 20 students per class. A couple of States actually are lower, but the national average is around 25--about 5 additional students per class. Also, we in Connecticut make other investments in education. We pay our teachers well. We also have led the nation in the adoption of high standards for student performance measured with the Connecticut Mastery Test and with support for whole school reform. I note this, because it is these investments that have shown such dividends in Connecticut. It is no mystery that we end up, in national surveys, at the top in the country in academic performance.”