Nancy L. Johnson: “I want to remind the Members, and I hope to remind the White House, that it is time that we wrap up our business. It is…”

“I want to remind the Members, and I hope to remind the White House, that it is time that we wrap up our business. It is very important that we, as a body, deliver to the executive branch a plan for spending and for funding the priorities of the next year. I wanted to remind my colleagues that while there is some debate about the exact level, it is a rather minor number of millions and billions that have to be dealt with; that, in fact, in this bill are many, many things that many of us have fought long and hard for. There is a big increase in funding for teacher quality. Now that we know more about the lack of certified teachers in many of our classrooms, the lack of subject matter preparation of many of our teachers, particularly in the inner cities, it is really imperative that we pass a budget that puts that money out there so we can make some of the progress in public education that we know needs to be made. In this bill is 575 million more dollars for after-school programs.”