Political Quotes

“I wish I could say that the most important part of the Goals 2000 legislation for me was the heart of the legislation, the voluntary national education standards. As a law professor still at Georgetown, I feel deeply about what students need to know and the skills they need to have. But in my town and in many others today, among the skills students most need are violence survivor skills. There are no books yet, Mr. Speaker, on how to get out of school alive or how to dodge a bullet. Title 7, the safe schools provision, is an important step toward seeing that such books become unnecessary. If we do not enact this legislation this very day, however, safe schools will expire by April 1, before we get back from the district work period. When I was a student at Dunbar High School here in Washington, fists were all that were available. Today guns have saturated society. Those guns are used to settle juvenile quarrels. There were gun shots through the window of my high school alma mater last month. Vice President Gore went with me and heard students describe how bullets can keep one from concentrating on books. The next time the Vice President and I go to Dunbar, I hope we will hear about the scholarships that Dunbar students get from M.I.T. and from Howard. This bill will help us meet that goal, but only if Members vote for the conference report so that we can save safe schools before it expires April 1.”