Chris Coons: “as the Senate this week considers the first major reform bill for our Nation's public schools in over a decade, I rise…”

“as the Senate this week considers the first major reform bill for our Nation's public schools in over a decade, I rise to talk about how we can ensure that every one of our country's children goes to a great school no matter his or her ZIP Code or background. Our Nation has long struggled to fulfill our fundamental promise of equal opportunity since our Nation's founding. It is a struggle that, despite many efforts, continues today. Fifty years ago, as America fought to break down racial barriers in our Nation's classrooms, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law. This civil rights act recognized that without actively investing Federal resources in educating America's underserved children, their dreams would remain tragically deferred. Since then, our country has continued to struggle with this fundamental civil rights challenge. And five decades after Johnson's landmark law and 14 years after President Bush revamped it with the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act, we still haven't found a way to ensure that as a nation, we hold every school to the high standards our children deserve. This week marks the latest effort in this long struggle. The Senate's reform bill, titled the ``Every Child Achieves Act,'' makes important strides to improve what went wrong in 2001's No Child Left Behind.…”