Alcee Hastings: “the gentleman from Delaware knows that I have great respect for him. That will continue regardless of our different…”

“the gentleman from Delaware knows that I have great respect for him. That will continue regardless of our different views on this subject. What he did was read from today's Roll Call by that paragon of education, Morton Kondracke, who is probably a friend of his and certainly a friend of mine. But the gentleman left out another thing that Mr. Kondracke said. He said, ``Democrats did help Bush pass his No Child Left Behind standards and testing initiative in 2001 and now have every right to blast his and the GOP Congress' failure to fund it.'' So, you see, context has a lot to do with things. When the gentleman was before the Committee on Rules, I asked him, in a respectful manner, was there one teacher organization or one parent organization or one student organization that supported the bill that he put forward. He looked to his staff and indicated that there was an education trust group, which the Democrats support as well because it deals with the quality of teachers and teacher pay. There are no teacher organizations, no parent organizations, no student organizations that support this proposition.”