Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “the things that make kids grow up into whole people. What happens now is because we are inadequately funding education…”

“the things that make kids grow up into whole people. What happens now is because we are inadequately funding education, our classrooms in most of the major urban population centers and now even in some places that would not be considered so urban, the classrooms are so crowded they are bursting at the seams. They are having to use the art rooms and the band room and the music rooms for classroom space. So as a result, electives are so reduced or the funding is cut for them. So you are graduating kids who know how to take tests. They are test takers, and those are not the kind of skills that small businesses are looking for when they are sitting across the desk after a kid has graduated from high school or even college. I can tell you, because I taught at the college level for several years both at the university and community college level, you would not believe the writing skills or lack of writing skills that someone whose whole educational career has been structured towards taking tests, what those writing skills look like. We are not graduating whole, well-balanced kids who have critical thinking skills and the creativity that those kinds of classes and elective courses help to shape them into adults that will be able to work in groups and dream big dreams and make us the innovators and that have been the tradition of innovation that Americans have always led the way on. It is just not that way anymore, and we have got to get back in that direction.”