Frederica Wilson: “I thank my friend from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore) for her leadership and her passion for defending children. I urge my…”

“I thank my friend from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore) for her leadership and her passion for defending children. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. As an educator, as an elementary school principal and as a school board member, I can attest to a simple fact: that there is simply no factor that matters more for children's achievement than teacher quality. Teachers matter. Research consistently upholds this fact. Yet, in urban and rural areas alike, students in low-income areas are constantly assigned less qualified teachers than are their wealthier peers. These young minds are, quite simply, treated as experiments in little educational petri dishes. Let's stop experimenting with our children. Poor schools often face impossible prospects of recruiting teachers, and once teachers are finally recruited, educators often need additional resources and support to do their jobs effectively. The result is that students in poverty fall farther and farther behind, losing hope of ever catching up. Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense amendment that would ensure that title II changes under this bill would not be enacted if these changes pull funds away from schools serving students in poverty. This is not a partisan issue. There has been bipartisan consensus on the importance of teacher development in low-income areas for ages. A criterion for teacher development is so important.…”