Charles Norwood: “Mr. Chairman, I will not take 5 minutes, but as we come to a conclusion on this debate after almost 5 hours, it is and…”

“Mr. Chairman, I will not take 5 minutes, but as we come to a conclusion on this debate after almost 5 hours, it is and should be fairly clear to all of us and certainly to the American people that the American education system needs reform, it needs changing, it needs improving, and I do not think we can get any disagreement at all from Democrats or Republicans that that is a true statement. But, as usual, we come down to how do we implement that, how do we achieve that goal, and, as usual, we do have different ideas about how one might do that. Today's bill is about being flexible. It is about allowing people back home, who do very much understand the need for good training and good education, people who actually know the names of some of the children that we wish to educate, people who have a great deal riding on the education system for their State, and indeed, and most importantly, for our country. I oppose the amendment of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), and I do not really like doing that especially because of my respect for Mr. Kildee, but I oppose all these amendments simply because every amendment is based on taking away what we started out to do 5 hours ago, which was to be flexible in our funding for education.”