Charles Norwood: “We are trying to hear from all sides and everybody to determine what kind of recommendations we might make to Congress.…”

“We are trying to hear from all sides and everybody to determine what kind of recommendations we might make to Congress. In the 104th Congress, or certainly in 1996, we basically did not reform education. We are still number 13 on the planet in math. We will not win in the 21st century if we continue to do that. We still have at least 50 percent of the children who are graduating with a high school degree that are illiterate or cannot read their diploma. We will not win with China if we continue to do that. It does not help, in this time when we are trying to discover what to do and hear all sides, when groups of people stand up and politicize and demagogue the issue. That is why nothing happened in the last Congress. Let me just point out that during our hearing, the very time we were having a hearing trying to discover what works and what does not, we had a gentleman from Texas sending news releases down into our district saying, 'Oh, we cannot do any of that because they want to simply shut down the Department of Education.' That does not lead to an intelligent dialogue that will lead to solutions where we can reform education and improve our lot in this country.”