Jack Kingston: “A number of parts of this are so important, teacher testing for teacher competency, Reading Excellency Act, high job…”

“A number of parts of this are so important, teacher testing for teacher competency, Reading Excellency Act, high job skills training. One item I wanted to talk about, though, school nutrition, now I am on the Committee on Agriculture and my friend, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) also was formerly on the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. We work hard to protect school nutrition, to make sure that our children have a good balanced meal, and it is not just lunch. They often need to have a breakfast program, because the only warm meal that they get is at the school. So we want it to be a good meal. We want to make sure that the food is safe. We want to make sure that the food is nutritious and that it is quality. We do not want a situation where some broker is coming in there with some special deal to pawn off on American school children some third grade beef. So we have worked hard to make sure that our children are served consistently good quality meals. We think that is going to make also a better education product, but these are things that Republicans and Democrats can and do agree on.”