Newt Gingrich: “Fourteen years ago, under President Reagan, the Department of Education published a book called ``A Nation At Risk,''…”

“Fourteen years ago, under President Reagan, the Department of Education published a book called ``A Nation At Risk,'' and said, our schools are in trouble. For 14 years we have heard politicians and bureaucrats promise us, soon we will fix it. We had a report come out yesterday for the Washington, DC, schools, which spend $10,000 a child. According to the Department of Education, it is the most expensive system in the country. What did it say? It said two things. It said, first of all, if you actually applied standards to second and third graders, standards they have proposed to apply next year, over 40 percent of them would fail. Now, the children are not failing. The 40 percent who are going to fail are children trapped in a system destroying their future. These same children, in a decent school with decent discipline, with a fair chance, can graduate and go to college, not to prison. But they are trapped, 40 percent. We know that today, from yesterday's paper.”