Patsy T. Mink: “I am astounded to hear the majority say that our proposal for 100,000 teachers to reduce class size is nothing more than…”

“I am astounded to hear the majority say that our proposal for 100,000 teachers to reduce class size is nothing more than a sound bite. They cannot tell the students in my school that have two teachers in the third grade that reducing the class size from 30 to one to 20 to one is a sound bite. This is a reality. It has not only improved the educational opportunities for the children that got the two new teachers, but it improved the classroom quality, also, of the remaining three classes. So this is an amazing statement that the chairman of our Committee on Education and the Workforce has propounded today. The 30,000 teachers that have been spread across the country have dramatically improved the educational opportunities of these youngsters. Let us not just talk about what we are going to do for education. If title I is a block grant, wonderful. It was block granted for the poor children in this country based upon a very precise formula. That is what we are doing here today. We are asking this Congress to appropriate money to reduce class size and improve teacher quality.”