Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in 1965, Congress passed the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The centerpiece of that law, then as now, is title I funding provided as a block grant to local school districts to serve children in poverty. The assumption in 1965 was that simply providing an infusion of Federal cash to schools with more disadvantaged children would correct educational inequities compared to more affluent schools. As it turned out, simply providing more money didn't result in improved educational outcomes for disadvantaged children. So every time this law came back up for reauthorization, Congress added more stipulations on the use of the funds and additional programs that well-meaning Members of Congress hoped would help students. Meanwhile, Congress kept raising the level of funding. Over time, there began to be a bipartisan realization that all this funding and all these programs were not resulting in improved student achievement, so something needed to change. In this context, President Bush proposed what became the No Child Left Behind Act. His original proposal promised to fundamentally change the old Washington-knows-best approach to improving teaching and learning. The theory was that we would cut the Federal strings that tied the hands of local administrators and teachers, allowing them to focus on teaching kids.…”