Dan Coats: “let me first say I very much appreciate the efforts of the Senator from New Hampshire in addressing this issue. I think…”

“let me first say I very much appreciate the efforts of the Senator from New Hampshire in addressing this issue. I think it is an important issue and one which goes to a topic which deserves and needs a great deal of discussion and debate. Clearly, our public education system in this country has many cracks in the once solidly supported and, I think, respected position that it once had. We have many failing public schools, not just in our major cities, but across our land. The goal that we share, whether you are Republican, Democrat, liberal or conservative, is that we want to improve education in this country and we want to address some of the shortcomings that we find in education. The Senator from North Dakota raised a point which in many instances I think I do not disagree with. We do want to find ways of assessing where we are educationally, and giving parents a better idea of where their schools are in terms of preparing their children for a successful future. The proposal to look at reading levels of achievement at the end of the third grade in reading and in eighth grade in math is not necessarily a goal that we should not attempt to reach.”