Mark Souder: “I wanted to briefly join in here, because the gentleman called my attention earlier this evening to an article that ran…”

“I wanted to briefly join in here, because the gentleman called my attention earlier this evening to an article that ran in the Wall Street Journal today, and Congressman Shadegg from Arizona cited it in particular, and then I actually read it. The gentleman has been a leader in our class and in Congress in doing budget numbers, tax numbers, appropriation bill numbers, and has been somebody we all look to, and now I realize that the gentleman is completely politically incorrect. The article in the Wall Street Journal today from Lynn Cheney about the National Commission for Education Testing was talking about math, and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] asked me earlier this evening, ``Did you see this absurd statement in the Wall Street Journal?'' Steven Leinwand, this is quoting from the Wall Street Journal today, Lynn Cheney's article, who sits on the committee overseeing President Clinton's proposed National Mathematics Exam, has written an essay explaining why it is downright dangerous to teach students things like 6 times 7 is 42, put down 2 and carry the 4. Such instructions sorts people out, Mr. Leinwand writes, anointing the few who master these procedures and casting out the many. That is a quote. As Mr. Leinwand tells it, there might have once been an excuse for such undemocratic goings-on, but we can now, because of technology, throw off the ``discriminatory shackles of computational algorithms.''”