Mark Souder: “I am a proud conservative cosponsor of the gentleman from South Carolina's bill to provide loan forgiveness to teachers…”

“I am a proud conservative cosponsor of the gentleman from South Carolina's bill to provide loan forgiveness to teachers in title I schools and special ed. Sometimes, just once in a while, our liberal friends accuse conservatives of not caring about improving education because we do not favor a Federal takeover in education. In fact, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and I were leaders in the fight against national testing standards. We fought against the national curriculum and national teaching standards. But the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) has committed his entire career to trying to provide better quality with local control, and this bill is yet another example. We Republicans say everyone should compete. Yet we do not believe in guaranteeing absolute equality. Parents' education differs, their income differs, some kids are going to have computers at home, some kids are going to have parents who can teach. There is not just a whole lot we can do about that. But we do believe that there ought to be basic opportunities for all kids in America. And so we support title I and we support IDEA. The chairman has been a leader in Even Start, in Head Start. We have had many such bills. This bill combines many of the principles that we as conservatives believe are valuable in trying to help low-income students.”