Mark Souder: “Whether or not, and we can discuss whether State institutions move it to the local level. Let us assume for purposes of…”

“Whether or not, and we can discuss whether State institutions move it to the local level. Let us assume for purposes of debate that we are moving it to the States for neglected children. We attempted in earlier amendments in title I to move money to vocational education for prevention as the gentleman from Ohio was referring to, we attempted to move money to IDEA, we will have additional amendments here to try to move it to education programs for high-risk students. This particular amendment is focused on the goals and then moving it to kids. It is hard to say that once somebody is in a juvenile institution that forever they are gone. The purpose of this program and as we reworked the Juvenile Justice Act in the authorizing subcommittee, we tried to look not only at prevention which is important but how we take those kids who are in the system and try to rehabilitate them and work with them while they are in the system. I believe that that ought to be done predominantly at the State level, which these funds do. This moves those funds to the State level. Presumably those State funds and those institutions are at the local community, but let us say that it goes to the State level. I believe that that is much more effective than arbitrary standards set out of Washington in education. That is what this amendment by the gentleman from Colorado does.”