Timothy Roemer: “I rise as a coauthor of the Ed-Flex bill with the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), and proudly proclaim that we…”

“I rise as a coauthor of the Ed-Flex bill with the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), and proudly proclaim that we have made it a long way in the last 8 or 9 months when we introduced this bill through committee, through the markup process, on to the floor where we had 112 Democrats support this bill, and then into a conference last week. I am delighted to say that we have accomplished this with true trust and reaching out, Democrat to Republican and Republican to Democrat. We have improved on a pilot bill that has existed in 12 States for the last 4 years, built on the successes that the pilot program and Ed-Flex has accomplished in States like Maryland and Texas and Ohio, improved on those pilot programs, applied some of the strengths of those programs to our bill. So that is the first reason I hope that people will vote for this conference report, that this is an old value and a new idea. The old value is to trust the local schools to do what is in their best interest, to educate our children with the right curriculum, the right values, the right discipline.”