Timothy Roemer: “while the terrorists on September 11 may have succeeded in bringing down our World Trade Towers and temporarily scarring…”

“while the terrorists on September 11 may have succeeded in bringing down our World Trade Towers and temporarily scarring the Pentagon, they only strengthened our resolve to get better prepared for bioterrorism and better educate our children. I want to commend in the strongest terms possible our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for their strong leadership with this bipartisan bill. It is certainly a step forward in better preparing our country educationally and better preparing our country against terrorism. On title I, a program to help educate our most vulnerable and needy poor children, we have a 20 percent, $1.7 billion increase to attach new reforms and testing to remediate and tutor these children. In Pell grants, this is a first-time Pell grant hit up to $4,000 for students going to college; and that is 57,000 more students who will be eligible to go to college. We also have a program called Transition to Teaching, working on our quality teaching in this country, which is the real key to success for all children. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for their help there. Head Start programs have a $276 million increase, about a 4 percent increase keeping up with inflation. It will help early Head Start significantly more, with more children, for 0 to 3.”