Timothy Roemer: “I do have. We just had our fourth child, a little girl, Grace. I have Patrick, Matthew and Sarah. The job of a teacher…”

“I do have. We just had our fourth child, a little girl, Grace. I have Patrick, Matthew and Sarah. The job of a teacher today, and I think the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) in talking to his wife and talking to him on many occasions late at night around here, I have heard about his children who are no longer the age of my children, 7, 6, 3 and 40 days old, but they are teaching, they followed you into the education profession. Oftentimes the gentleman and I have talked at length about the importance of parental involvement. Some of our children are going to school without that parental involvement, without one parent following through on homework, on keeping them diligent about what they need to do to follow up on school work. We are demanding of our teachers not just to teach the three Rs, reading, writing and arithmetic but they are responsible for ethics, character education, values. Some of the children are bringing problems from the home into the classroom. And when that classroom has 26 of those children in it, that is quite a challenge. So the gentleman brings up an excellent point.”