Rand Paul: “reserving the right to object, I find it a tragedy that in the Senate we are operating in a way that allows an 868-page…”

“reserving the right to object, I find it a tragedy that in the Senate we are operating in a way that allows an 868-page bill to be offered with only 48 hours to read it and approximately 1,000 pages' worth of amendments to this bill with virtually no time to even think about the amendments. I think it is precisely what is wrong with this body, that we would try to rush things through. I have been here since January, and there have been no hearings on No Child Left Behind. I have had no hearings that involve teachers, no hearings that involve superintendents, no hearings that involve principals. I think this is an affront to the process. As I go around my State and I talk to teachers, I have yet to meet one teacher who is in favor of No Child Left Behind. They abhor it. They hate all the stuff we are telling them to do from Washington. They want more local control. I am one of the old-fashioned conservatives who believes that schools are and should be under local and State control. There is no provision in the Constitution for the Federal Government to be involved, period. This was part of the Republican platform for nearly 30 years, that we didn't believe in Federal control; we wanted to have local control. I met with six teachers recently from Marion County. Some of them are special ed teachers. They like what they do. They like teaching kids who have difficulty learning and have to be taught in a different fashion in order to get through to these kids.…”