John Kerry: “Whatever the dynamic we are locked into in the Senate, it is clearly not promising or anything substantive to pass. Our…”

“Whatever the dynamic we are locked into in the Senate, it is clearly not promising or anything substantive to pass. Our friends on the other side of the aisle have decided that nothing substantive with respect to education will fundamentally pass. Yesterday we passed a study on welfare offered by Senator Wellstone, but every other effort to deal with education is preordained. I understand in standing up here the fate of this amendment. Notwithstanding that, I want to make it clear, and I think my colleagues who preceded me have made it clear, that these are the real issues that face the country and these are the choices the Senate ought to be making. If our colleagues simply choose to dismiss them out of hand, then that is a reality the American people, I hope, will begin to digest at the appropriate time, which is obviously election time in this country. There may be another chance when we will deal with some of these issues. We certainly hope there will be. But not being guaranteed that opportunity, we have to take this opportunity now. Everyone in this country knows we have a teacher shortage of remarkable proportions.…”