John Tierney: “at this time I just want to comment on the fact they keep saying over and over again that only 6 or 7 percent of the…”

“at this time I just want to comment on the fact they keep saying over and over again that only 6 or 7 percent of the total amount of money that is spent on elementary and secondary education in this country come from federal resources. So 93 or 94 percent of the resources come from state and local governments, but when it comes time to talk about the condition of our schools which people want to say could be much better and are not all that they should be, 94 percent of the blame gets laid at the feet of the Federal Government and 7 or 6 percent of the blame gets laid at the local and State government. The fact of the matter is every level of government has responsibility to step forward and participate in making sure that we have the best educational system we can possibly have. People in my district in Massachusetts understand that this is a responsibility that is shared. They do not want to place the blame, they want to get moving on doing some things that are going to help the educational system. Block granting, it is never on the charts when we ask people how they want to help improve their schools. They do not want to combine programs, do away with accountability, let States shift money from programs that are national priorities to other areas and then eventually defund.”