Edward M. Kennedy: “today the Senate begins action on the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. This legislation, designed to make more rapid…”

“today the Senate begins action on the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. This legislation, designed to make more rapid progress toward meeting the national education goals, has strong, bipartisan support on the Labor and Human Resources Committee. The reason for this bipartisan support is clear. Education reform is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. It is a national issue, and all of us recognize that it is time for the Federal Government to do more to help communities across the country improve their schools. During the recess, I visited the Fenway School in Boston, and I met students and teachers who brought home to me what education reform can mean and why better and different schools are at the heart of solving so many of our problems, not only in education, but in other areas as well, especially crime control and welfare reform. One of the students whom I met was Efrain Gutierrez, an 18-year-old sophomore. He had dropped out of his old school, but now he is getting straight A's at this small, highly personalized and completely reorganized school. When I asked him what he had done when he was not in school, he said, ``I don't think you want to know.'' We can authorize billions of dollars for fighting crime, but few programs will be as successful as a school like the Fenway that gives students a place to belong and to succeed and to enhance their own self-esteem.”