Edward M. Kennedy: “I think any one of us who has had a chance to talk to teachers and to school principals at the local levels has…”

“I think any one of us who has had a chance to talk to teachers and to school principals at the local levels has countless stories about their feelings that they could make an important difference, if only they were given additional degrees of flexibility. I think all of us are familiar with some of the challenges that we have faced in the past, where we did reduce the kinds of regulations, and some of the resources that we had were diverted to other purposes. The response to that was to put on other rules and other regulations. I think many of us believe that they form a straitjacket in local communities. This is a very reasonable approach which permits flexibility in the six States. We have included additional flexibility for other States, as well, in terms of the development of their program. We are going to encourage that kind of flexibility and keep a very careful eye on how the scarce resources are utilized. I think all of us are hopeful it will be successful and will be monitoring it closely to be sure those resources are actually utilized in the schools.”