Political Quotes

“I rise with harboring deep concerns about the utter absence of any accountability in H.R. 3248 which is why I am in support of the amendment of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay). With 3248 I say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) who is my good friend that my major concern, and I would agree with him that more money is going to local school districts that make those decisions, this is the right thing to do. But here in the Congress we passed the Welfare Reform Act that made it clear that we wanted accountability from welfare recipients. I would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle why would we stop or why that principle does not apply here. I have no problem giving money to local school districts. All I would like to see is that they demonstrate to us that indeed what they are getting, the moneys they are getting from the taxpayers, is actually resulting in improvement or increased through the performance, which is why the Clay amendment is so important. It provides money to reduce class size from 26 to 18, but the money will be taken away if the school districts cannot demonstrate that the reduced class sizes has resulted and increased student performance.”