Political Quotes

“When we went to the 20 States with the Education at a Crossroads, every time we brought in a parent or a local school principal or a teacher, they always focused on the child. And the parents would come in and say, please, do this because we have to help Johnny, we have to help Mary. They would come in with the names, or they would come in with their kids and say this is what it is all about. When we have the hearings with the bureaucracy, it is all about forms, rules, regulations, mandates, and there is not a name or a face or a child attached to it. And that was the power of going around the country and spending the time. Because when you bring the parents in, our colleague from Pennsylvania is exactly right, parents and teachers and local principals talk about that bureaucratic structure not very fondly. But they get passionate when they start talking about the kids in the classroom, because these principals and these teachers, that is why they went into education. They have got a passion for these kids. What they do not have a passion for is the paperwork, the rules, the mandates and the bureaucracy.”