Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, the Federal Government put in place a mandate to local schools and States to implement testing, to be implemented for 2001. That is this year. We have that mandate in place, and now as local school districts are implementing that mandate, we are saying we are not really serious, the $400 million that has been spent, we have moved the bar and changed the playing field. The role of the Federal Government should be to audit the results. We should not mandate on a yearly basis what will be going on in our local school districts. Our local school districts have had enough of unfunded Federal mandates: IDEA, unfunded. Testing, underfunded. Testing is not yet ready for prime time. Mr. Chairman, I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment and stick with the agreement in the mandate that we put in place for 2001. Let us not pull the rug out from under that mandate and create a new mandate.”