Political Quotes

“Regrettably, today, I come to the floor to voice my opposition to H.R. 1. At the beginning of his presidency, President Bush outlined a bold vision for education that would move power and authority back to parents and back to States; a vision that included flexibility in how States and local schools would spend their money; a vision that would empower parents to make more educational decisions for their kids; and a change in process in how we would measure the results that Federal investments resulted in; a change in process where today we measure how we spend our dollars to a reform that said we are going to measure whether our children are learning or not. The flexibility for States has been eliminated. The parental empowerment has been weakened. The results accountability has been added to the bill, but the red tape, where local school districts and States have to report back to Washington on how they spend their money, has been maintained. We are now going to tell States and local school districts how to spend their money as well as the results they are going to get.”