Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, as I indicated at the beginning, this is the start of a larger debate of redefining how we help our children. As I have indicated, as we have gone around the country, we have seen wonderful things. We have seen wonderful things in public education. We have seen great innovations in public education. We have seen wonderful teachers who are motivated to help our children and help our children get a better education. At the same time we have run into a constant frustration at the State and the local level about the involvement of the Federal Government in setting priorities, in setting direction at the local level. This amendment and this debate will be about how do we move dollars to students, how do we move decision-making to parents, and how do we increase flexibility for States, because we know that when we focus on basic academics, when we focus on our young people, when we get dollars into the classroom, and when we move decision-making back to parents and back to the local level is when we are seeing success. As we withdraw this amendment, recognize that we will come back to flesh out these ideas to move the money to students, decision-making to parents and flexibility to States.”