Political Quotes

“Well, let me give you another couple of statistics, and we can maybe reach a conclusion today. That was a question that we asked earlier in the process. We went out and we went to local schools and we talked to parents, we talked to teachers and we talked to administrators, and they said tell us what is working in your schools. And there are some phenomenal success stories around the country that schools are working well, teachers are doing a great job, classrooms are being effective. So you ask them why is your school working, and they give us great reasons: parental involvement, technology, and the answers vary from one school district to another because the needs in one school district and the students coming in are very different from one school district to the other. The interesting thing was nobody ever said this Federal program, and you would think that when you have 760 different education programs coming out of Washington, and you know that is maybe one reason you and I would say, hallelujah, it is a good thing we have got an education department so that we have got one place that coordinates all 760 programs. You take a look and say, whoa, no, that was the vision of the Education Department when it came out, that it would be the focal point of education in the Federal Government. But with 760 programs, they go through 39 different agencies, and they spend $100 billion per year out of Washington.”