Pete Hoekstra: “And I am not saying that bonuses for teachers are the way to go. But we ought to be working with teachers, with parents…”

“And I am not saying that bonuses for teachers are the way to go. But we ought to be working with teachers, with parents, and with others to have these laboratories around the country. And that doesn't mean that every class is a laboratory and you are trying the whole thing brand new. It means what you are saying is every year, every month, every week we are going to be focused on having continuous improvement. That if we can learn from other States, if we can learn from other schools, if we can learn from other countries we are always going to be on the cutting edge of improving our schools. Right now where are we? Where do our superintendents look? Where do our State education bureaucrats look? Now they have to look to some old bill that was passed in 2001 that tells them how to run their schools. You won't find that in business anymore. You won't find businesses operating on a model that was in place in 2001. If they were still operating in the same practices, the same technology and all of these kinds of things that they were operating on in 2001, guess what, in 2010 they would be out of business. They could no longer compete. So whether it is education, whether it is infrastructure, you know, the whole gamut. You want to do the same thing with job training. You know, as a starter, I have got bills to do this. It is kind of like highway money goes back to the States, the gas tax money. It doesn't need to come here.”