Angie Craig: “As you know and certainly now as our country knows, for this week and until we have concluded, we are focused on the…”

“As you know and certainly now as our country knows, for this week and until we have concluded, we are focused on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the important role it plays in the future education of our young people. By overwhelming majorities, Americans have said time and again that they want education in this Nation improved. We cannot improve education by merely throwing money at the problem. We have tried that for a long time. Yet the performance of our young people against the performance of other young people around the world simply does not rate as it should. Our educational system does not need money alone, and that is why we have spent the last several years looking at the concepts that fall together to create a dynamic education program of the kind that is so important for the future of our country and our country's young people. Increased funding alone, as I have mentioned, will not help. Do we need money? Of course we do, and with this bill, there is a substantial amount of more money authorized. What we really need to look at is the tremendous bureaucracy of education that has grown up over the years in the public systems in our country and does that, in fact, function in the dynamic ways that are necessary to stay on the edge of educating in a contemporary society.”