Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in strong support of the conference report to accompany S. 1177, to be known as the Every Student Succeeds Act. After years of congressional delay and executive overreach, Congress is finally replacing No Child Left Behind. More importantly, we are replacing the old approach to education with a new approach that will help every child in every school receive an excellent education. For more than a decade, Washington has been micromanaging our classrooms. Federal rules now dictate how States and local communities measure student achievement, fix broken schools, spend taxpayer resources, and hire and fire their teachers. No Child Left Behind was based on good intentions, but it was also based on the flawed premise that Washington knows what students need to succeed in school. And what do we have to show for it? Less than half of all fourth and eighth graders are proficient in reading and math. An achievement gap continues to separate poor and minority students from their more affluent peers. In some neighborhoods, children are far more likely to drop out of high school than earn a diploma. Parents, teachers, superintendents, and other education leaders have been telling us for years that the top-down approach to education is not working. Yet some still believe that more programs, more mandates, and more bureaucrats will help get this right. Well, those days will soon be over.…”