Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. I wanted to touch on a couple of things that we have talked about in the course of this debate that I find to be interesting. We have heard an appeal from one of the Members here on the floor, I think it was the gentleman from Illinois, who said he was applauding this evidence-based approach. And yet we have heard other Members say we have insufficient data. I must admit that I fall in the latter category. We really don't know the extent of the situation. We have heard the numbers quoted. California, for example, is quoted as having 14,000 incidents. We really don't know what is in those 14,000. These include emergency interventions. So we don't know if that's the case of a teacher breaking up a fight or stopping an argument. It is certainly not 14,000 cases of taping children to their chairs, and I don't think anybody in this body believes that is the case. But the point is we don't know. We don't know, and yet we are using numbers as though they were gospel. Look, on this issue let's start with what we agree on. We agree students and teachers should be safe at school. We agree children with disabilities are especially vulnerable because they may struggle with behavioral and communication problems that are difficult for teachers to control.…”