Political Quotes

“on April 13, 2000, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education received the report of the National Reading Panel. The subcommittee also heard testimony from Dr. Duane Alexander, Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Dr. Kent McGuire, Assistant Secretary of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement; and Dr. Donald N. Langenberg, Chairman of the National Reading Panel and Chancellor of the University System of Maryland. The National Reading Panel was created as a result of legislation I introduced in 1997, titled the ``Successful Reading Research and Instruction Act.'' Subsequently, the report accompanying the Fiscal Year 1998 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act called on the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Department of Education to form a panel to evaluate existing research on the teaching of reading to children, identify proven methodologies, and suggest ways for dissemination of this information to teachers, parents, universities and others. I was convinced at the time that there was an absence of consensus on a national strategy for teaching children to read. Meanwhile, we had statistics which showed that 40 to 60 percent of elementary students were not reading proficiently and there seemed to be no plan to help remedy the situation.”