Judd Gregg: “this amendment has popularly been referred to as the choice amendment or the portability amendment. It is an amendment…”

“this amendment has popularly been referred to as the choice amendment or the portability amendment. It is an amendment which is crucial to the issue of how we are going to approach education as we proceed as a nation. It is crucial for a lot of different reasons, but primarily it deals with a group of people in our country who have been left behind in our educational system. It doesn't deal with the wealthy. It doesn't deal with those of moderate income. It really deals with low-income people, most of them in urban schools, who find the school systems their children are put into are failing and that their children are being left behind. The American dream, which is the essence of what makes our country such a vibrant nation, is tied to the ability to be an educated individual. You cannot participate in the American dream unless you are well educated, unless you can compete and participate in our society, and that requires a quality education. So when you go through a school which does not teach, which is filled with violence or filled with drugs, when you know every day a child who goes to that school is falling further and further behind his or her peers in other schools because that school is not able to teach that child, then that child cannot participate in the American dream--you are denying that child the opportunity to participate in the American dream. There are many attempts in this bill to correct the problem.…”