Wayne Allard: “Today, I am here to encourage my colleagues to support legislation which will open doors of educational opportunities to…”

“Today, I am here to encourage my colleagues to support legislation which will open doors of educational opportunities to the parents and children throughout our Nation. Education savings accounts are a sensible step toward solving our education crisis in America by allowing families to use their own money--to use their own money--to pay for their child's education needs. This bill would empower parents with financial tools to provide all the needs they recognize in their children, needs that teachers or administrators cannot be trusted to address in the same way that a parent can. These accounts would provide families the ability to save for extra fees that they might incur, have to deal with, when they are sending their children to public schools, fees that may be necessary to pay for computers or maybe they want to go down and buy their own computer to help with their child's education, maybe some tutoring needs within the family, maybe they need to prepare for the SAT. Transportation costs could also be an educational need, particularly in rural areas, or maybe special circumstances that would allow a family to consider some private alternatives as opposed to public education. Handicapped children, for example, I think could really benefit from this because they do have special needs.”