Political Quotes

“Why? Because KIPP officials have the flexibility to design how they educate those children. The goal at the end is the same--to meet a standard of performance, to meet an educational level that is set nationally. To me, it only makes common sense for us to see the ones that exceed the goals we set and ask how do we import what they do into the rest of our K-12 system? Part of it is recognizing the fact that up here we don't have the solutions; we are merely a financial partner. That is one of the reasons this morning I introduced a bill. What that bill does is it takes 59 pots of money--59 separate programs that were funded last year. In one area, we call it the fund for improvement of teaching and learning, to say we can take 59 programs and combine them into two pots of money; one is teaching and learning and the second one is safe and healthy students. In the teaching and learning area, we have consolidated about 24 funding programs into one. We have said to local educators that they can use this money however they want, if their focus is teaching and learning, and they can pull out of the other pot any moneys they need for programs that address safe and healthy students. We went a step further and said, if one of these pots of money doesn't work for them, then we will give them 100 percent transferability from one pot to the other.…”