Political Quotes

“I want to truly thank my colleague from Colorado for his eloquent words of support for charter schools and for his past efforts in this area. I particularly want to thank him for urging the Senate to take up this legislation. As he well knows, we have a lot of good legislation over in the Senate that has not been acted upon, and I hope this bill will have a better fate in the Senate than other bills have had. Mr. Speaker, it would be imprudent to have a conversation about education and the use of taxpayer money without discussing the need for accountability. Hardworking taxpayers want to see their tax dollars being used in the best way possible and expect the Federal Government to be a wise steward of their dollars. H.R. 10 builds on the principle of local accountability by modernizing the Charter Schools Program to authorize States to use the funding to replicate and expand high-quality charter schools. The schools with proven student success will have the opportunity to offer those advantages to more students. States and local educators know their students best, and I urge my colleagues to modernize Federal school programs and respond to these needs by supporting both this rule and the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, many of my Republican colleagues and I would prefer we abide by the Constitution and take the Federal Government out of education altogether, but that is not what we are recommending here today because we know we can't achieve that goal.…”