Bob Kerrey: “Title I is a very important program in Nebraska. It serves somewhere between 37,000 and 38,000 students, but costs us…”

“Title I is a very important program in Nebraska. It serves somewhere between 37,000 and 38,000 students, but costs us about $800 per student per year. We have about 80 schools that have schoolwide Title I programs and about 350 that are in the targeted program. One of the concerns I have in general with education is, we typically are fighting with peanuts. I do not mean to say that $8 billion is peanuts, but relative to the cost of some of our larger programs we rarely debate around here, Title I is still a relatively low-cost program. By that I mean, one of my issues since I have come here to the U.S. Senate has been to try to alert both the people of Nebraska, as well as the people in the Senate, that we have a tremendous problem with our growing mandatory programs: Social Security, Medicare, the long-term portion of Medicaid. I must say I am not very pleased with the progress of that debate this year.”