Donald M. Payne: “You know, the gentleman is absolutely correct. It reminds me of another story of some of those households where the…”

“You know, the gentleman is absolutely correct. It reminds me of another story of some of those households where the circumstances are unfathomable. My sister is a kindergarten teacher of 25 years. I don't know if she would like me telling the length of time, but she had a child in one of her classes several years ago, and the child would sleep all through class. You know, once or twice, she let it go, but it became a persistent pattern. {time} 2000 She calls the parents and finds out that the reason that the child slept in school was it was the only safe place to sleep because, in the evening, the rodents that came out of the walls would bite them at night, and they would stay up most of the night trying to keep this circumstance off of them. When the child got to school, it was the only place that they could rest. In this country, that is unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable. It is circumstances like that--now, how does that child get ahead? They are falling behind already, and this is kindergarten. The deck is stacked against a lot of these children when they show up to school. Head Start and these programs have shown and demonstrated the upward mobility that they have given generations of children that need this type of service; yet our colleagues continue to thwart efforts to increase efforts we know that work--really, just kind of just dismiss that any of these social programs that have been instituted have any benefit. That is not true. It is just not true.…”