Frank Pallone: “I want to say that I am very proud of the Democrats who have stuck it out and demanded that this budget agreement…”

“I want to say that I am very proud of the Democrats who have stuck it out and demanded that this budget agreement address education initiatives. It appears, and I say it appears because we do not know for sure, but it seems like the Republicans finally have agreed to our proposal for 100,000 teachers that are going to be hired across the country with Federal dollars. I just want to say it is only because Democrats have kept insisting that this education initiative be in the budget that we may finally realize that hope of having those 100,000 extra teachers spread around the country to reduce class size. But we still do not have the modernization initiative. The Republicans should agree to this as well. This is the initiative that says that we will spend Federal dollars to try to improve schools around the country, to renovate schools, to put in new roofs, to also upgrade, if you will, schools for technology, for computers and other things of that nature. I think it is very important that we continue to stay here until that initiative is also included in this budget.”