Charles Rangel: “Mr. Speaker, I encourage Members' support for my amendment, which merely is an expansion of existing law that was…”

“Mr. Speaker, I encourage Members' support for my amendment, which merely is an expansion of existing law that was incorporated in the recent tax package, with the support of the leadership of the Democrats, the Republicans, as well as the President of the United States. What it does is to allow those public school systems that are failing us in areas of extreme poverty to get their acts together by realizing that they have to do something better. And what they do better is to have to reach out to form partnerships, to form academies with the private sector leadership in these communities, and to sit down with the teachers and with the parents, the business people and the local officials, and to come up with a curriculum, not just one that they feel good about, not one that comes from the State capital, but one in which the private sector can say that these are the skills that we are going to need in this community if your kids are going to go to college or if your kids are going to get a job.”