Nita Lowey: “we are representatives in the Congress of the United States of America. I have traveled all across the metropolitan…”

“we are representatives in the Congress of the United States of America. I have traveled all across the metropolitan region. My district, as the Speaker knows, goes from Westchester through the Bronx to Queens County. The schools are crumbling. They are crumbling all across America. Classrooms are literally overflowing. Students are learning in the hallways. But we are just sitting idly by. That is wrong. Last year, 120 Members of Congress showed their commitment to America's children by cosponsoring a bill, the Partnership to Rebuild America Schools. This session, we have a similar proposal which I introduced with my good colleague the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel). I say to my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), we are not talking about taking over the schools. We are talking about a partnership. If we can be partners in rebuilding our highways, if we can be partners in rebuilding our roads and bridges and building prisons, then it seems to me we can be partners in modernizing our schools. We have visited schools where computers cannot be installed because they do not have the wiring necessary. One school in lower New York, there were wires hanging out of the windows, and the vandals were clipping them because the school infrastructure could not hold those computer systems, the wires. That is wrong. We are not a Third World nation.…”