Political Quotes

“H.R. 2211, the Ready to Teach Act of 2003, complements the No Child Left Behind Act and will help improve the quality and accountability of our Nation's teacher preparation programs. No Child Left Behind set a lofty, but achievable, goal of placing a highly qualified teacher in every public school classroom by the 2005-2006 school year. We can all agree that a highly qualified teacher plays a pivotal role in the successful education of our Nation's children, and those children deserve nothing less. Congress has kept our word to increase funding to help ensure teachers can become highly qualified. In fact, we increased funding for teacher quality grants by 35 percent in the first year of No Child Left Behind alone, and the increases are continuing. We are providing the resources, and this bill will build on that effort by supporting our teachers with real reforms. There is a serious problem when the programs charged with training the teachers of tomorrow are not meeting that goal, and that is exactly what we are facing today.”