Political Quotes

“Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the substitute offered by the gentleman from Illinois. Before I came to this body I had the opportunity to serve on a local school board for several years. I served with four concerned members of the community and together we spent countless hours trying to meet the needs of the young people for whom we were responsible. A friend of mine once told me that people who serve on school boards are going to have a special place in heaven. When I was first elected to the board, our budget was approximately $16 million dollars. At the end of my 9 years, that budget was up to $40 million. Over 85 percent of this money came from the State and Federal Governments. That's a lot of money and I think we could have done an excellent job of educating our young people. The problem was that even though we were elected as local, on-the-spot officials, we had very little say in what went on in our schools. While the Federal and State Governments sent us most of the money, they sent even more mandates. We were constantly trying to do all the things they asked us to do rather than do what was really best for the children. I'm a strong advocate for local control of the educational process and for minimizing Federal and State mandates.”