Political Quotes

“I rise to address an amendment I am proposing to the bill, the Every Child Achieves Act. I am not going to ask to call up the amendment at this time, but I certainly would like to do so at a later point in the day. I hope this amendment will be part of any effort to wrap-up debate on this bill because it addresses an important component that is being left out of discussion on the Every Child Achieves Act. The Every Child Achieves Act is the authorization act, but it leaves out the vision for school policy. This is a bipartisan bill. It is a bill that would give a lot more flexibility to our States, and it has been an important effort to address many shortcomings in the former act, the No Child Left Behind Act, that in fact left a lot of children behind. In my discussions with educators throughout the State of Oregon, with parents, administrators, and teachers, they found a great number of difficulties and problems with an act that was undermining the success of our public schools, leaving a huge number of children behind, and focusing on what these educators referred to as ``the bubble''--that is, those children who are close enough to the testing line to get them over the top, while decreasing attention paid to those children who could already meet the testing line or those they think were not able to get to that line. That is not a holistic, comprehensive education system addressing the needs of all our children.…”