Political Quotes

“I first and foremost thank Senator Gregg and Senator Kennedy for their willingness to work with me on this amendment. This is an amendment that comes from the many visits I had in public schools across Pennsylvania where I heard from special education teachers, in particular, and administrators about the enormous amount of paperwork that special education teachers have to deal with and how it is a point of great dissatisfaction among those teachers, as well as a factor in what they believe is limiting their time and limiting the quality of the education children who are covered under IDEA receive. As a result, I wanted to create an opportunity for States to, through a pilot, do some innovation and, working with the Department of Education, try to reduce the amount of paperwork our teachers have to go through. This is a serious problem in trying to recruit and retain special education teachers. In fact, the most recent figure I have is that in the 1999-2000 school year, there were 12,000 special education openings. The principal reason for that was the enormous paperwork burden, the frustration that comes with having to deal with the 'bureaucracy' and 'redtape,' as it has been put to me on more than one occasion. These positions, for the most part, were left vacant or filled by substitutes who did not have the qualifications necessary to teach these students who have special needs.”