Political Quotes

“I chair the positive education caucus in the Congress of the United States. This positive education caucus believes that it is easy to be critical but much more difficult to find solutions. That positive caucus is called the Committee on Education and the Workforce of the United States House of Representatives. So I am pleased to join several of my colleagues in reviewing two things with the American people and with all who are watching: first, the seven key Republican principles on education; and second, the key education accomplishments we have made over the last 5 years. Since we became a majority party in November of 1994, I have fought to include seven key principles in all education legislation that is passed through the Committee on Education and Workforce and the House. Now, why did we do that? Why did we come up with these seven principles? Well, I sat here for 20 years in the minority where I was told over and over again, and I watched it happen, that all we need to do is come up with one more program or another billion dollars or cover another 100,000 or half million children and we will solve all those problems. And for 20 years I watched one more program, one more billion dollars. Nothing happened positively in relationship to closing the achievement gap between those who are fortunate enough to have someone at home who is their first and most important teacher and those that are not.”