Political Quotes

“I just want to make two observations. First of all, I want to again repeat that we cut the lenders yields by 30 basis points. The students are happy. The colleges and universities are happy. The lenders are not. But it was a compromise and I think a good compromise for students and parents. Then I do want to mention something about the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. It was my belief that if we had 40 percent of the students that are not reading well by the end of third grade, one of the things we should be looking at is teacher training, teacher preparation. I felt we should be looking at the other end, where these teachers are beginning to start to become teachers, so that as a matter of fact we would not have that problem later on. And so we had to find $18 million to have an offset in order to better prepare our teachers who are beginning to teach, and our teachers who are teaching who need remedial work. That is where we got that $18 million. We have to understand in 1992 when they came and asked for some money, they asked for a little bit of seed money. They said, "That's all we want, a little bit of seed money, and then it will pay for itself." Since 1992, they have spent $100 million, they have certified 914 teachers, that is $100,000 apiece, none of which got into rural America and center city America where they are truly needed.”