Political Quotes

“I thank the Chair. It is, indeed, invigorating and encouraging to be in the Chamber today to talk about education, talking about an innovative proposal to try to reform education and also being able to have a principled debate about increasing the accountability that should be inherent in this proposal because the issue of flexibility alone without accountability could lead simply to sending funds to States without proper controls. And so I believe we will have to emphasize in this debate and ultimately in this legislation accountability as well as flexibility. I have been working on these issues since my time in the other body on the Education and Labor Committee and here on the Labor and Human Resources Committee, and I have always tried to stress the notion of accountability because, sadly, there are too many children in this country today who are not receiving quality education, particularly in rural areas and in central cities. And if we simply transfer funds without some meaningful accountability, I think we will continue to promulgate that disadvantage and continue to do disservice to those children.”