Joe Cunningham: “I think both sides, no matter what the opinions are, education is the key to a lot of many different areas. It is…”

“I think both sides, no matter what the opinions are, education is the key to a lot of many different areas. It is anticrime, it is antidrug, it is antipoverty. My father and mother, who were Democrats, focused on education because they knew that that was the future. I remember my dad telling me, he said, 'Son,' he said, 'if you get a good education,' and neither my father or my mother went to college, but they said, 'If you get a good education and you work hard, you can make tomorrow better than it is today.' And that was their definition, very simple definition of the American dream. Where are we today? We are sending billions of tax dollars to Washington, D.C. Now only about 93 percent of education dollars come from the State. Less than 7 percent come from the Federal Government, but yet that 7 percent represents about $35 billion. So that 7 percent is no small number. Now, what I would think that the American people want, if they send their tax dollars to Washington, is that they get a return on that dollar that is going to enhance education.”