Political Quotes

“I believe in having flexibility at the local level, but I think here we are getting the cart before the horse. We are forgetting that there ought to be accountability and a number of other pieces we ought to be dealing with before we give total flexibility. Let me tell my colleagues why. I served as superintendent. There we required the local systems to identify subgroups. If you do not identify the subgroups, to children who are doing the poorest in the schools, and that is what the Federal money is designed to do, what you do is you mask the children with the greatest needs, and here we are talking about lumping all that money together and sending it down. I trust the educators, I trust the parents, and I trust the teachers. The people I do not trust are the politicians. I was there, and they will take that money, and if we do not watch them, the children with the greatest needs will be the children who are going to be left behind in the 21st century. We will pay a price for that, Mr. Speaker.”