Political Quotes

“Let me make it clear, when I came to the floor there was nobody from the other side here, so that is one of the reasons I wanted to go ahead and use this opportunity to lay out where we are today. Let me take one more minute or so, because this accountability/ flexibility is very important. The broad support that my colleague and, really, cosponsor of the bill, Senator Wyden, has referred to is this broad support that we feel when we go back to our town meetings and we talk to people. The broad support starts at the level of those parents, people in the schools, the teachers, the educational establishment, who have said--and I have shown this on the board--this is a step in the right direction, up through the Governors and their strong bipartisan support. The difference in how we get there is, I think, where the debate is. That is what I am hopeful we can reach, working together with some sort of agreement. I again want to thank my colleague, Senator Wyden, because this bill came out of us working together in a task force, listening to the American people as we go forward. Let me just close and basically show again, without going into the details, that we have some demonstrated results from Ed-Flex and how beneficial it can be. That is why we feel so passionately about getting this bill through. This is from Texas statewide results. The categories: African American students did twice as well when they were in an Ed-Flex program.”