Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense amendment that seeks to appoint a neutral ombudsperson within the Department of Education to address student K-12 textbook standards and concerns. This neutral ombudsperson would be somebody who could receive complaints from students, teachers, administrators--anybody in the schools. This person would be independent of the Secretary. And most importantly, because I know that we yield much power to the States over curriculum in textbooks, this is somebody who would not have any authority to make binding decisions to overturn State decisions, but somebody who could help take in complaints or concerns and also help resolve those concerns within the States, sometimes between publishers in the States, for example. There are a few reasons I brought this forward. First, in different States, as in my State of Texas, for example, there have been some very heated disputes over what should be included in textbooks--when we think about history, for example. In 2010, I believe, the State Board of Education in Texas considered removing Thomas Jefferson--for the Virginians that are here--from the list of influential philosophers. They have tried to remove Cesar Chavez from Texas textbooks. Some of the same things have happened in places like Arizona, where there have been very heated battles over textbooks there. This ombudsperson would not have any binding authority to resolve those disputes.…”