Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I would like to talk about what the President's education plan does. The Democrats are claiming they have offered more…”

“I would like to talk about what the President's education plan does. The Democrats are claiming they have offered more spending on education. In fact, the President has proposed an 11.5-percent increase in overall education spending for fiscal year 2002. This is an increase of $4.6 billion, to almost $54 billion next year. Included in this spending increase are key areas that we think will target the young people who need the help the most. It triples funding for children's reading programs, because we know if a child cannot read at grade level, that is a child who is going to fail. There is no question about it. Time after time after time, when high school dropouts or junior high school dropouts have been talked to and listened to, the problem is they can't read. Of course they are frustrated if they can't read. Of course they miss the key points in a history lesson or geography lesson or a math lesson. If they can't read, they don't have a chance. So we are targeting the spending increases at reading programs at the very earliest level. That is why we want to test at the third grade level to see if a child is falling back at the third grade, because we can catch that child, we can save that child, if we can test at the third grade and give the child the extra help so he or she will have the chance to read at grade level and compete and absorb what is being given as their educational opportunities.”