Kay Bailey Hutchison: “Reform is the key to success in education. We are going to spend more money on education. In fact, President Bush has…”

“Reform is the key to success in education. We are going to spend more money on education. In fact, President Bush has put forward a budget that provides an 11.4-percent increase in spending in education. That is warranted because we do need to add emphasis to certain areas of public education. What is going to determine success or failure is whether we reform our system, whether we make it accountable, whether we give parents the ability to know what their children are doing and how they are doing. If a child comes home with A's or B's and is promoted to the next grade, and you, as a parent, find out 5 years later the child did not read at grade level, that is a failure in the system. If a parent does not have the tools to find out if there is a weakness in the child's education, the parent is at a significant disadvantage, and the child is doomed forever. We need to make sure parents have the knowledge of how a school is doing. A lot of people say we should not have tests. If we do not have tests, how will we have a benchmark?”