Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for his expression on this particular amendment. Let me frame it, as I close, thanking my colleagues and expressing my commitment to the concept that no child should be thrown away. With formulas changing, block grants being promoted, the idea of a State being shortchanged in its awards means that there needs to be focus and refocus, and that is, from my perspective, to look at those children, whether they're rural or urban communities that need to be educated who could be considered neglected, delinquent, migrant students, English-learners, at-risk students, Native American youth, and to determine again, to find a way to focus those dollars in a way that will lift, in essence, all educational boats. Sometimes that will be an enormous challenge, as this formula has evidenced. And I would like to see that no matter what happens in the underlying bill, that we have these children protected, many of whom are in the school districts that I represent, including formerly the North Forest Independent School District, that could have benefited from those resources, having given to them a number of rural school districts in Texas that could have benefited from targeted dollars, to be able to keep them as existing viable school districts, teaching their children, not closed school districts.…”