Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise today, along with my colleagues Frederica Wilson of Florida and Danny Davis of Illinois, to offer an amendment. This amendment seeks to protect our most vulnerable students by ensuring that high-poverty schools are not adversely affected by provisions in H.R. 5, which propose changes in the funding allocation formula for teacher support and the quality of educational services under title II of the No Child Left Behind Act. Mr. Chair, if we don't adopt this amendment, we may inadvertently break a long bipartisan agreement on our fundamental need to ensure that our low-income students are not assigned less qualified teachers and less quality educational resources than their more advantaged peers. The reality is that a school district that serves students in poverty faces many, many hurdles and challenges in recruiting and in retaining teachers as well as other qualified staff. Current law prioritizes teacher development funding to States and schools serving the greatest concentrations of students in poverty. Specifically, the No Child Left Behind title II formula for school districts focuses 65 percent of funds on students in poverty and 35 percent on the number of students, which is students in poverty versus just the number of students. The State formula focuses 80 percent of its funding on poverty and 20 percent on student population. H.R. 5 completely upends this.…”