Burgess Owens: “I am pleased that the gentlewoman has brought these statistics. You are talking about all students. We are talking about…”

“I am pleased that the gentlewoman has brought these statistics. You are talking about all students. We are talking about the mainstream. I am going to focus on just the African American community, but it is bad in many other places outside the African American community, suburbs and rural as well as in the inner cities. As we look at the work force in the year 2000 and beyond, it will be a majority minority. But we cannot educate kids in these dilapidated schools. That is what we are talking about. Minority students, African American students, Latinos, Asians and others, they will not be able to move into the 21st century because they will be behind having been impeded by the lack of infrastructure in these schools. Let me give you some more statistics. Over 60 percent of the Nation's 100,000 public and elementary school facilities need major repair. We are talking about schools across the strata but we are really talking about a lot of the urban schools because that is where the parents are not able to put money into the schools to help, whereas in suburban schools, some suburban schools and some is rural schools. Rural schools and urban schools are pretty much in the same boat.”