Burgess Owens: “at a time when the Nation's attention is focused on education as a national priority and certain significant initiatives…”

“at a time when the Nation's attention is focused on education as a national priority and certain significant initiatives and programs have been clearly set forth by the President in the State of the Union address, the response of the committee of jurisdiction is a bill which implies that testing is the number one priority. And even worse than that, it appears that the sequence and the date for the testing and the fine print of a deal that was negotiated by a handful of people is more important than a response of the committee of jurisdiction to the agenda that has been laid out by the President. Leadership on education improvement should be regained by the committee of jurisdiction, the Committee on Education and the Workforce. We have all kinds of folks who have taken over that leadership. Most of all the Committee on Appropriations makes the most significant legislation on education nowadays. I do not think that is appropriate and it is not the wisest use of the talent here. The committee that has the institutional memory, the committee that knows the issue across the board should be the committee where the major decisions are made. We would like to get on with it. Let us have the hearings on the construction initiative.”