Political Quotes

“I would like to thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I come from a family of educators. My father taught me in fifth grade. My brother and sister are both teachers. My wife is a teacher. One of my sons recently spent 2 years doing Teach for America in an inner-city school before he started graduate school. Every weekend, it seemed, while he was teaching, we would hear stories and personal experiences of children who desperately needed help to get the education that they needed so they had any chance, any hope, of being successful in life. And, finally, I am also the father of six children. I understand in a deeply personal way how important it is that we teach our children and educate our children. This idea goes back to Jamestown, 1609, where literally for the first time in the history of the world we made a commitment that we would educate all of our children, that every village, every town, every community would educate all of our children. That is what the SOAR program is about: giving all of our children the opportunity to succeed. So let's look at the program and see what it has accomplished. Since 2004, more than 6,000 children have had the opportunity to attend a private school of their choice. This has changed the trajectory of their lives. More than 90 percent of them now graduate from high school, compared with 58 percent throughout the rest of Washington, D.C. Eighty-eight percent of them go on to a 2- or a 4-year university.…”