Adam Smith: “I address the House today to support the Education Flexibility Act, a bill sponsored by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr.…”

“I address the House today to support the Education Flexibility Act, a bill sponsored by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) and the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle). It is a bipartisan bill aimed at giving greater flexibility to local schools to do their job, the important job they do of educating our children. During the past couple of months I have visited 10 or 12 schools in my district, and visited the school districts there to sort of find out what they think of the Federal role in education. The Federal role in education usually accounts for about 4 to 8 percent of the budgets of the average school district, and I wanted to know if they thought that was helping. The answer I got back was, yes, the money helps, but there is too much red tape and there is too much regulation. They want greater freedom so that they can exercise their skills and use the teachers and principals and parents and everybody involved in education on the local level. There is too much Federal red tape, and the Education Flexibility Act would target that red tape. Right now we have a pilot project that allows some 12 States in the country to take advantage of education flexibility. This bill would expand it to all 50 States. And what it would do is give local school districts the ability to get waivers from those Federal regulations. But the important thing about education flexibility is that it combines flexibility with accountability, which is the way it ought to be done.”