Political Quotes

“since our Nation's founding, the idea of a strong public education for every child has been part of the fabric of America. In the late 1770s, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill in Virginia that outlined his plan for public schooling. At the time he wrote: ``By far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people.'' Jefferson knew that educating children would strengthen our country. That is still true today. Today a good education can provide a ticket to the middle class. When all students have the chance to learn, we strengthen our future workforce and our economy. But nearly everyone today agrees that the current education law--No Child Left Behind--is badly broken. The bipartisan bill we are debating on the floor today--the Every Child Achieves Act--is a strong step in the right direction to finally fix that law, and it will help continue our Nation's tradition of making sure all students have access to a quality public education. Some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are interested in voucherizing the public school system. Instead of investing in our public school system, they want to send Federal resources to private schools. That would be a major step backward. Vouchers undermine the basic goals of public education by allowing funding that is designated for our most at-risk students to be rerouted to private schools.…”