Patty Murray: “we are about to vote on a very important amendment. Not very long ago, the Members of this body voted to pass a bill…”

“we are about to vote on a very important amendment. Not very long ago, the Members of this body voted to pass a bill called No Child Left Behind. The budget that is put forward to us today will leave thousands of children behind if we do not fulfill the commitment we have made. I have listened to the arguments on the other side. I have seen the charts and graphs. If there is one thing I have learned here in the Senate, it is that you can have a chart or graph to show whatever you want it to show. But what I do know is Senator Kennedy showed on the chart behind us, 3 million more children in this country, 3 million more children need more funding if they want to meet the obligations of No Child Left Behind; 50,000 fully qualified teachers need to be hired; we need to provide training for 200,000 teachers. The numbers are really clear. If you look at the Republican budget itself, their document shows 46 programs that have been eliminated in their budget: Adult education, community technology, dropout prevention, elementary and secondary school counseling, foreign language, physical education, rural education, vocational education. These are programs listed in their budget that they cut.”