Political Quotes

“last fall during the debate of the Labor, Education appropriations bill, I introduced an amendment to consolidate more than a dozen Federal aid programs for education from kindergarten through 12th grade into a single block grant, with the block grant going to each individual school district across the United States. The amendment had three goals: To see to it that each school district receive more money than it does at the present time by sending directly to the school districts money now kept by the Department of Education for administrative purposes and money kept by State educational agencies for administrative purposes. The second goal was to reduce the flood, the blizzard, of paperwork imposed on all of our school districts across the country with respect to dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of separate programs directly or indirectly aimed at the education of our children between kindergarten and 12th grade. And the third and philosophical reason for the amendment was the belief that the professional educators, the parents, and the elected school board members in each State and school district in this country had the education of their children close to their hearts and really knew, in each community, more about what the children of that community required in connection with education policy than did any person in Washington, DC, whether a bureaucrat in the Department of Education or a U.S. Senator in this body.”