Political Quotes

“I believe my friend and colleague from Vermont has stated the arguments on his side forcefully and eloquently and has illustrated, as I hope I have, the fundamental philosophical differences over this amendment, over any amendment that is even remotely similar to this. The Senator from Vermont believes that a large number of educational priorities ought to be set here in the Congress of the United States by the Secretary of Education and the people who work in his department. Certainly there is an appropriate theory in this country that that is true, that the U.S. Department of Education ought to be able to impose significant controls over State departments of education and even more detailed controls over every school district in the United States, and that in the absence of such requirements not only will money be wasted but the quality of the educational product will be depreciated, will be less. I don't know that there is much out there in the educational field that indicates any huge degree of success on the part of this top-down set of educational priorities. But nonetheless, it is possible to make such an argument.”