David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, no one is against districts having flexibility, but I would point out that under Title VI, which they want…”

“Mr. Speaker, no one is against districts having flexibility, but I would point out that under Title VI, which they want to expend without any strings whatsoever, audits discovered that one State used those funds to purchase an automobile for the State department of education; another State used it to pay their entire State education printing bill at the expense of the Federal Government; a third State used these funds for a banquet related to an entirely different program; another State used them for graduate classes taken by an employee of the State education agency. That points out for the need for accountability. Mr. Speaker, 93 percent of the money spent at the local level is under control of local, State, or local and State school agencies; that will remain under local control. We are talking about whether we ought to have some ability to target the remaining 7 percent which comes from the Federal Government. We think we should. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) says this is not about money. That is absolutely not true. We want at least $3 billion more in that bill for education, for school modernization, for class size reduction, for afterschool programs, for Pell Grant increases, for special education increases and a number of others that we outlined. This asks two things: It asks, first of all, that we fund education at the highest possible level.”