David Obey: “Mr. Chairman, last year during the debate on education issues, Democrats focused primarily on the need to reduce…”

“Mr. Chairman, last year during the debate on education issues, Democrats focused primarily on the need to reduce classroom size. On the Republican side of the aisle, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) said, and he made a good point, he said, look, it does not do any good to have smaller classrooms if the teachers in those classrooms are not well trained to teach. I happen to agree with that. So this year, President Clinton added $1.1 billion in his budget for teacher training and $1.7 billion to reduce classroom size. In my view, there ought to be room in this budget for both Republican and Democratic priorities. This amendment adds a little over $1 billion to teacher-training programs and to teacher-retention programs. It strikes the action that the committee has taken in block granting teacher training funds into a solid single block grant rather than identifiable programs. Why do we do that? Because we have seen what happened before. What happens with this Congress is that, if they take individual programs and block grant them, then the next time down the road, they cut them. They do not have to take the heat for cutting the individual programs because the effect of those cuts on those programs are masked. So we want that to remain visible. Secondly, I offer it because one out of every 10 teachers in this country is teaching a subject that they are not trained to teach.”