Mark Neumann: “Just reclaiming my time, I cannot help but point out that the great State of Wisconsin is out in front of the country…”

“Just reclaiming my time, I cannot help but point out that the great State of Wisconsin is out in front of the country again on this issue, as they were with welfare reform under Governor Tommy Thompson. They are now out in front in terms of having parents have the opportunity to choose where their children go to school, what they are taught and how it is taught. Wisconsin just passed school choice, and of course it is going to be run much like a Pell grant system. I know even in some of the parochial schools there is a lot of concern with the school choice topic, but when we stop and think about it, the United States Government already gives college scholarships called Pell grants even to students that are attending teacher and pastor training schools in a Christian education center. So the idea that the government could possibly give these scholarships, like Pell grants, without attaching strings is something we are already doing at the college level, and it is now just a matter of expanding that program down so it applies to secondary and eventually K-12 education. I look forward to it. I think it is a good move forward for Wisconsin. And you know the survey that we just looked at, there were 12,000 teenagers looked at, and they found the single most important thing for crime, for teen smoking, teen pregnancy, for drug use and for education, most important for education, parental involvement with their student.…”