Mr. President, I would like to share just a few thoughts. I have been involved in education with my children. I have taught, my wife has taught in public school. We care about education. We have school boards all over America that care about education. I know one of the school board members in my hometown of Mobile, AL, exceedingly well. His abilities and talents will match any member of this body. He knows a lot more about the education going on in his area than we know in this body. Who is to say what is the best way to expend money to improve our children's education? The thing that counts is that magic moment in a classroom when learning occurs and children are motivated and inspired to do better.
I do not believe this Congress has the ability or has a proven track record of improvement. We now have a host of amendments. We have 788 federal programs--788. We had an amendment offered yesterday that would mean the 789th, it would create a dropout czar for America.
I have been involved in local programs to deal with dropouts. Programs like that are happening all over America. It is not going to be solved by some federal dropout czar.
This legislation is precisely what we need. It needs to go out of here clean, not as an appropriation, big government spending bill, but a bill that gives flexibility to the schools.
The presiding officer was governor. He knows how much benefit was gained when welfare reform was accomplished and we gave flexibility to governors. I think it is time we give flexibility to our state and local school systems to improve education.
I thank the chairman, the senator from Vermont, for his leadership. This is good legislation. It is time for us to pass it, and we can debate these issues about how further to help education when the elementary and secondary education bill comes up, which the senator will be leading later this month.
