The Democratic plan will improve public education. We want to reduce the average class size in the early grades by helping local school districts hire 100,000 new qualified teachers. We want to make sure that schoolchildren have somewhere to go after school instead of hanging out on the streets. We are promoting after school learning opportunities for students. We support expanding resources for educational technology in order to ensure that every classroom and school library is connected to the Internet by 2001.
Nobody denies that public education is in bad shape.
But the majority's solution is to cut funding and eliminate programs and to determine what choices are made available to school districts and teachers. This does not make good sense or good policy. This Education Appropriations bill fails to fund a single one of the Administration's initiatives to modernize schools and build new schools. It is no secret that schools are overcrowded. Schoolteachers in my district are conducting classes in portables, school lunchrooms and even in the hallways.