[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 30 (Thursday, March 7, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H1780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              CUTTING EDUCATION IS NOT CUTTING THE BUDGET

  (Mr. WISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, if my colleagues want to know why I am voting 
today against the temporary spending bill, look no further than Rock 
Branch grade school and over 500 grade schools across West Virginia. 
This week at Rock Branch I met with parents, teachers, and students to 
hear firsthand what the cutbacks in education and title I will mean. 
This is a program that permits 38,000 West Virginia grade school 
children to have help in upgrading math and reading skills. Parents 
took time off from work to tell me how their children were not 
succeeding in school. I wish every Member here could have heard 
Melissa's mom as she choked back tears talking about how her daughter 
had moved from failing to passing with honors, or hear Brooke as she 
showed me how to work a computer, or hear Miss Gibson and Miss Evans, 
their eyes shining with pride as they talked about the students' 
progress.
  On April 1, Mr. Speaker, West Virginia boards of education though 
will have to lay off hundreds of teachers and aides across the State of 
West Virginia, possibly deny 6,500 West Virginia grade schoolers this 
important learning opportunity, cutting almost $11 million from West 
Virginia's most important education program. Cutting grade school 
education is not cutting the deficit. There is nothing more expensive 
than ignorance, both individually and to our society.

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