[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 40 (Thursday, March 21, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H2563]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ASSAULT ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

  (Mr. DOGGETT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, still high on the agenda of this Gingrich 
Congress is the assault on public education. It began last year with 
school lunch. You will remember the Speaker's assault and attempt to 
destroy a program that had enjoyed 50 years of bipartisan support to 
assure and guarantee school lunches for our Nation's young people. Then 
it was on to college. Let us add $5,000, the Speaker said, to the cost 
of going to college for those families that have struggled to get their 
kids through public school.
  This year it is back to our smallest children. It is the program of 
giving not a Head Start, but a wrong start, to millions of American 
children. In my hometown it means cutting prekindergarten for 2,300 
children in half. That is the program of placing obstacles in the way 
of opportunity for America's young children.
  I know Speaker Gingrich was very gleeful yesterday at this microphone 
as he blocked educational opportunities for immigrant children. Well, 
what about all the people that have been here and spent all of their 
lives and generations in this country and the hopes and aspirations of 
their parents? Let us stand up against this assault on public 
education.

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