[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H597-H598]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       EDUCATION OF OUR CHILDREN

  (Mr. WEYGAND asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WEYGAND. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to address the most 
important issue that we could ever address, and that is the education 
of our children.
  We have, and the President as well as Members from both sides of the 
aisle, have talked about education as being a high priority. In Rhode 
Island just last week I began to address that not with just teachers or 
parents or administrators but with the greatest consumers of education, 
our children. What I did was I brought together a roundtable of high 
school students and asked them, what about education, what about the 
issues that we have been talking about, teacher preparedness, drug 
abuse in the school systems, mastering the basics, computers in 
schools, what about fixing our schools?
  I was impressed with their knowledge, their understanding and what 
they felt was right to do about education. They agree wholeheartedly 
with our President's plan and with our plan to revise education. But 
more importantly, what they were saying is they felt that they were 
gifted; they had the opportunity for computers in schools; families 
that participated; they had good schools and teacher preparedness. They 
were concerned about their fellow students who did not have those same 
opportunities.

[[Page H598]]

  Mr. Speaker, I implore my colleagues, we should be working to make 
sure that all students have that opportunity, not just a few. I urge 
the Members of the House to conduct and to support legislation in that 
way.

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