[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 21 (Thursday, March 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H854]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION INITIATIVE

  (Mr. WYNN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WYNN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about a long-term vision, 
the vision of the Democratic Party to support education in America, to 
invest in our young people. The fact of the matter is that while a 
short-term tax cut may be nice, your children's future is tied to 
education. Education is the key to opportunity. Right now we like to 
talk about the new jobs, the global jobs, the high-tech jobs. But the 
fact of the matter is that without a good education, we cannot get 
those jobs. Right now American employers are looking overseas to hire 
people because our system does not provide enough qualified, well-
educated young people. How can we address this problem? The Democrats 
advocate first improving our schools. Over a third of our schools need 
major repairs.

                              {time}  1015

  Over 50 percent of our schools are not prepared or wired for the 
Internet. We have class sizes that are too large, and we lack 
discipline in the schools. The Democrats advocate a major investment in 
education to repair our schools. The Democrats advocate a major 
investment in hiring 100,000 new teachers so we can have smaller 
classrooms, better discipline and provide a better educated work force 
to take on the new jobs of the new millennium.

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