[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 145 (Tuesday, October 13, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10676]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             CONGRESS MUST ACT TO STRENGTHEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

  (Mr. ETHERIDGE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to call on this Congress to pass 
legislation to strengthen our neighborhood public schools. We have 
heard people talk on the floor this morning about volume. Our children 
are told in the classroom it is the quality of their work, not the 
volume of the documents they produce. That ought to be true for this 
Congress as well. To go home without passing legislation to strengthen 
public education and to provide more teachers at the K-3 level, we have 
not put the quality in the legislation that we ought to pass. I know 
that because we have done it in my State. A lot of places we have not 
done it. A lot of places do not have the money. To say it is not needed 
is like saying we do not have a responsibility for our roads and a lot 
of other things we do.
  We need to pass legislation to provide decent, safe, quality 
classrooms for our children. We can be accountable to the taxpayers, we 
can be accountable to our communities, but we can only be accountable 
if we do the job we were sent here to do. Our neighborhood public 
schools need our help now.

                          ____________________