[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 72 (Wednesday, May 23, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2576-H2577]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     SUPPORTING AMENDMENTS TO RESTORE FLEXIBILITY PORTIONS OF THE 
                       PRESIDENT'S EDUCATION PLAN

  (Mr. SCHAFFER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, in just a few minutes the House will bring 
back up H.R. 1, the House version of the education proposal that was 
originally proposed by our President. In this document, Leave No Child 
Behind, it is a good document that the President proposed, a good 
balance with respect to how we should reform our schools for America.
  What the President proposed was school choice, the hallmark of the 
Republican message on education, and also flexibility, and also, 
additional testing mandates. All that is left in the bill, however, at 
this point, as the House considers it, is really the testing mandates 
and some additional spending.
  But today we have a unique opportunity here on the floor. That is to 
restore the core portions of the President's bill that have been taken 
out prior to the bill's arrival here on the House floor. We will have a 
chance to vote on amendments to allow children trapped in failing 
schools to escape those schools and go to institutions that offer more 
promise and opportunity, and we will have an opportunity to vote on a 
few amendments that restore some of the flexibility portions that the 
President had originally proposed.
  I hope those amendments pass, because if we fail to add those 
important amendments back to the President's

[[Page H2577]]

 plan, we will have delivered him a substantive defeat. I am hopeful 
that Republicans can pull together and deliver our President the 
victory he deserves.

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