[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 251-252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                      NATIONAL SCHOOL CHOICE WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Duncan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, all around the Hill today, 
you will see Members of Congress wearing a red button, ``1,000 Days,'' 
a reminder that it has been 1,000 days since the United States Senate 
has passed a budget for the United States of America; 1,000 days of 
acting irresponsibly.
  I want to pause and tell you that last year on January 8, just 3 days 
after being sworn in as a new United States Congressman, we were 
informed of the tragic incident that happened in Arizona; and I want to 
let the gentlewoman from Arizona, Gabby Giffords, know that I'm going 
to be honored that she will be on the floor with us today. The prayers 
of my family and of the members of the South Carolina delegation and 
our State go out to her and her family and the folks in Arizona that 
she represents every day, and we will continue to do that long after 
her service to this country.
  Mr. Speaker, this week is National School Choice Week. All across our 
country, students and families are rallying for National School Choice 
Week, a grassroots campaign dedicated to the idea that all students, 
regardless of background, should have the opportunity to choose the 
school that most effectively motivates them to learn. For too long, we 
have made increases in spending and new standards from Washington our 
focus, which have, sadly, strangled our parents' and teachers' ability 
to help our students succeed.
  Now, with that, I want to give a shout-out to the Nation's teachers 
who have to deal every day with complying with the mandates that come 
from Washington, D.C., while they struggle to educate the children of 
our country. Instead of propelling them to success, the United States 
has fallen to 14th in the world in reading, 17th in science, and 25th 
in math, compared to other countries, according to the 2009 edition of 
the Program for International Student Assessment. Those numbers are 
astonishing.
  As proud Americans, we will not accept the consequences of failure, 
of letting our children fall behind the rest of the world. Parents are 
demanding results in education for their children; and Washington 
should listen to their message, which is, simply: We know how to reform 
education in our States;

[[Page 252]]

get Washington out of the way and watch us succeed.
  Education should be returned to the States, the local communities, 
and to parents, just where our Founding Fathers left it when they 
designed this great government.
  This is the reality we face: Our country, the United States of 
America, stormed the beaches of Normandy. We raised the flag over Iwo 
Jima. We fought for and won the freedom of other nations all around the 
globe. We ventured into space and landed the human race on the Moon. We 
inspired the collapse of the Berlin Wall. But before all of this, we 
invented the lightbulb, the automobile, the television, the telephone, 
discovered the art and science of flying.
  Our inventions, though, are not as much the reason for our greatness 
as they are the result of it, because at the very beginning, at our 
founding, we declared to the world this belief: ``that all men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness--that to secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the 
governed.''
  The truth in that Declaration reminds us that our people will succeed 
and prosper, and our students will learn and achieve when we preserve 
the liberty of every parent to choose the educational environment 
that's best for their children. And if we do so, imagine how our 
children will lead the world through another century marked by the rise 
of freedom and the innovation that freedom inspires.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I want to end by echoing the words of Mr. 
Jones from earlier when he said: May God bless the men and women in 
uniform, may God bless their families, and may God continue to bless 
the United States of America.

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