Senator Bennet is continuing his fight for a bipartisan roll back of the No Child Left Behind law as the Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee debates the education reauthorization bill. The committee has spent the majority of the day debating and voting on amendments to the bill that Bennet called an encouraging first step when it was introduced last week. The committee is expected to take a final vote on the bill as early as tonight or tomorrow morning.
Earlier today, Bennet, the former Denver Public Schools Superintendent, made a passionate case for the need to reform our system of public education:
“Our job ought to be to expect more of our states and our school districts. We should assist them. But we shouldn’t be telling them how to do the work.”
“We have a vital national interest in what happens in our schools…The future of this democracy depends on it. We have a structural issue in this economy that cannot be addressed if we continue to fail the children that are going to America’s schools.”
“We need to radically overhaul in this country the way we deliver public education. We’re not going to do it from here. I agree with that. But we have to do it.”