republican proposal

hi, everybody. in my state of the union address,i laid out my ideas to help working families feel more secure and earn the skills requiredto advance in a world of constant change. and in a new economy that’s increasinglybuilt on knowledge and innovation, a core element of this middle-class economics ishow well we prepare our kids for the future. for decades, we threw money at education withoutmaking sure our schools were actually improving, or whether we were giving teachers the toolsthey need, or whether our taxpayer dollars were being used effectively. and our kidstoo often paid the price. over the past few years, we’ve seen signsthat our elementary and secondary school students are doing better. last year, our younger studentsearned the highest math and reading scores

on record. last week, we learned that ourhigh school graduation rate hit a new all-time high. this is progress. but in a 21st century economy,our kids will only do better than we did if we educate them better than we were educated.so we have to do more to make sure they graduate from school fully prepared for college anda career. this year, i want to work with both partiesin congress to replace no child left behind with a smarter law that addresses the overuseof standardized tests, makes a real investment in preschool, and gives every kid a fair shotin the new economy. now, it’s pretty commonsense that an educationbill should actually improve education. but

as we speak, there’s a republican bill incongress that would frankly do the opposite. at a time when we should invest more in ourkids, their plan would lock in cuts to schools for the rest of this decade. we’d end upactually invest less in our kids in 2021 than we did in 2012. at a time when we should give our teachersall the resources they need, their plan could let states and cities shuffle education dollarsinto things like sports stadiums or tax cuts for the wealthy. at a time when we have to give every child,everywhere, a fair shot – this congress would actually allow states to make even deepercuts into school districts that need the most

support, send even more money to some of thewealthiest school districts in america, and turn back the clock to a time when too manystudents were left behind in failing schools. denying a quality education to the childrenof working families is as wrong as denying health care or child care to working families.we are better than this. i have a different vision for the middle class. in today’s world, we have to equip all ourkids with an education that prepares them for success, regardless of what they looklike, or how much their parents make, or the zip code they live in. and that means trying new things, investingin what’s working, and fixing what’s not.

that means cutting testing down to the bareminimum required to make sure parents and teachers know how our kids and schools aredoing from year to year, and relative to schools statewide. that means giving the teachers and principalswho do the hard work every day the resources they need to spend less time teaching to atest, and more time teaching our kids the skills they need. some of these changes are hard. they’llrequire all of us to demand more of our schools and more of our kids, making sure they putdown the video games and iphones, and pick up the books. they’ll require us to demandthat washington treat education reform as

the dedicated progress of decades – somethinga town with a short attention span doesn’t always do very well. but i'm confident we can do this. when itcomes to education, we are not a collection of states competing against one another; weare a nation competing against the world. nothing will determine our success as a nationin the 21st century more than how well we educate our kids. and we shouldn’t acceptanything less than the best. thanks, and before i go – happy valentine’sday, michelle. have a great weekend, everybody.