mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time , and i rise to say a couple of things . 
i will speak more when the bill is on the floor . 
mr. speaker , we worked very hard to make this a piece of legislation that could be supported by all of us , and i think we succeeded on that , as was shown by the unanimous vote coming out of the committee on education and the workforce . 
there are a lot of issues . 
it is not quite as easy as it sounds . 
i thank the staff on both sides who had a great deal to do with that . 
i also would like to say that i think the committee on rules has been extremely fair . 
i would hope that this is a rule that all members could support . 
we may disagree , and in fact i disagree with a couple of the amendments , but i agree with most of them on both sides . 
i think there are some very good , positive suggestions , and i know sometimes we complain about closed rules , whatever , but this is certainly a rule that is not closed , that is going to allow a lot of opportunity for debate . 
i have listened to part of the debate here on the faith-based that is going to go on all day , i suppose . 
there is disagreement with respect to that , which is unfortunate because it detracts from what is a piece of legislation that otherwise we could all support . 
but on the other hand , there are strong views on that and i think they have a right to be recognized , and a vote needs to be taken on that , too . 
i would like to say that things have changed a great deal with how we look at head start . 
in fact , in some ways it was a poverty program when it began . 
it was basically a social service program to a great degree . 
we are now diverting it to more of an academic program . 
there is no question about that , and i think that is good . 
we need to get all of these kids up to the starting line , equal . 
that is what it is all about . 
if a child is 3 or 4 , we need to give them that opportunity . 
i think this legislation does that . 
i think we are all in that together . 
i think everybody in this building would agree that we need to do that . 
so i hope we keep that in mind as we look at our amendments and the legislation , and hopefully when the day is over we can move forward in helping these young people . 
