mr. chairman , the most important people in a child 's life are their parents . 
the success of head start has been that the parents have been involved at the earliest of ages in their child 's development . 
the amendment by the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. kind ) xz4002180 , which i rise to support , is an amendment that simply says let us take the evidence based on how we should approach education for children and let us apply what we know is the best way to include measurements of a child in their formative years of life . 
what i think all of us saw in the expeditious movement to put in place these tests was the fact that we rushed into it without taking enough time to take a look at it . 
all of my head start teachers have told me that the testing that is currently in place is testing that is not effective and that what would be more effective would be finding out through the national academy of sciences what they recommend in terms of the evaluation of those children . 
so i want to thank the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. kind ) xz4002180 and i want to join him in saying that learning , as we know and as the chairman knows so well , does not begin in first grade . 
it begins at birth , and the parents need to be involved in their child 's life . 
head start is about the emotional and social development of a child which can guide their ability to learn literacy all the way down their educational life . 
they will not learn unless they have the best emotional and social development from early on because they will not be able to sit still ; they will not be able to focus ; they will not be able to do those things that we are going to be testing them for down the line . 
with that , i thank the chairman of the committee on education and the workforce for this time . 
