mr. chairman , i move to strike the last word . 
mr. chairman , many of my colleagues have asked about time , and it is pretty difficult to just quantify exactly where we will be . 
we have six or seven amendments yet to go and possibly a motion to recommit . 
the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 is indicating there will be , so we can draw our own conclusions as to what kind of a time number we are looking at , with that many amendments and with a motion to recommit . 
while we are trying to get some of the mechanics here of the en bloc amendment worked out , i would just like to comment that this bill does some really good things in education , and i think this is something that we are all interested in . 
i do not know if any of my colleagues have read tom friedman 's book in which he points out the flat earth , how important education is to the nation 's future . 
i mentioned yesterday dave broder 's column in which they polled americans who said that they thought that the most significant thing in the success of the united states was our educational system . 
so it was a great thing , and i believe thomas jefferson was the person who , and i am not sure of that , who developed the idea of a free public education , which was pioneering at the time because there was not anything like it in the rest of the world . 
many others have duplicated it or some copy thereof . 
but i do think that what we have tried to do with this bill is to emphasize good teachers , good principals , good schools . 
i have said many times that i have three goals on the committee . 
one was to get a good teacher in every classroom and with that , a good principal in every building and a good superintendent . 
secondly was to lower the dropout rate . 
i think it is tragic that 32 percent of our students nationwide do not finish high school . 
thirdly is to ensure that every child learns to read . 
i believe that the dropout rate is a result , in part , of the fact that people do not learn to read early in their educational experience . 
