House Education Committee Approves Final Bill in Students Come First

The House Education Committee approved Senate Bill 1184 on a 12-6 vote Tuesday.  Senate Bill 1184 is the third and final bill in the Students Come First plan. The bill now heads to the full House for approval.

The other two bills in the Students Come First bill have been signed into law.

Here are excerpts from debate in the House Education Committee on Tuesday:

“We’ve been working towards this for over a decade.  We’re in what I consider a natural evolvement of proper use of technology.  This isn’t startling to me at all.  It’s just something we ought to be doing…There’s just too much good in this bill, and a lot of previous planning has gone into this.  It’s a natural evolvement of the more effective use of technology to the betterment of our students.”
- Representative Mack Shirley, Vice Chair of House Education Committee

“Because we didn’t step up and bite the bullet sooner, we’re biting the bullet now…Where do we start if we don’t start now?”
- Representative Pete Nielsen

“History shows that inefficiencies are pushed aside and replaced in every field of human endeavor.  We went from quill pens to typewriters to word processors… Now we see this pressure for change and for reduction of inefficiency has been brought to the fore by our lack of money to sustain the old model.  We simply don’t have the money to sustain it…Over the next 5-10 years we will have schools in the state that are better equipped to teach our young people to compete in the world that we know is not coming but is already here.”
- Representative Stephen Hartgen

“The investment in technology is less than 2% of the total budget that we’re spending, and the reason that you buy tools in a business is to reduce costs and increase productivity.”
- Representative Steven Thayn

~ Melissa M.