National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, first of all I want to congratulate Chairman Skelton for the outstanding work that he has performed bringing this bill onto the floor and, in particular, salute the fact that this bill will actually, for the first time since the beginning of the Virginia-class submarine program, bring the production level up to two submarines a year. That was a target that we were supposed to reach as a Nation in 2002. It had been delayed year in and year out. And through his leadership, we are finally going to reach that level, which will be important for our submarine force and our Navy.
I also rise in support of the en bloc amendment in particular to talk about the Troops to Teachers Enhancement Act that Congresswoman Matsui referred to earlier. Again, she described her efforts to try and expand the scope of this program to the Title I school district.
In addition to that, this is an amendment which will move the program into the Department of Defense from the Department of Education, a place where it has been almost de facto over the last few years in any case. And even more importantly, it will shorten the service requirements from 6 years to 4 years for our military personnel, which will allow many more Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans to participate in this program, which, as she indicated, is a program that has provided a pathway for some of the finest Americans to participate and be in the classroom with all of the qualities of team work, discipline, particularly their strengths in the STEM area, which the Troops to Teachers Program in its present program's limited scope has demonstrated and recruited, again, outstanding teachers into the classrooms.
In addition to that as also introduced, male teachers and minority teachers--something which, again, I think is going to benefit our public education system greatly. It is an amendment that's been endorsed by veterans services organizations across the board from the American Legion to the VFW. In addition to that, education groups such as NEA and AFT have endorsed this measure.
And I thank the chairman for including this amendment in the en bloc amendment and urge support and passage of the entire en bloc amendment in the bill as a whole.
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