The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy - Bill Adler [16]
—From a Senate speech in 2007,
quoted by reporter Kathy Kiely in USA Today,
August 26, 2009
A VOICE FOR CHILDREN
IT’S EASY ENOUGH TO POINT OUT HOW MUCH SENATOR Kennedy has done for children. Just take it from Reg Weaver, former president of the National Education Association: “Every major education law passed since the 1960s has borne Kennedy’s imprint, from Head Start to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He has proven himself, time and again, to be a fighter for children.” (Weaver was quoted on Air America’s website.)
Just count up the seven million formerly uninsured children now covered by health insurance through the S-CHIP program that came into being in 1997 due to Kennedy’s authorship of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program legislation and was expanded in 2009.
Look at the accolades bestowed on him by one of the oldest and most respected children’s health organizations: In 2001 the March of Dimes Foundation gave him its top honor, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Award, for his advocacy of children’s health issues, and then in 2003 and again in 2007 gave him its Public Affairs Leadership Award as the outstanding member of Congress in the field of maternal and child health.
There’s much more of the same, of course. It would have been easy for him at any point to say to himself that he’d done as much as he could for children, and slow down, and pass the baton. But that wasn’t his way. Up until his final weeks he was hard at work on new legislation, pushing for greater expansion of several of the children’s programs that he had helped to bring into being, to make sure that even more kids would be served.
President Obama has promised to push for passage of those bills now that his friend Ted Kennedy is no longer here to do so.
Our nation’s greatest resource is its children. We must do all we can to ensure that they reach their full potential. Improving school readiness is an essential first step.
—Introduction to the Early Learning Trust Fund,
March 25, 1999
Education shouldn’t have to be an obstacle course. Imagine how much more you could accomplish without the albatross of overcrowded and outdated facilities.
—Speech at Edward Everett Elementary School,
Dorchester, MA, March 29, 1999
The greatest tribute of all to Dr. Seuss is a child who learns to read. He’d be very impressed by the 3rd graders here at Squantum. What a wonderful slogan you have—“Drop Everything and Read” for at least 15 minutes a day. Every child in America should do that. Dr. Seuss would love it—and so would the whole country.
—Statement on “Read Across America,”
March 1, 1999
It is the young who have often been the first to speak and act against injustice or corruption and tyranny, wherever it is found. More than any other group in the population, it is the young who refuse to allow a difficulty or a challenge to become an excuse to fail to meet it. We need their ideas and ideals, the spirit and dedication of young Americans who are willing to hold a mirror to society and probe the sores that others would ignore.
—Speech, February 9, 1976
There are many who criticize youth for not being more obedient to our traditions. What they fail to understand is that the questions of our youth are disturbing because they are questions we ourselves find hard to answer. They are questions we ourselves refuse to face.
—Speech to the National Council
for Social Studies, April 11, 1970
If there are some children in this land—whether because they are black or because they were born on a reservation or because they are poor—if there are some children who do not have an equal opportunity for a quality education, then there are some children who are not free.
—Speech, April 25, 1977
In the generation of our fathers and grandfathers, schools were expected to produce only a few leaders. Their principal output was unskilled workers. During that era, managers and professionals were all too often members of an elite class. The fantastically