mrs. roby: thank you, mr. speaker. i am so pleased to have the opportunity tonight to b we her our colleagues, eager to discuss solutions, solutions for our country, solutions for our economy. and so i'm just going to invite my colleagues to participate in this conversation as they see fit. but, mr. speaker, i want to just point out to you that we have reached out to our constituents about this leadership hour onight on twitter, using #forjobs, and, mr. speaker, we are hopeful that tonight during this hour we will continue that conversation, mr. speaker, with our constituents at #forjobs. i've got a lot of comments from my constituents back home that i'm eager to share as we go along through this hour. but i want to just start off by pointing out what many of you may have already read and that was that the president has stated that he plans to pivot, now once again, back to jobs and the economy. and i thought, well, that's great news. that's what we've been pushing here. many of you have seen u

mrs. roby: mr. speaker, i rise today in support of h.r. 5, the student success act, and i thank my chairman for yielding. it's a privilege to serve on this committee and be part of the debate here today. we need excellent teachers in ery classroom and inspired administrators in every school. they can be hamstrung by overreaching regulations and red tape. federal mandates in education have grown at an alarming rate. politicians and bureaucrats, they keep trying to fix their schools with a washington knows best approach. but ask any teacher or principal or parent and they'll let you know that one size does not fit all when it comes to education. that's why i'm pleased that the student success act reduces the federal footprint in education, returning the decisionmaking authority to states and local districts where it belongs. and this bill expressly prohibits the department of education from making funding grants and regulation waivers contingent on whether a state adopts certain curriculum or assessme

mrs. roby: i want to share a few numbers with you, since the president took office, the unemployment rate has remained at 14%, that is workers stuck in part-time jobs or dropped out of the work force all together. and during that same time we have watched, as i mentioned earlier, the national debt go .8 trillion. and so the president also promised one million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016. but factory employment has continued to fall. 4.3 million americans have been out of work for six weeks or more. and 4.3 million americans have been out of work for six weeks or more. the point is we started about talking about the "washington post" article where the president came out and said he is going to pivot back to jobs and the economy. to the gentleman from colorado's point. should have never left the issue of jobs and the economy. and here in the house, our majority has been working tirelessly as the gentleman from illinois said to say look, we have these commonsense solutions. this is a

mrs. roby: mr. chairman, i rise today in support of leader cantor's amendment to lr 5, an amendment that would allow title 1 dollars to actually follow the students to the school of their choice. so i thank the leader for recognizing me. we all agree that every child deserves equal access to quality education, one that challenges them, builds critical thinking skills and enhances their opportunity for success. but all too often the system fails those who need it most, and for too long we have perpetuated failure by not demanding accountability for results. this amendment would allow title 1 dollars to follow the child to the school their parent deems best. as a mother of a child in public school, i understand firsthand how important it is for parents to be able to choose the school that best fits their child's needs. and school choice can help drive innovation, healthy competition and most importantly accountability. if a low-income parent makes the brave and noble decision to seek a better opportun

mrs. roby: thank you, madam speaker. i rise to discuss today's fairness. earlier this month the obama administration announced it would be delaying the business mandate in the president's health care law. setting aside a moment of the dubious legal authority that the executive branch is using to pick and choose which parts of the law will be enforced and which won't, this is the unfair treatment of obamacare. in delaying the business mandate for a year but not the individual mandate, the president is choosing to protect big business from obamacare but not hardworking individuals and families. in explaining this delay, white house officials repeatedly said president was listening to business. madam speaker, why is the president listening to the american people? why is he not? why is big business getting a break while individual americans get the short end of the stick? maybe in is what happens when big business has access to the white house and individual americans can't even take a tour. today we will take action to protect all americans by delaying both t