Our children await Christmas presents like politicians getting in election returns: there's the Uncle Fred precinct and the Aunt Ruth district still to come in.

You see my mother was a district nurse until she died when I was 14 and we used to move from time to time because of her work.

School districts in the US don't adopt technology very quickly.

There are ways we can go do a better job of educating young moms and dads about the vital role they have as the child's first teacher. I think there are ways in which we can partner with local school districts and states to do a better job to provide nutrition options at school.

I have long been a supporter of the Head Start program because each and every year I witness the dramatic positive impact that early intervention services have on children's lives in my congressional district.

Oh I have this feud going with the L.A. Unified School District because I keep getting these phone calls saying my daughter keeps missing classes I mean at all hours of the night I had like two calls this morning and I keep calling saying I haven't got a daughter!

The inequalities are greater now than in '92. Some states have equalized per-pupil spending but they set the 'equal level' very low so that wealthy districts simply raise extra money privately.

As I have traveled throughout my Congressional district the one thing I heard loud and clear was simply please stop spending money you do not have rein in spending live within a budget.

For all their current prestige Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers are still regarded in all but the most desperate districts of Gaza or Peshawar as romantics with little chance of more than symbolic victories however bloody and brutal. That gives both the Middle East and the West a small and distant hope of security.

If we do not get No Child Left Behind right for Limited English Proficient students the law will be a failure for most schools in the 15th Congressional District and for many across the nation.