Closing the gap for women entrepreneurs should be a priority for the federal government - and yet the Small Business Administration has failed in their promise to women business owners.

We need to work together, on a bipartisan basis, to create new jobs, increase job training, enact real and substantive middle class tax relief, and reward companies that create jobs at home.

There has been a growing consensus across the country - from statehouses to the White House and the halls of Congress - that we need to take dramatic steps to improve our secondary schools.

Our record number of teenagers must become our record number of high school and college graduates and our record number of teachers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, and skilled professionals.

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.

Currently, only 70 percent of our high school students earn diplomas with their peers, and less than one-third of our high school students graduate prepared for success in a four-year college.

The people of South and Central Texas and the Coastal Bend need jobs, they need health care, they need water infrastructure improvements, they need a quality education, and they need the resources to keep our borders safe and secure.