Examining the Policies and Priorities of the U.S. Department of Education (May 26, 2022)
Summary
Printed record of a May 26, 2022 hearing of the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, on the policies and priorities of the U.S. Department of Education, Serial No. 117-47. Chairman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott presided, and Ranking Member Foxx also gave an opening statement. The witness is Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education, who also answered questions for the record. Additional submissions include a letter from Representative Allen dated April 28, 2022 to Richard Woods, a brief from the National Head Start Association and an amicus brief submitted by Representative Steel. In his closing statement Chairman Scott says the Department of Education helped reopen schools to fulltime in-person learning; the committee adjourned at 3:52 p.m.
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“Examining the Policies and Priorities of the U.S. Department of Education (May 26, 2022).”
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[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING THE POLICIES AND PRIORITIES
OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
Before The
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 26, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-47
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Workforce
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: edworkforce.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-092 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, Arizona VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina,
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut Ranking Member
GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, JOE WILSON, South Carolina
Northern Marina Islands GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania
FREDERICA WILSON, Florida TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
MARK TAKANO, California ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia
MARK DeSAULNIER, California JIM BANKS, Indiana
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey JAMES COMER, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington RUSS FULCHER, Idaho
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York FRED KELLER, Pennsylvania
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa
LUCY McBATH, Georgia BURGESS OWENS, Utah
JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut BOB GOOD, Virginia
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan, Vice Chairman LISA McCLAIN, Michigan
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota DIANA HARSHBARGER, Tennessee
HALEY M. STEVENS, Michigan MARY MILLER, Illinios
TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, New Mexico VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
MONDAIRE JONES, New York SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
KATHY MANNING, North Carolina MADISON CAWTHORN, North Carolina
FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana MICHELLE STEEL, California
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York CHRIS JACOBS, New York
SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK, Florida VACANCY
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin VACANCY
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director
Cyrus Artz, Minority Staff Director
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 26, 2022..................................... 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor........................................ 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Foxx, Hon. Virginia, Ranking Member, Committee on Education
and Labor.................................................. 5
Prepared statement of.................................... 7
WITNESSES
Cardona, Miguel, Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of
Education.................................................. 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 11
ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS
Ranking Member Foxx:
Article from FREOPP.org titled ``Is Grad School Worth It?
A Comprehensive Return on Investment Analysis''........ 115
Allen, Hon. Rick W., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Georgia:
Letter dated April 28, 2022 to Richard Woods............. 36
Bonamici, Hon. Suzanne, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon:
Brief from the National Head Start Association........... 137
Steel, Hon. Michelle, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California:
Amicus Brief............................................. 71
QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
Mr. Miguel Cardona....................................... 142
EXAMINING THE POLICIES AND PRIORITIES
OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
----------
Thursday, May 26, 2022
House of Representatives,
Committee on Education and Labor,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12 p.m., via
Zoom, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott (Chairman of the
Committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Scott, Grijalva, Courtney, Sablan,
Wilson of Florida, Bonamici, DeSaulnier, Norcross, Wild,
McBath, Hayes, Levin, Stevens, Leger Fernandez, Manning,
Bowman, Pocan, Espaillat, Mfume, Foxx, Wilson of South
Carolina, Walberg, Grothman, Stefanik, Allen, Banks, Fulcher,
Keller, Miller-Meeks, Owens, Good, Harshbarger, Miller,
Fitzgerald, Steel, and Jacobs.
Staff present: Britany Alston, Staff Assistant; Phoebe
Ball, Disability Counsel; Melissa Bellin, Professional Staff;
Amaris Benavidez, Fellow; Jessica Bowen, Professional Staff;
Nekea Brown, Director of Operations; Scott Estrada,
Professional Staff; Rashage Green, Director of Education
Policy; Christian Haines, General Counsel; Rasheedah Hasan,
Chief Clerk; Sheila Havenner, Director of Information
Technology; Danyelle Honore, Fellow; Emily Hopkins, Fellow;
Ariel Jones, Policy Associate; Stephanie Lalle, Communications
Director; Andre Lindsay, Policy Associate; Aileen Ma,
Professional Staff; Kota Mizutani, Deputy Communications
Director; Max Moore, Policy Associate; Casey Peeks,
Professional Staff; Kayla Pennebecker, Staff Assistant;
Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director; Manasi Raveendran,
Oversight Counsel-Education; Jessica Schieder, Economic Policy
Advisor; Theresa Thompson, Professional Staff; Banyon Vassar,
Deputy Director of Information Technology; Sam Varie, Press
Secretary; Claire Viall, Professional Staff; ArRone Washington,
Clerk and Special Assistant to the Staff Director; Cyrus Artz,
Minority Staff Director; Gabriel Bisson, Minority Staff
Assistant; Caitlin Burke, Minority Professional Staff Member;
Cody Christensen, Minority Research Assistant; Cate Dillon,
Minority Director of Operations; Mini Ganesh, Minority Staff
Assistant; Amy Raaf Jones, Minority Director of Education and
Human Resources Policy; David Maestas, Minority Fellow; John
Martin, Minority Deputy Director of Workforce Policy/Counsel;
Hannah Matesic, Minority Director of Operations; Audra
McGeorge, Minority Communications Director; Eli Mitchell,
Minority Legislative Assistant; Ethan Pann, Minority Press
Assistant; Krystina Skurk, Minority Speechwriter; Mary
Christina Riley, Minority Professional Staff Member; Chance
Russell, Minority Professional Staff Member; Mandy Schaumburg,
Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Director of Education Policy;
Brad Thomas, Minority Senior Education Policy Advisor.
Chairman Scott. Good morning. The Committee on Education
and Labor will come to order. Welcome to everyone, and I note
that a quorum is present. The committee is meeting today to
hear testimony on Examining the Policies and Priorities of the
United States Department of Education.
This is an entirely remote hearing and as such the
committee's hearing room is officially closed. All microphones
will be kept muted as a general rule to avoid unnecessary
background noise. Members and the witnesses will be responsible
for unmuting themselves when they are recognized to speak or
when they wish to seek recognition.
If a member or the witness experiences technical
difficulties during the hearing please stay connected to the
platform, make sure you are muted, and use your phone to
immediately call the committee's IT director whose number was
provided in advance.
Should the Chair experience any technical difficulties or
need to step away another majority member is hereby authorized
to assume the gavel in the Chair's absence. In order to ensure
that the committee's 5-minute rule is adhered to, staff will be
keeping track of time using the committee's field timer, which
appears in its own thumbnail picture and will show a blinking
light when time is up.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 8(c), opening statements are
limited to the Chair and Ranking Member. I recognize myself for
the purpose of making an opening statement.
Two days ago, 19 children and 2 educators were gunned down
in an elementary school in Texas. Regrettably, this is too
common an occurrence in this country, and according to
Education Week, we have suffered 27 school shootings already
this year alone. We could have prevented a lot of these if
elected leaders valued children and families more than guns,
instead time and time again Congress has failed to act to enact
any sensible, or widely supported proposals to respond to these
tragedies and prevent another one from happening.
Today, I call on each of us as members of the Committee on
Education and Labor to do everything we can to protect schools
and communities from gun violence and to ensure that this most
recent tragedy will be the last. I therefore ask everyone to
join me in a moment of silence to honor the students and
educators who have died, and their loved ones, and the entire
school community in Texas.
[Moment of Silence]
Thank you. Secretary Cardona, thank you for being with us
today. We look forward to hearing your testimony on how we can
help students recover from the pandemic and succeed. Today, 99
percent of our schools are open to full-time, in-person
learning, 5 days a week.
The safe reopening of America's public schools would not
have been possible with the President's American Rescue Plan,
which delivered the largest one-time Federal investment in K
through 12 education in our Nation's history. Importantly, this
funding was distributed using the Title I-A formula, so the
greatest resources went to the communities with the greatest
need.
There are expenses that schools need to open safely, like
fixing dilapidated, or improperly working, ventilation systems.
This is an airborne pandemic, making sure they have more
transportation, you cannot pack as many students on a bus
during an airborne pandemic.
You have to hire counselors and nurses during the pandemic,
PPE, things that were not in the budget when the schools began
before the pandemic. To open safely, they needed the resources
in the American Rescue Plan which provided the resources so
that schools could open safely.
Schools that use these relief funding to cover the costs of
implementing school-based COVID-19 testing, upgrading
ventilation systems, and hiring additional staff to reduce the
capacity in classrooms and buses, and importantly the Rescue
Plan has also required at least 20 percent of the funding to go
toward strategies to address learning loss and closing
achievement gaps.
The achievement gaps, as everyone knows, were exacerbated
during the pandemic. To do so, school districts in my community
and across the country, have extended school days, hired
counselors, and offered comprehensive after school and summer
programs.
Schools are also using this funding to develop innovative
programs that are helping students not only make up for lost
learning, but also prepare for the modern economy. Last month I
visited a new STEM resource lab in my district where elementary
school students were programming robots to maneuver an obstacle
course. This is just one example of how investments in students
and educators can create new opportunities in schools that help
all students succeed.
Regrettably for too long, not all students have had the
support they need to reach their full potential. For example,
in our K through 12 schools, black students, boys, students
with disabilities, and others face harsher disciplinary
practices at disproportionately higher rates. In our
institutions of higher education, there continues to be a
prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, and a lack of
accountability of the institutions to safeguard the students. I
am pleased that in response, the Biden Harris administration
has collected data as an initial step to help inform schools in
addressing disparities in school disciplinary practices, and I
am looking forward to seeing a new Title I, excuse me, Title IX
rule, that will improve protections and supports to survivors
of sexual harassment and discrimination that could be done
without violating fundamental due process protections for the
accused.
Finally, the Federal student loans are critical to
expanding access to the benefits of a quality, higher education
for all students. However, over the past few decades it has
become increasingly clear that today's students are taking on a
lot more loans than in the past, and that our student loan
system must be improved to fulfill its promise.
This is why the Biden administration is taking historic
steps to forgive more than 17 billion dollars in debt for
725,000 borrowers, to make sure that our student loan program
puts borrower's needs first. Since the beginning of the
pandemic, we have ensured that borrowers of federally held
student loans were spared from making payments on their loans
and accruing interest on them.
The administration has also provided temporary changes to
expand access to the public service loan forgiveness program
during the pandemic. Already the administration has given 6.8
billion dollars in debt, covering more than 113,000 loans
through this program. This includes 233 million dollars in debt
forgiveness for roughly 4,000 borrowers in my home State of
Virginia.
Simply put, the Department of Education under the Biden
administration has taken historic steps to get us back on
track; however, we know that there is more that still needs to
be done. To that end I look forward to hearing how the
President's budget proposal will strengthen our continued
progress to help every student reap the lifelong benefits of a
high-quality education.
In addition to whatever the administration is going to do
with loan discharges, we need to make sure that we
significantly increase the Pell Grant to restore it to its
historic value; eliminate or significantly reduce interest on
loans; make the public service loan forgiveness and interest-
based programs more generous; promote short-term Pell's, so
that you can use your Pell Grant for job training programs as
well as college courses that lead to a degree.
We need to make sure that those are just the beginning to
make sure that college is accessible to all. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary for your time today, and your work in support of our
Nation's students, and I am now pleased to recognize the
Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx, for the purpose of making her opening
statement.
Dr. Foxx.
[The Statement of Chairman Scott follows:]
Statement of Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor
Two days ago, 19 children and two educators were gunned down in an
elementary school in Texas.
Regrettably, this is too common of an occurrence in this country.
According to Education Week, we have suffered 27 school shootings
already this year, alone.
We could have prevented a lot of these this if elected leaders
valued children and families more than guns. Instead, time and time
again, Congress has failed to enact any sensible or widely supported
proposals to respond to these tragedies and prevent another one from
happening.
Today, I call on each of us, as members of the Committee on
Education and Labor, to do everything we can to protect schools and
communities from gun violence, and to ensure that this most recent
tragedy will be the last.
Therefore, I ask everyone to join me in a moment of silence to
honor the students and educators who died, their loved ones, and the
entire school community in Texas.
Thank you.
Secretary Cardona, thank you for being with us today. We look
forward to hearing your vision to help all students recover from the
pandemic and succeed.
Today, 99 percent of our schools are open for full-time, in-person
learning five days a week. The safe reopening of America's public
schools would not have been possible without the President's American
Rescue Plan, which delivered the largest, one-time federal investment
in K-12 education in our nation's history. Importantly, this funding
was distributed using the Title I-A formula, so the greatest resources
went to communities with the greatest need.
There are expenses that schools need to open safely, like fixing
dilapidated or improperly working ventilation systems. This is an
airborne pandemic. Making sure they have more transportation--you
cannot pack as many students on a bus during an airborne pandemic. You
have to hire counselors and nurses during the pandemic, PPE, things
that were not in the budget when the schools began before the pandemic.
To open safely, they needed the resources of the American Rescue Plan
provided the resources so the schools could open safely.
Schools have used this relief funding to cover the costs of
implementing school-based COVID-19 testing, upgrading ventilation
systems, and hiring additional staff to reduce capacity in classrooms
and buses.
Importantly, the American Rescue Plan also required that at least
20 percent of the funding districts received go towards strategies to
address learning loss and close the achievement gap. Achievement gaps,
as everyone knows, were exacerbated during the pandemic. To do so,
school districts in my community and across the country have extended
school days, hired counselors, and offered comprehensive after school
and summer programs.
Schools are also using this funding to develop innovative programs
that are helping students not only make up for lost learning, but also
prepare for the modern economy.
Last month, I visited a new STEM resource lab in my district where
elementary school students were programming robots to maneuver an
obstacle course.
This is just one example of how investments in students and
educators can create new opportunities in schools that help all
students succeed.
Regrettably, for too long, not all students have had the support
they need to reach their full potential.For example, in our K-12
schools, Black students, boys, students with disabilities, and others
face harsher discipline practices at disproportionately high rates. In
our institutions of higher education, there continues to be a
prevalence of sexual assault and harassment and a lack of
accountability of the institutions to safeguard students.
I am pleased that, in response, the Biden-Harris administration has
collected data as an initial step to help inform schools on addressing
disparities in school disciplinary practices. I am looking forward to
seeing a new Title IX rule that will improve the protections and
support survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination that can be
done without violating fundamental due process for the accused.
Finally, federal student loans are critical to expanding access to
the benefits of a quality, higher education for all students. However,
over the past few decades, it has become increasingly clear that our
students are taking on a lot more loans than in the past and that our
student loan system must be improved to fulfill its promise.
This is why the Biden administration has taken historic steps to
forgive more than $17 billion in debt for 725,000 borrowers and ensure
that our student loan programs puts borrowers' needs first. Since the
beginning of the pandemic, we have ensured that borrowers of federally
held student loans were spared from making payments on their loans and
accruing interest on them.
The Administration has also provided temporary changes to expand
access to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program during the
pandemic. Already, the administration has forgiven $6.8 billion in debt
covering more than 113,000 loans through this program. This includes
$233 million in debt forgiveness for roughly 4,000 borrowers in my home
state of Virginia.
Simply put, the Department of Education under the Biden
administration has taken historic steps to get us back on track.
However, we know there is more that still needs to be done.
To that end, I look forward to hearing how the President's budget
proposal would strengthen our continued progress to help every student
reap the lifelong benefits of a high-quality education.In addition to
whatever the administration is going to do with loan discharges, we
need to make sure that we significantly increase the Pell Grant to
restore it to its historic value; eliminate or significantly reduce
interest on loans; make the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and
interest-based programs more generous; promote short-term Pell so you
can use your Pell Grant for job training programs, as well as college
courses that lead to a degree. We need to make sure that those are just
the beginning to make sure college is accessible to all.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary for your time today and your work in
support of our nation's students.
______
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr.
Secretary, it is good to see you. There are no right words to
describe the heartbreaking and horrific tragedy that happened
at Robb Elementary School. I thank the chairman for having a
moment of silence at the beginning.
We as a nation are devastated by the loss of so many
precious lives. My prayers are with the victims, their fellow
students, families, colleagues, and the community of Uvalde,
Texas. We must be thoughtful about how we discuss and handle
school safety and mental health issues.
Federal changes should not be made in haste, and there are
still many details we do not know as the investigation
continues. Mr. Chairman, as I have said before, we stand ready
to work with you to examine the Federal programs under our
jurisdiction to help families, schools, and communities,
prevent these tragedies from occurring, and while we keep
Uvalde in our prayers, we will move forward with the business
at hand today.
Mr. Secretary, I wish this was going to be a hearing of
great agreement and examples of our working together.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Biden administration
has promised to enact unpopular and expensive mass student loan
forgiveness by executive fiat, but anyone who looks at what the
Department of Education has done over the past year can see
that blanket student loan forgiveness is already well underway.
First the Education Department expanded the public service
loan forgiveness, PSLF program, well beyond the narrow limits
set by Congress. In a letter sent to you last October, I
criticized the Department for turning this already expensive
program into ``open ended loan forgiveness'' for millions of
borrowers.
This is not the only vehicle this administration has used
to smuggle in mass student loan forgiveness. The Department
also waived the requirements for income-driven repayment plans,
canceling debt for ineligible borrowers under the guise of
targeted forgiveness.
According to the Department that means potentially wiping
the student loan balances for more than 4 million borrowers,
many of whom have incomes well beyond that of the individuals
these programs were intended to help. The administration is
right on one thing, these programs are broken. It is hard to
justify to taxpayers that they should pour more money into a
program forgiving nearly 200 billion dollars in loans for
graduate students, or programs like PSLF, which forgives an
average $100,000.00 in forgiveness per borrower, a third of
whom are making well into six figures.
We need programs that protect borrowers and taxpayers, not
unsustainable programs that will exacerbate the ballooning
prices colleges and universities charge students. It is clear
that student loan cancellation was on the horizon when
President Biden took office.
His continual extensions of the student loan repayment
clause, which have already cost taxpayers over 100 billion
dollars, will signal that mass forgiveness was on the way.
Never mind the fact that Biden's skyrocketing inflation is
disproportionately harming those who never went to college, the
very same individuals expected to foot the bill for Biden's
loan forgiveness.
President Biden insists on going even further and is
reportedly moving toward blanket forgiveness to the tune of
$10,000.00 per borrower, without congressional authorization.
Further, forgiving student loans to try to win back some
voters, while alienating the two-thirds of Americans without
baccalaureate degrees, cuts directly against our shared goal of
unifying the country.
Moreover, what does loan forgiveness do for the millions of
students taking out loans tomorrow? It does not lower college
costs, nor does it improve student outcomes. It simply
exacerbates the problems of our higher education system, which
is in desperate need of reform.
Mr. Secretary, I stand ready to work with you, the
President, and our democrat colleagues to fix it. Let us tackle
these issues and deliver meaningful bipartisan reform that will
lower college costs, ensure students graduate with affordable
debt, and increase college completion, so we can set students
up for success.
Mass student loan forgiveness is not the answer. It would
break the Federal Government's commitment to taxpayers that
providing access to higher education will benefit every
American by making those who took out loans a priority, over
those that did not go to college, or those who paid for college
without borrowing money.
Indeed, the loan program provides millions of low-and
middle-income borrowers the opportunity to move up the income
ladder, but instituting massive student loan forgiveness makes
this program unsustainable. Surely, last minute political
gambles are not worth undermining our ability to provide
educational opportunities to those who otherwise would not have
them, and unfortunately, my concerns with the Department of
Education extend far beyond its higher education agenda.
We have seen this administration disrespect parents, when
the National Schools Boards Association insinuated parents for
the problem. I was shocked when the Department of Justice
issued a memo basically endorsing that view. I was extremely
disappointed your department did not rally it to stand up for
parents.
Schools should be in partnership with parents, not just
trying to cast them aside. I also have concerns about your
continuing to push to end, or limit as much as possible, school
choice. From the D.C. Choice Program to your Charter School
Rule, you favor teacher unions over families, and often over
families desperate for an education that gives their child the
opportunity to achieve life-long success.
Finally, I fear your coming rewrite of the regulations on
Title IX will only exacerbate parent's frustration and mistrust
by ratifying a world view that denies basic science, treats
parents as an obstacle, and seeks to undermine the very
opportunities for girls that Title IX has helped protect and
expand.
Finally, conducting robust oversight and holding the
executive branch accountable for how it spends taxpayers
dollars, and administers the law are critical for a functioning
and strong government. Action, without proper oversight and
transparency, leads to unlawful and careless actions.
Unfortunately, your agency has been unhelpful, and
downright obstructive at time. Mr. Secretary, we cannot tackle
these issues successfully if we do not work together. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The Statement of Ranking Member Foxx follows:]
Statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx, Ranking Member, Committee on Education
and Labor
There are no right words to describe the heartbreaking and horrific
tragedy that happened at Robb Elementary School. I thank the Chairman
for having a moment of silence at the beginning of this hearing.
We as a nation are devastated by the loss of so many precious
lives. My prayers are with the victims, their fellow students,
families, colleagues, and the community of Uvalde, Texas.
We must be thoughtful about how we discuss and handle school safety
and mental health issues. Federal changes should not be made in haste,
and there are still many details we do not know as the investigation
continues.
Mr. Chairman, as have said before, we stand ready to work with you
to examine the federal programs under our jurisdiction to help
families, schools, and communities prevent these tragedies from
occurring. While we keep Uvalde in our prayers, we will move forward
with the business at hand today.
Mr. Secretary, I wish this was going to be a hearing of great
agreement and examples of our working together. Unfortunately, that is
not the case. The Biden administration has promised to enact unpopular
and expensive mass student loan forgiveness by executive fiat, but
anyone who looks at what the Department of Education has done over the
past year can see that blanket student loan forgiveness is already well
underway.
First, the Education Department expanded the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness (PSLF) program well beyond the narrow limits set by
Congress. In a letter sent to you last October, I criticized the
Department for turning this already expensive program into `open-ended
loan forgiveness' for millions of borrowers. This is not the only
vehicle this administration has used to smuggle in mass student loan
forgiveness.
The Department also waived the requirements for income-driven
repayment plans, canceling debt for ineligible borrowers under the
guise of `targeted forgiveness.' According to the Department, that
means potentially wiping the student loan balances for more than 4
million borrowers, many of whom have incomes well beyond that of the
individuals these programs were intended to help. The administration is
right on one thing: these programs are broken. It is hard to justify to
taxpayers that they should pour more money into a program forgiving
nearly $200 billion in loans for graduate students, or programs like
PSLF which forgives an average of $100,000 in forgiveness per
borrower--a third of whom are making well into six-figures. We need
programs that protect borrowers and taxpayers, not unsustainable
programs that will exacerbate the ballooning prices colleges and
universities charge students.
It was clear that student loan cancellation was on the horizon when
President Biden took office. His continual extensions of the student
loan repayment pause--which have already cost taxpayers over $100
billion--were a signal that mass forgiveness was on the way. Never mind
the fact that Biden's skyrocketing inflation is disproportionately
harming those who never went to college--the very same individuals
expected to foot the bill for Biden's loan forgiveness.
President Biden insists on going even further and is reportedly
moving towards blanket forgiveness to the tune of $10,000 per borrower
without Congressional authorization. Further, forgiving student loans
to try and win back some voters while alienating the two thirds of
Americans without baccalaureate degrees cuts directly against our
shared goal of unifying the country.
Moreover, what does loan forgiveness do for the millions of
students taking out loans tomorrow? It does not lower college costs,
nor does it improve student outcomes. It simply exacerbates the
problems of our higher education system, which is in desperate need of
reform.
Mr. Secretary, I stand ready to work with you, the President, and
my Democrat colleagues to fix it. Let us tackle these issues and
deliver meaningful, bipartisan reform that will lower college costs,
ensure students graduate with affordable debt, and increase college
completion so we can set students up for success.
Mass student loan forgiveness is not the answer. It would break the
federal government's commitment to taxpayers that providing access to
higher education will benefit every American by making those who took
out loans a priority over those who did not go to college or those who
paid for college without borrowing money. Indeed, the loan program
provides millions of low and middle-income borrowers the opportunity to
move up the income ladder, but instituting mass student loan
forgiveness makes this program unsustainable. Surely last-minute
political gambles are not worth undermining our ability to provide
educational opportunities to those who otherwise would not have
them.Unfortunately, my concerns with the Department of Education extend
far beyond its higher education agenda. We have seen this
administration disrespect parents. When the National School Boards
Association insinuated parents were the problem, I was shocked that the
Department of Justice issued a memo basically endorsing that view. I
was extremely disappointed your Department did not rally to stand up
for parents. Schools should be in partnership with parents, not just
trying to cast them aside.
I also have concerns about your continued push to end--or limit as
much as possible--school choice. From the D.C. Choice program to your
charter school rule, you have favored teachers' unions over families.
Often over families desperate for an education that gives their child
the opportunity to achieve lifelong success. Finally, I fear your
coming rewrite of the regulations on Title IX will only exacerbate
parents' frustration and mistrust by ratifying a world view that denies
basic science, treats parents as an obstacle, and seeks to undermine
the very opportunities for girls that Title IX has helped protect and
expand.
Finally, conducting robust oversight and holding the executive
branch accountable for how it spends taxpayer dollars and administers
the law are critical for a functioning and strong government. Action
without proper oversight and transparency leads to unlawful and
careless actions. Unfortunately, your agency has been unhelpful and
downright obstructive at times.
Mr. Secretary, we cannot tackle these issues successfully if we do
not work together.
______
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Thank you. Without objection,
all other members who wish to insert written statements into
the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk
electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5 p.m. on June 9,
2022.
I will now introduce our distinguished witness. The
Honorable Miguel Cardona is the 12th Secretary of the
Department of Education. He previously served as the
Commissioner of Education for the State of Connecticut, and he
has for two decades--he has two decades of experience as a
public-school educator in his hometown of Meridian,
Connecticut.
He holds a bachelor's degree from Central Connecticut State
University, a master's degree, a 6-year advanced certificate,
and a doctorate in education from the University of
Connecticut. We appreciate, Mr. Secretary, for you
participating today, and look forward to your testimony. Your
written statement will appear in full in the hearing record,
and you are asked to limit your oral presentation to
approximately 5 minutes, and after your presentation we will
move to member's questions.
The witness is aware of his responsibility to provide
accurate information to the committee, and therefore we will
proceed directly to his testimony.
Secretary Cardona.
STATEMENT OF HON. MIGUEL CARDONA, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Secretary Cardona. Thank you. Chairman Scott, Ranking
Member Foxx, members of this distinguished committee, good
afternoon, and thank you. I will do my best to answer questions
on the budget, to tell you that this proposal will be our best
tool to address inequities, the best tool to provide pathways
to college, and to help our country recover from the pandemic.
I would be failing you as Secretary of Education if I did
not tell you how ashamed I am that we as a country are becoming
desensitized to the murder of children. I would be failing you
as a Secretary of Education if I did not use this platform to
say that students and teachers and school leaders are scared,
that after Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Parkland, after
each of these, and the many other massacres, we as educators
did our best to look parents in the eyes and assure them that
we will do everything to protect their babies.
After each of these massacres we have held staff trainings,
active shooter drills, we have numbered our windows for easier
access for law enforcement. We have improved online early
detection screening tools, and we secured our entrances and
perimeters. That is no match for what we are up against.
That was no match for Irma Garcia, and no match for Eva
Mireles, and those 19 beautiful souls. Educators across the
country have, and would give their lives to protect children,
but damn it, that is not enough. Unless you have gone to a
funeral of a child, you will never know. We can do better, and
we must do better.
There are no words. As parents, protecting our children is
more important than anything else. As an educator, helping
children grow and thrive, that is our calling. We need help,
and we need help now. I will transition to the purpose of this
hearing, but do not think for 1 second that my focus today, and
the focus of all of my team at the United States Department of
Education is on anything but how we can better serve the
students of Uvalde, Texas, and their grieving families.
Let us not normalize this. Let is use every ounce of
influence that we have to get something done to help prevent
this from happening again. The time for thoughts and prayers
alone is over. We need action. Americans are looking to us to
solve difficult problems. We should be humbled by this
opportunity to make a more perfect union.
We need to do better. Our kids deserve better, let us find
a path forward. Today's hearing is about more than President
Biden's proposed investments for education in the Fiscal Year
2023. It is about the needs of our students, and how we can
meet them if we do work together.
The priorities in this budget reflect what I have learned
visiting 32 states across America. I visited small towns,
affluent suburbs, urban and rural communities, including tribal
communities. Addressing opportunity and achievement gaps that
were made worse in the pandemic is more important now than
ever. Let us close opportunity gaps by investing in our Title I
schools.
This is the best tool we have for reducing inequities
between underfunded schools and their wealthier counterparts.
Let us also invest in full-service community schools, which
provide high poverty communities easier access to services for
health, for nutrition, for enrichment, adult education, and
much more. In a recent visit to New Mexico, I met with students
struggling with anxiety and depression, with trauma from losing
parents amid the pandemic.
Our children are hurting. Anxiety and depression have
doubled among youth. Teen suicide rates are on the rise. Let us
invest a billion dollars in hiring staff and building their
skillsets to support student's mental health needs, so they can
be their best in their classroom.
I met with principals and superintendents, in red states
and in blue states, trying to fill vacancies, so teachers could
spend more time supporting the individualized needs that we
know our students have. They need help. We are proposing 350
million dollars for recruiting and retaining teachers. The
profession is in crisis, and we have a solution.
I traveled the country listening to parents, to students,
and families. Families are concerned with recovery. They are
concerned with their kid's reading level in school. They are
concerned with getting back to school and not letting politics
divide the classroom. Our parents want their children to learn.
The American Rescue Plan got us this far. We went from 46
percent of our schools fully opened when the plan passed to
over 99 percent of our schools fully open now. With your
investments let us build more inclusive, affordable pathways to
higher education and rewarding careers for all of our students.
Our budget calls for investments in community colleges,
historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic serving
institutions, tribal colleges, and other inclusive
institutions.
Let us increase Pell by $1,775.00 for `23, so that more
kids can get to college across America. We are proposing 200
million dollars for career connected learning, so more
underserved students graduate high school with the industry
credentials and the college credits that they need.
High school students across the country need more options.
We have a plan. Look, education gave me the tools to achieve
the American dream. I grew up in a blue-collar community of
Meridan. I only had what my public schools offered me. I
attended a Title I school and graduated from a technical high
school.
I became a first gen college student. I am a bilingual
certified educator who benefited from quality teacher
preparation and professional development. I am a product of the
investments in this budget. Education brought the promise of
this country alive for me. We must renew that promise for
today's students and those to come, and for the last 2 years we
were tested in ways we could never imagine before.
We persevered through with a sense of urgency,
collaboration at the local level, and a focus on our students.
We are now challenged in a different way. We must work together
to protect children with a greater sense of urgency and
collaboration at the Federal level. Our students are watching.
Let us not let them down, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Cardona follows:]
Statement of Hon. Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education, U.S.
Department of Education
Good morning, Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Foxx.
I am pleased to join you today, and I am proud to testify on behalf
of President Biden's fiscal year 2023 Budget Request for the Department
of Education. This request reflects President Biden's deep belief in
the importance of education and the success and well-being of our
nation's students. It is my hope that Congress answers the President's
call for increased investments at the Federal level that will help our
schools continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, address long-
standing inequities that have existed in our school systems, and
elevate our country's education system to lead the world. Our task is
to reimagine and strengthen our entire system of education, from pre-
kindergarten through adult education. As we recover from the crisis,
let us focus on the opportunities to do just that.
Last summer traveling in Michigan, I met a woman named Ruth who is
a middle-aged woman working just to make ends meet. She had a health
issue that forced her to go to the hospital during the pandemic, which
opened her eyes to a future in the healthcare field. As she told me,
``After seeing what our country is going through, I want to live the
rest of my life helping others who are going through health issues.''
Using a Pell Grant, she is returning to school to be a nurse
practitioner. My point is that it is never too late to go back to
school, and it is never too late the seize the opportunities ahead and
we can make it easier for learners of all ages like Ruth to reignite
their passions and discover new ones.
fy 2022 congressional action
I want to begin by thanking the Members of the Committee who worked
to provide a fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill. That bipartisan
funding package delivers for our students and families by making
essential investments in our schools and building on a cornerstone of
the Biden-Harris Administration--keeping equity at the center of all we
do. This bill includes an important commitment, shared by President
Biden, to significantly increase funding for the Title I program by
providing $17.5 billion in funding, a $1 billion increase. This is the
largest increase for Title I in over a decade and an important first
step that we look forward to working with you to build upon. The
bipartisan package makes important strides to meet the needs of the
whole child, to support effective teaching and learning, and to
strengthen and diversify the educator pipeline. The 2022 appropriations
bill also makes college more affordable by increasing the maximum Pell
Grant by $400, which is a down payment on the President's call to
double Pell and will help more students pursue an education or training
beyond high school. The President's 2023 Budget Request builds upon
this legislation by increasing investments in our schools with high-
poverty rates; helping meet the needs of students with disabilities and
multilingual learners; and expanding access to postsecondary education
and increasing college completion.
There is one technical detail that I would like the Members of this
Committee to keep in mind when reviewing our fiscal year 2023 Budget
Request. Due to the timing of the passage of the FY 2022 appropriations
legislation, the baseline for our fiscal year 2023 request levels was
the fiscal year 2021 enacted level and does not reflect final fiscal
year 2022 appropriations action. A comparison of our request with
actual fiscal year 2022 levels could suggest that we are proposing a
number of decreases for fiscal year 2023, when that is not the case. On
the contrary, our goal is to maintain and build on these critical
investments. The Administration is excited about the support of
Congress and the many increases provided to Department of Education
funding in FY 2022. We look forward to working with Congress to provide
technical assistance during upcoming FY 2023 appropriations action. The
numbers I will be citing in my testimony today will mostly reflect
differences between the fiscal year 2022 appropriation and our request.
department of education funding levels
The President's fiscal year 2023 request calls for a significant
increase in Federal support for education from birth through college
and career. The proposed discretionary request is $88.3 billion for
Department of Education programs, an increase of almost $12 billion
over the fiscal year 2022 enacted level. The 2023 Budget would make
historic investments in the Nation's future prosperity by prioritizing
funding for five core themes that are at the heart of this
Administration's vision for education in America: (1) Supporting
Students Through Pandemic Response and Recovery Over the Long Term; (2)
Boldly Addressing Opportunity and Achievement Gaps; (3) Supporting a
Talented and Diverse Educator Workforce; (4) Making Higher Education
Inclusive and Affordable; and (5) Building Pathways Through
Postsecondary Education that Lead to Successful Careers.
supporting students through pandemic response and recovery
Even with 99 percent of schools open for full-time, in-person
learning, many students continue to be affected by the pandemic. We
know that in our communities most impacted by COVID, their recovery
could take many years. Disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
continue to take a toll on the academic success, and physical, social,
emotional, and mental health of students. It has also taken a toll on
the well-being of our educators and school staff.
Responding to these needs can often be a challenge for many
schools. For example, there continues to be a critical gap, that
existed prior to and was only made worse by the pandemic, between the
number of school-based health service providers needed and the number
of such providers currently serving in our schools, particularly in
school districts and schools with high rates of poverty. This is why
the Budget includes a $1 billion investment to bridge that gap through
the School-Based Health Professionals program, both by building the
pipeline of such professionals and by providing the dedicated funding
needed to hire them. We appreciate the additional $90 million Congress
provided to support similar activities in the FY 2022 legislation, and
we are committed to building on this investment as more is still
needed. The Administration estimates that our requested funding,
together with State and local matching funds, would allow LEAs to hire
an additional 21,000 school counselors, nurses, social workers, and
school psychologists.
Our request further supports students through pandemic response and
recovery by including $468 million to dramatically expand the Full-
Service Community Schools (FSCS) program. A 2020 study from the Rand
Corporation, Illustrating the Promise of Community Schools: An
Assessment of the Impact of the New York City Community Schools
Initiative, found that community schools in New York City had a
positive impact on student attendance, on-time grade progression, high
school graduation rates, disciplinary incidents for elementary and
middle school students, math achievement, credit accumulation for high
school students, shared responsibility for student success at
elementary and middle schools, and students' sense of connectedness to
adults and peers for elementary and middle school students. Additional
studies have found similar outcomes for evidence-based approaches to
Full-Service Community Schools. Our request would allow the Full-
Service Community Schools program to create an estimated 800 new
community schools serving up to 2.4 million additional students, family
members, and community members in districts that want to advance this
approach.
For districts that may not have the capacity to implement the
broader community schools approach supported by FSCS, this request also
includes $25 million for the provision of integrated student supports
(ISS), one of the pillars of evidence-based approaches to community
schools. ISS grants would help provide access to services that meet the
social, emotional, mental and physical health, and academic needs of
students and families through cross-agency efforts and partnerships
between districts and with community-based organizations.
boldly addressing opportunity and achievement gaps
Even before the pandemic, too many elementary and secondary school
students faced daunting barriers to receiving a high-quality education.
This Budget seeks to remove those barriers by providing the resources
needed so that every student can be successful. Core to that effort is
Title I, which helps schools provide students from low-income
communities the learning opportunities and supports they need to
succeed. This Budget boosts funding for Title I by $19 billion over
fiscal year 2022 through a mix of discretionary and mandatory funding.
This substantial new support for the program, which serves 25 million
students in nearly 90 percent of school districts across the Nation,
would be a major step toward fulfilling the President's commitment to
addressing long-standing funding disparities between under-resourced
schools--which disproportionately serve students of color--and their
wealthier counterparts. The Budget also includes a first-time $30
million investment to improve education and outcomes for children and
youth in foster care, one of our most vulnerable populations.
The President and I are committed to ensuring that children and
youth with disabilities receive the services and support they need to
thrive in school and graduate ready for college and career. I am very
excited that our request provides an additional $3.3 billion over 2021
enacted levels--which would be the largest two-year increase ever
outside of the American Rescue Plan--for Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA) Grants to States, with a total of $16.3 billion to
support special education and related services for students in grades
Pre-K through 12. The Budget also nearly doubles funding to $932
million for IDEA Part C grants, which support early intervention
services for infants and families with disabilities that have a proven
record of improving academic and developmental outcomes. The increased
funding would support States in implementing critical reforms to expand
their enrollment of underserved children, including children of color,
children from low-income backgrounds and children living in rural
areas. The increase for Part C includes $200 million to expand and
streamline enrollment of children at risk of developing disabilities,
which would help mitigate the need for more extensive services later in
childhood and further expand access to the program for underserved
children. In addition, our request includes a sizeable increase for the
Preschool Grants program. More than 80 percent of children
participating in the Preschool Grants program have demonstrated
significant improvement in academic, behavioral and social and
emotional outcomes, which is consistent with numerous studies that have
found that the provision of special education and related services for
preschool-aged children significantly improved outcomes in these areas.
Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress
continue to show significant achievement gaps remain between English
Learners and their peers. This is directly tied to the educational
opportunities and resources that are available to support their
success.
These barriers to a high-quality education are especially pressing,
as many states and school districts have experienced an increase in
arrivals of immigrant children, including refugees from countries
impacted by war. Accordingly, this Budget includes a significant
increase of $244 million to the English Language Acquisition grants
program, for a total fiscal year 2023 funding level of $1.1 billion.
Further, the increased investment proposed for fiscal year 2023 would
greatly strengthen the Department's capacity to work with its State and
local partners to elevate meeting the needs of English learners in the
context of encouraging multilingualism as a necessary skill for success
in our globally competitive economy.
supporting a talented and diverse educator workforce
The Administration is committed to not only honoring educators but
making sure they are treated with the respect and the dignity they
deserve. In addition to promoting supportive working conditions and
welcoming educators' voices as critical partners to improve education,
we must make sure education jobs are ones that people from all
backgrounds want to pursue.For decades, the education sector has faced
shortages in critical staffing areas, such as special education and
bilingual education, disproportionately impacting students of color and
students from low-income backgrounds. The COVID-19 pandemic and tight
labor market have made shortages worse. These shortages negatively
impact the education students receive and continue to fall hardest on
students in underserved communities. For example, teacher shortages in
areas such as STEM, Career and Technical Education, and advanced
placement and dual enrollment/early college programs can result in
these high-quality pathways and opportunities being out of reach for
students. In addition to comprehensive investments across several
programs to support a diverse and well-prepared pipeline of educators,
the Budget includes $514 million for the Education Innovation and
Research program, including $350 million focused on identifying and
scaling models that improve recruitment and retention of staff in
education.
These funds would support innovative efforts to improve resources
and support for educators, provide teacher access to leadership
opportunities that improve teacher recruitment and retention, and
expand the impact of great teachers within and beyond their classrooms.
Other key investments include $132 million for Teacher Quality
Partnership grants to effectively prepare aspiring teachers by
supporting pathways into the profession such as high-quality teacher
residencies and Grow Your Own programs, that improve educator
diversity, effectiveness, and retention; $250 million for IDEA, Part D,
to support the pipeline of special education teachers and personnel;
and $20 million for Augustus Hawkins Centers of Excellence to support
teacher preparation programs at Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs), Tribally-Controlled College and Universities
(TCCUs), and minority-serving institutions (MSIs). We are incredibly
appreciative that fiscal year 2022 appropriations provided first time
funding for the Augustus Hawkins program to support teacher preparation
programs at these institutions. Recognizing that school leaders are
second only to classroom teachers among school factors that affect
student learning, our request includes $40 million in funding for the
reauthorized School Leader Recruitment and Support program to improve
the recruitment, preparation, placement, support, and retention of
effective principals and other school leaders in underserved schools.
making higher education inclusive and affordable
Too many students today are deciding that a postsecondary education
is out of reach. That is unacceptable. To make higher education more
inclusive and affordable, the Budget increases the maximum Pell Grant
by $1,775 over the 2022-2023 award year through a mix of discretionary
and mandatory funding, helping an estimated 6.7 million students from
low- and middle-income backgrounds overcome financial barriers. This
historic increase is one piece of the Budget's comprehensive proposal
to double the maximum Pell Grant by 2029. The Administration continues
to support expanding federal student aid, including Pell Grant
eligibility, to students who are Deferred Action for Childhood
recipients--commonly known as DREAMers--and we are committed to working
with Congress to advance this goal.
Any approach we take to postsecondary education must put students
and families first.
Too many people currently see our student aid delivery system as
broken, with a few, but notable, bad actors taking advantage of
students looking to get ahead and student aid systems that have not
kept pace with today's demands. Our request will improve the services
we provide students and families to help them pay for college through a
historic investment in Student Aid Administration. We are requesting
$2.65 billion to administer the Federal student aid programs in fiscal
year 2023, an increase of $620 million over fiscal year 2022 enacted.
Specifically, the increase will allow us to implement customer service
and accountability improvements to student loan servicing and ensure
the successful transition from the current short-term loan servicing
contracts to a more stable long-term servicing environment. The
increase is also critical to ensure full implementation of the FAFSAr
Simplification Act for the 2024-25 award year.
Of course, access to higher education is just one piece of the
puzzle. It is also critical to help students obtain the support they
need to be successful, and to provide institutions with resources to
ensure their students' success. Just as so many students do not seek
education beyond high school, too many start but do not complete their
postsecondary degree or certification. The President and I are
committed to not only ensuring an education beyond high school is
accessible and affordable, but that students are provided equitable
access to resources and supports to persist and complete. The Budget
supports strategies to improve the retention, transfer, and completion
rates of students by creating a Retention and Completion Grant program
in the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. The Budget
also promotes academic success by providing critical resources to
support students' basic needs, including a $30 million increase to
institutions providing affordable child care for student parents with
low-incomes. The request includes significant increases for Federal
TRIO programs and GEAR UP to expand services that promote access and
completion in postsecondary education for underserved individuals. The
Budget would also enhance institutional capacity at HBCUs, TCCUs, MSIs,
and low-resourced institutions, including community colleges, by
providing an increase of $703 million over the 2022 enacted level. This
funding includes a $450 million initiative to expand research and
development infrastructure at four-year HBCUs, TCCUs, and MSIs.
building pathways through postsecondary education that lead to
successful careers
While increased funding for student aid and higher education is
vitally important, the key to access and affordability really begins
before any student applies to college. It begins in high school and
even earlier. This is why the President's Request would help create
stronger college and career pathways between our Pre-k through grade 12
systems, our two- and four-year colleges and universities, and our
workforce partners. We are requesting $200 million for a new Career-
Connected High Schools Initiative within Career and Technical Education
National Programs, to provide competitive grants that support
partnerships between local educational agencies, institutions of higher
education (including community colleges), and employers to support
early enrollment in postsecondary and career-connected coursework;
work-based learning opportunities; and academic and career-connected
instruction across the last two years of high school and the first two
years of postsecondary education. Our request also supports adult
learners through a College Bridge Initiative, funded through Adult
Education National Leadership Activities, and new grants to support
disconnected youth without a high school diploma.
enforcement of civil rights laws
Finally, we would prioritize efforts to enforce the Nation's civil
rights laws, as they relate to education, through a 19 percent increase
for the Office for Civil Rights to protect students, providing a total
of $161 million to advance equity in educational opportunity and
delivery at Pre-K through 12 schools and at institutions of higher
education.
closing remarks
This is our moment to truly reimagine education so that all
students can succeed. Thank you again for this opportunity to share
more about the President's plan to invest in students of all ages--like
Ruth from Michigan--and the schools and institutions that serve them.
As I and the President have said before, our Budget is a reflection of
our values and I look forward to working with you to advance this
historic Budget request. I am committed to learning more about your
individual interests and priorities related to Department of Education
programs and activities and working collaboratively with each of you,
to the greatest extent possible, to help improve educational
opportunities and outcomes for all students.
Thank you, and I will do my best to respond to any questions you
may have.
______
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Now we will go to member
questions, and I would like to first recognize the gentleman
from Arizona, Mr. Grijalva.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you, Mr. Secretary for being with us. I appreciated your
comments and associate myself with your opening comments
regarding the tragedy that has unfolded, and the need for us to
do something to protect children and protect their well-being
in the sanctity of a school, and I appreciate those comments.
I want to ask just a couple of general questions on two
topics. One is adult education. Secretary, you know, adult
education plays a critical role in helping immigrants, and
refugees, and other families gain English literacy, so that
those skills are necessary to fully participate in their
schools and their kid's education.
The Department--what are we doing in the budget, and to
ensure that funding for adult education and literacy programs
are available?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congressman Grijalva. I
certainly agree that when we talk about reimaging education, we
really need to make sure we are investing and providing
opportunities for our adults that want to go back to school or
want to finish their program. We ask in our proposal for a 50
million dollar increase to support competitive grants to do
just that: a college bridge for folks who do not have a high
school degree or equivalency.
It is important that we provide pathways for all Americans
to give back into education, and our adult education population
is critical if we are going to meet the demand that is out
there for these careers that exist now. We need our adult
education population to be prepared to be successful. Our
budget does ask for that. There is also 10 million dollars for
a new initiative for disconnected youth to reengage them in
school.
We know that earning potential is greater when completion
happens in high school, but also in college, so we do have a
robust plan for engaging our adult learners.
Mr. Grijalva. The loss of classroom teachers, particularly
aggravated even more so with the pandemic, it is leaving gaping
holes. In Arizona, 31 percent of the teaching positions at the
beginning were gone and became vacant. 47 percent, almost 48
percent of those people filling it--those positions lack basic
qualifications.
If one in three teachers leave our education system, it
will take years to recover. I am excited about the infusion of
funding into that area to retain teachers. Can you elaborate on
that point if you do not mind, sir?
Secretary Cardona. Yes, thank you. We are very close to a
crisis, Congressman, with regard to the shortage of teachers
across our country. I know in Arizona this is the case when I
visited and talked about. Across the country we are seeing
this. We believe we need to invest now and act now to promote
programs that provide through lines between high school
students, to colleges, and back into the classrooms for
students.
We need to invest in this, and we put into our proposal 350
million dollars to make sure we are recruiting and retaining
teachers, lifting up programs in states like Arizona that are
aiming to increase the number of qualified teachers, and that
is critical, too--qualified teachers in our classrooms.
We saw what happened in January when many of our schools
had to close due to the Omicron surge, and teachers were in
quarantine. It impacts the entire community when parents have
to learn two, 3 days before that schools are going to be closed
for a week. I do not want to go there.
In our proposal we have funds intending to create grow your
own programs and to lift up programs that are aiming to recruit
teachers. This investment will go a long way to improving
education across the country.
Mr. Grijalva. Just a general, if I may Mr. Chairman, I
think I just want to compliment the Secretary, inheriting a
department that basically needed in many instances, rebuilding
and renewal. I appreciate the comprehensive approach in the
budget, particularly around Title I, and Justice 40 initiatives
that are within it, and how that is going to be monitored.
Yesterday I went to a graduation of my grandson from fifth
grade to middle school, and I saw all those kids, they are all
the same age as the kids that died and were slaughtered in
Uvalde.
I saw them, and I saw my grandson there, and I saw their
teachers giving them out their certificates. No different from
the teachers that were murdered in Uvalde. I think we all can
relate to that, and I hope this budget is respected for what it
is trying to do, to rebuild our public infrastructure, the most
important one we have, which is educating our kids. With that I
yield back, sir.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next, we will hear from our
distinguished Ranking Member of the full committee, Dr. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary,
FSA, an office you are ultimately responsible for overseeing
allowed thousands of individuals' and families' information be
shared with Facebook, shared without any disclosure to
families, and apparently unknown to the department.
To add to the concern, it is fairly evident that your staff
is either hiding the extent of the information shared, or
perhaps worse, do not even know. We have been seeking answers
about this incident, but are now being told the earliest we
could hear about the extent of this problem is June 3d.
Enough is enough, Mr. Secretary. This is a concern to many
families and could impede students from applying for assistance
if they do not trust the system or agency they have to provide
sensitive information to. We have sent an invitation to the COO
Cordray to appear at a roundtable to discuss the issue. Will
you commit to his attendance?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Ranking Member, for that. Let
me tell you I share with you the importance of this department.
Ms. Foxx. I just need a yes or no. I just need a yes or no.
Secretary Cardona. This is not just a yes or no, Dr. Foxx.
Yes, we are going to be very transparent with you and everyone
else, and my staff did provide an update last week. Let me just
share. You are absolutely right. In the last administration
information was shared that was not supposed to.
When we learned, the moment we learned about this we put an
end to it, and we started an investigation to make sure we
found out why that happened during the last administration, and
we are being very transparent. As you mentioned, we are going
to be having public information on that shared with you as soon
as possible, and we are going to share I think as early as next
week with you all what we are finding.
We did provide an update last week because this is
important to us, but rest assured, the moment we found out
about this we put an end to it.
Ms. Foxx. Okay. Well, I have several other questions, so I
need to get through them. Last time you testified before this
committee I asked if you and your staff would respond
``thoroughly and quickly'' to oversight requests by this
committee, to which you answered a resounding yes.
Additionally, your Undersecretary sat in the witness chair
and assured all of us that we would get all unredacted reports
and relevant documents by the end of December 2021. To date we
have not received the complete, validated, and unredacted loan
valuation reports, reports that you previously said you stand
by.
These reports have found that the loan program was 435
billion dollars in the red, even before the radical policies
your department has enacted. Thankfully, despite your
department's continued attempts to stonewall Congress and GAO,
it seems we may finally get some answers. GAO has been
persistent in looking at the issue closely to show the American
people exactly what a catastrophe the loan program has become
as a result of democrat policies.
Mr. Secretary, simply put, you have fallen short of your
promises when you were sitting here last year. However, I want
to give you another chance to make good on your word. Will you
confirm today that you will provide all documentation related
to loan valuation reports my office has requested by next week,
yes or no?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Dr. Foxx. Yes, we are
complying with the numerous requests, and we are working with
GAO, and we are going to continue to share information as we
have it.
Ms. Foxx. Will you provide all requested documents, data
and information with respect to the limited PSLF and IDR
waivers, Operation Fresh Start, and the repayment paused by the
end of next week, yes or no?
Secretary Cardona. We will comply with requests as they
come in, knowing that it does take time to get information.
There are numerous requests, and we want to be thorough, and
make sure we provide accurate information.
Ms. Foxx. Mr. Secretary, before I yield back, I have heard
the department has finalized plans for Operation Fresh Start,
which is expected to be rolled out soon. If what I have heard
is true, I am deeply concerned. Your actions will have
significant implications on every person who has, or is seeking
to purchase a home, a car, jump start a business, and access
credit for things they otherwise would not be able to afford.
This would not only be detrimental to everyday Americans
looking to move up the economic ladder, but also has the
potential to cause permanent damage to the entire U.S. economy.
Mr. Secretary, have you or others at the department been made
aware of concerns that this operation will have on American
access to credit, such as mortgages, automobiles, and other
consumer and business loan products? Again, I am almost out of
time, I need a yes or no.
Secretary Cardona. We are proud of the Fresh Start program
giving Americans another opportunity.
Ms. Foxx. Yes or no, yes or no, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Cardona. We are aware of the benefits that it
provides for Americans who are struggling right now in default,
giving them a fresh start.
Ms. Foxx. Have you been told about the problems with the
program?
Secretary Cardona. Yes, we have had--I have had briefings
shared about the program, and----
Ms. Foxx. Is the department planning to announce or
implement the program in the coming weeks and months.
Secretary Cardona. Again, the Fresh Start program provides
opportunity for those that are in default to start fresh again,
so that they can continue. I will remind you that borrowers
that are in default is worse for the economy. Giving them a
fresh start is an opportunity for them to get the supports that
they need, so that they can pay their loans.
Ms. Foxx. The average taxpayer is on the hook for what they
do not pay back, and many of them do not have the same
opportunities you are providing these people. With that Mr.
Chairman, I yield back, even though I have more questions,
thank you.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired. Next, we will hear from the gentleman from the
Secretary's home State, the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr.
Courtney.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for my
voice, Mr. Secretary, the pollen count in Connecticut is very
high today. First of all, I want to thank you for your opening
remarks. You and I and Congresswoman Hayes live in a State that
in 2012 lived through horrible precedent with Sandy Hook.
I do think you know you are calling for action. There is I
think an example what happened in 2013 in the way where we
passed a comprehensive package of gun violence prevention,
universal background checks, prospective ban on assault
weapons, red flag statues, and a banning of bump stocks. Also,
de-weaponizing domestic violence situations.
That was done on a bipartisan basis, and it showed that,
you know, when people tried to absorb what happened here, they
did say enough is enough, and it is time to roll up our sleeves
and get serious, and hopefully we will see that happen in the
wake of Uvalde. On page 2 of your testimony, Mr. Secretary, you
pointed out that the timing of the budget created a little bit
of a snafu in terms of some of the funding level requests, and
I would like to focus on two of those really quickly.
One is on the Career and Technical Education State grants,
which again you and I visited Grasso Tech in Groton last
January and saw the welding program, but also some of the other
great CT&E programs that were going on there, you are a
graduate. Fiscal Year 2022 budget gave a very healthy increase
to the State grants, and the budget that came over from the
administration actually is below the enacted level from Fiscal
Year 2022, and the same is true of impact aid, which provided
support for host military communities with children whose
parents served in the military service.
I am wondering again if you would just clarify that the
department actually will work with us to sort of recover from
again the issue that was caused by the delay?
Secretary Cardona. Certainly, and you know I share your
passion for career technical education, and what promise it
provides. I remember visiting Groton with you and seeing that
center where not only are high school students, but the adults
that wanted to go in and learn a skill, and have access to a
higher paying job was made available to them.
That and impacting, I appreciate your advocacy for the
important impact data that's there. What ended up happening,
and why those totals were low was because we are thankful for
the Omnibus package, and the funding there. Our Fiscal Year
2023 proposal was due before the Omnibus was done.
We sent in a proposal using 21 numbers, and the 22 package
came out after our proposals came in. We totally support the
funding for that. In fact, we really believe a big part of the
work moving forward at the Department of Education is to really
engage in career connected high schools and making sure that
the throughlines between our high schools, our 2-year schools,
and our workforce partners, our 4-year schools, are tighter
across the country.
There is so much potential there. I know you support that
as do we at the Department of Education. Thank you for giving
me a chance to speak on that.
Mr. Courtney. Well, I appreciate it. Regarding PSLF, again
I would just remind my colleagues that there was a bipartisan
bill that was passed in 2007. It is targeted. It is targeted to
people who wear the uniform of our country, teachers, cops,
firemen, fire fighters, people in the nonprofit sector.
The prior administration was granting less than I think 3
percent of PSLF applications, and you have been untangling that
you know wretched State of affairs. I just want to thank you
because your department joined my office for a webinar to sort
of walk through the waiver program in terms of just how people
can connect to it.
It has gotten rave reviews. I encourage my colleagues to
take advantage of your staff, who are doing a great job of
breaking it down to simple terms, and again is that going to be
part of your effort to again increase people's awareness in
this opportunity?
Secretary Cardona. Absolutely. When Congresswoman Foxx said
that the system was broken, it is broken. We came in and
inherited a system for teachers, nurses, all these people we
should be thanking during the pandemic, 98 percent of them were
denied. We are really proud of the work we have done in 1 year
to provide 127,000 borrowers loan relief.
These are the teachers, the nurses, those who are public
servants. Yes, we are going to continue to move forward on
this. As you said, it was a bipartisan bill. It was not being
implemented well, and we are fixing that, and we are proud of
that.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. We are proceeding by seniority.
The next one in seniority on the minority side that I see on
the screen is the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Chairman. I thank the Secretary for
being here with us today, and I certainly would share the
concerns of the horrific event that took place in Uvalde. It
ought to be a wakeup call for us, and there are many things
that we certainly can consider.
I hope we would not neglect some of the other things. I am
reminded of that wonderful statement in the Northwest Ordinance
that said religion, morality, knowledge, being necessary to
good government, and the happiness of mankind. Schools, and the
means of education shall forever be encouraged.
We want to encourage schools in the means of education, but
religion and morality have to be there as well. When you see
horrific things like this take place, it has to be all hands
on-deck. In our homes, in our schools, in our churches, and we
ought to be working together, and we did that for most of the
history of this country.
We supplemented and instilled all sorts of those key
values, and I hope we could coalesce again around those things
and produce stability in our society again, especially with our
young kids, that marriage and family would be stable. That
authority that comes from law enforcement would be stable in
our lives, that we could work together in those areas, and I
certainly want to be part of that solution in promoting things
that are timeless and can move us forward.
Not walking away from those just because it is the new
trend in society to say your truth is what you ought to
determine. We know that that will not work. There is truth, and
we need to follow that. Having said that, let me move on with
questions for this hour, and Secretary Cardona, I wanted to
followup on a topic Ranking Member Foxx raised with you.
Late last month the markup reported that Department of
Education used Facebook's Meta pixel and the analytical code to
collect data from students and parents, filling out the free
application for student aid, FASFA, and shared that data with
Facebook.
The data included names, phone numbers, email addresses and
zip codes. When initially asked about the tracking the
department denied it occurred, only to backtrack that statement
saying it was part of an ``advertising campaign.'' However,
when asked for a briefing on the situation the department told
this committee and the Senate HELP Committee that it would need
to do more research before it could brief members.
The question I have is that because of the lack of
transparency to Congress, and parents and students, which is
alarming, that Dr. Foxx asked many questions regarding the
depth of this data sharing, but I would like to followup on her
questions and ask Mr. Secretary do you believe parents and
students have the right to protect their privacy when filling
out the government's forms?
Secretary Cardona. Absolutely, Congressman.
Mr. Walberg. Well, just this week the Washington Post ran
an article highlighting that remote learning has led to an
unfathomable amount of data on children being shared online.
From the article, and I quote, ``Millions of children have
their online behaviors and personal information tracked by the
apps and websites they use for school during the pandemic.''
The data on students was sent to other companies, ad
companies, and surprise Facebook, and all of this was done with
vague disclosures, if any at all, in most cases. Mr. Secretary,
do you share my alarm with reporting on this issue?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congressman. I do. I will be
very frank with you, when I worked in the district, I was an
Assistant Superintendent, one of the things that we did was
ensure that as we are evolving our delivery of education, which
includes online learning, that we were very careful, and very
open with parents.
It is critical that parents know how information is being
used. We learned that Facebook----
Mr. Walberg. Let me just make sure I understand. You agree
then, Mr. Secretary, that we need to empower parents. We need
to communicate with them in a transparent way, and regardless
of who is asking for the information, they ought to be
protected from undue access that can be used for purposes other
than what they were intended.
Secretary Cardona. Sir, before I was Secretary, I am a
father. I absolutely agree that parents should have say, and
they should have whatever information is being shared. They
should know about it.
Mr. Walberg. Well, I applaud that, and I certainly think
that is where we can work together to tighten it down, to give
security where it can be given, and work with parents first and
foremost, so that they know what is involved, and know what is
coming at their kids. I thank you, and I appreciate your
response. I yield back.
Secretary Cardona. Thanks.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. I want to remind members that
insofar as this is a full committee meeting, and we have a lot
of members, to try to keep an eye on the clock, so I thank the
gentleman from Michigan for yielding back right at about 5
minutes. The gentleman from the Northern Mariana Islands, Mr.
Sablan, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sablan. Thank you, thank you very much Chairman Scott,
and Mr. Secretary, good morning and welcome. I want to first
thank you for, and President Biden, for agreeing to my request
to include 24 million dollars for supplemental educations
grants for the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of
Micronesia. It is important that we, the United States, keep
its commitments to the Freely Associated States, so thank you.
The President's fiscal 23 budget calls for an increase in K
to 12 education investments, including a proposal to more than
doubled Title I-A funds, and significantly invest in health
services, and wrap around supports for students and families.
Can you tell us about the importance of these investments, even
after the significant investments Congress has made in K to 12
education through the CARES Act, the CRRS Act of 2021, and the
American Rescue Plan Act?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congressman Sablan. Yes,
prior to the pandemic our country had tremendous disparities in
access and in outcomes for students, depending on where you are
in the country, and what access you had to high-quality
education. Sadly, the pandemic made them worse.
Title I to me is the best tool we have to level the playing
field, so that all children across the country have access to
high-quality education, qualified teachers, and pathways to
higher education. These programs that are funded through Title
I ultimately result in reading teachers, in librarians, in
additional tutoring, after school programming, so that our
students have the access to the opportunities that might have
been missed during the pandemic.
We believe that it is incumbent upon us to make sure that
all children have a quality education, and Title I program does
focus on making sure it is leveling the plank.
Mr. Sablan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Also, a
recent report from the GAO found that nearly 1 million students
never showed up for class in 2021, 2020, 2021 school year. A
variety of obstacles, reasons, kept students from their
education, including limited or no adult assistance at home,
competing demands on their time, such as providing care to a
family member during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the reason why democrats passed the largest single
Federal investment in K to 12 education in U.S. history in the
American Rescue Plan, to help communities and school districts
return to in-person learning and to help students with their
educational, social and emotional needs.
Secretary Cardona, can you please share the department's
plans for assisting schools and re-engaging disconnected
students, and making up for lost time in the classroom?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, yes, I can. There is short-
term and there is long-term. Short-term, as you mentioned, the
American Rescue Plan provided funds where districts can use the
money to reengage families. I have seen so many creative uses
of the American Rescue Plan dollars.
In Nevada, they created a team of parent liaisons that went
out into the community to help families reengage. In many cases
these students were also dealing with housing insecurity and
food insecurity. The American Rescue Plan dollars helped
reengage those students into the school and provide support for
those students.
That is some of the short-term strategies that I have seen,
and states are using the American Rescue Plan dollars to
reengage students. Long-term solutions. We are asking in our
proposal for full-service community schools. Those schools that
did a better job reengaging students were the schools that had
a health center located there, that had access to food
pantries, for the students who were hungry, that had access to
technology tools, so students could be connected at home.
Who had mental health support for students that were better
developed than other schools. The short-term solution is
ensuring American Rescue Plan dollars are available for this.
Long-term solutions as investing in full-service community
schools which we know help students stay engaged.
Mr. Sablan. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Another topic relative to K12 education, I have a growing
interest in learning why for example, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin
Islands have been placed on high-risk for a decade or more, and
we are going to find out, and understand why this program, why
despite the effort that at least for Guam, they continue to be
placed in this situation, but that's for another issue. Mr.
Secretary, thank you very much for your time, and chairman I
yield back time.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Perfect, right at 5 minutes. The
gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Secretary thank
you for being with us today. I am grateful for your service,
and hey, my wife is a teacher, and so we have a great
appreciation of the profession and our sons have only done well
because of teachers who really gave them opportunities to learn
math and science that they could not learn at home, so best
wishes to our educators.
With that in mind during COVID-19, charter schools used
their flexibility and autonomy to meet the specific needs of
their community, and over the first year of the pandemic, South
Carolina saw seven new charter schools established as
nationwide student enrollment grew.
Mr. Secretary, what are you doing to highlight the
importance of family choice of flexible education opportunities
during this critical time?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for that, Congressman Wilson,
and thank your wife for me for her service to the profession.
It is really important that parents have options, and what we
have done is we are requesting the same funding, and not
cutting any funding for that, and we are highlighting schools
that are successful, including public charter schools who have
done a good job engaging students and finding innovative ways
to help students achieve.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, and I need to brag about
my wife again. She taught at an alternative school, so Mr.
Secretary, you know these are giving young people a second
chance, who really in the old days would have not had, and so
it was so exciting to see these young people given one more
chance, and many of them actually succeeded with extraordinary
encouragement from educators.
Mr. Secretary, I am also grateful that I led a letter from
38 Members of Congress to the Committee on Appropriations
requesting strong support for the charter schools programs,
Fiscal Year 2023. I am concerned that the Federal charter
schools program would receive level funding by the
administration's budget when overall spending on education
programs would increase over 40 percent.
In South Carolina, 42 percent of the state's charter school
students are participating in free and reduced lunch programs.
What are your plans to increase the accessibility of charter
schools for students and parents seeking this option?
Secretary Cardona. Again, we are going to continue to
support charter schools, and we know that they are eligible for
grants, that while we did not cut funding, we know that the
proposed increases would benefit charter schools as well. As I
said before, you know, we want to make sure that we're
providing options for families including high-quality public
charter school which, you know, I can tell you from my
experience in Connecticut, some of the schools that we
highlighted when I was Commissioner, were charter schools,
public charter schools that did exceptional work, getting high
achievements for students.
I do recognize, similar to what you mentioned with your
wife, the alternative schools, there are different ways to
reach students, and it is important that we embrace all of
them.
Mr. Wilson. Finally, this may have already been asked, but
with the COVID funding, nearly 25 percent of the 190 billion
dollars, only 25 percent has been used. Could this be used to
address the security concerns that can be addressed to affect
what occurred this week?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you. Yes, so we know the American
Rescue Plan dollars were critical to get our schools safely
reopened. The focus is providing mental health supports in our
school, increasing that due to the impacts of the pandemic, and
obviously, as you mentioned earlier, the importance of science
and math, and making sure academically our students are caught
up.
Indirectly, crises like the one that we just experienced
this week, if additional mental health supports are available,
they can help the community. The funds are intended to help
recover from the pandemic.
Mr. Wilson. As a former President of a mental health
association, I really appreciate your referencing this, and
with that I yield back, and thank you Mr. Chairman. We
appreciate Virginia.
Chairman Scott. Thank you, and next we will hear from the
gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Wilson.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Foxx, and thank you Secretary Cardona for being here today. I
want to remind you of your commitment to come to Miami to visit
our phenomenal school district, thank you.
Secretary Cardona, I spoke with an amazing young lady from
Miami Gardens, who shared with me that she continues to see her
student loan balances grow, even when she is making monthly
payments due to interest capitalization and negative
amortization.
After that, my staff met with more than seven national
organizations, including New America, who have written about
this issue to discuss how we can fix our student loan repayment
system for current and future borrowers dealing with this
issue.
In these discussions we learned just how dire this issue
has become in our country. Like the young lady from Miami
Gardens, and so many other Floridians, borrowers are
experiencing extraordinary hardships because their monthly
payments are not enough to cover accruing interest.
As a result, their balances balloon, even as they make
regular payments. Can you talk about how together Congress and
the Department of Education can address this issue, and how do
you propose we deal with this?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for that, and I do remember
the commitment to visit the 305 and see you there. I have heard
stories in my visits of folks who are doing their best to pay,
and as you mentioned, the interest rates just balloon, so they
lose hope in that they are ever going to finish paying their
loans. This is part of the problem that we are trying to fix at
the root cause and make sure that Americans are not afraid of
going to college because of the costs.
The system is broken, and this is an example of one of the
ways it is broken. As you know, the department does not--cannot
set interest rates, right? That is something that is set by
Congress, but what we are doing is making sure that we have
regulations that have fair treatment of interest, including
capitalization, so borrowers do not see their balances go out
of control.
We are also looking at the interest benefits of income
driven repayment. I think this is the part that I really, I
want to focus a little bit on, because income driven repayment
in layman's terms say you do not pay more than you can afford,
and I think many times people are afraid of going to college
because they are getting these bills, which are too high for
them to consider buying a house, buying a car, or having
families.
We need to control that. It has gotten out of control, and
we are working really hard with the authorities that we have to
make it more accessible to students, but also make it more
affordable. We would love to continue to work with you and
others on Congress to see how we can fix that, so our borrowers
do not have this issue anymore.
Ms. Wilson. Just to sum it up, as the Subcommittee Chair of
Higher Education and Workforce Innovation, I am going to be
looking forward to working with you and Chairman Scott to
deliver on these much-needed changes. We have to make changes.
We cannot continue in this vein.
Secretary Cardona, as you know all too well, the gun
violence that is plaguing our schools and communities is just
out of control. The citizens of this country have had enough of
our thoughts and prayers; they deserve better. They deserve
action. We are here today for policies, solutions, and actions.
It is beyond time that spineless republican colleagues end the
extramarital affair with the gun lobby and help us pass gun
reform in this country.
Instead, they offer senseless policies that do not address
the gun violence epidemic our communities are facing. Just
yesterday they were calling for arming teachers and resource
officers. Mr. Secretary, like you, as a former school principal
and teacher, we know that is not the answer. What does the
department need from Congress to ensure that when kids pick up
their pencils and take out their books, it will not be their
last time doing so?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congresswoman. I will tell
you I was a school principal during the Sandy Hook massacre,
and the impact that that had on our community. I cannot put it
into words. Educators go to school to work, to help children,
socially, academically. We need to make sure that, No. 1, our
professions are respected, and the solution of arming teachers
in my opinion is further disrespect to a profession that is
already beleaguered and not feeling the support of so many
folks. We need to make sure we are empowering our teachers to
be successful at teaching our children, and we need to work
together.
I think what Americans want to see is collaboration and
bipartisan working together to do action. As you said, thoughts
and prayers are not enough anymore. We need to stop that; we
need to get to work. Americans are looking to us for answers,
and we must deliver.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next, we will hear from the
gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I had some questions prepared, but
I am going to ask you one a little bit that was not in the
original materials. The Chairman started off by talking about
disciplinary differences in school, kind of implying there was
a racial component, and I always think that that is an
interesting statistic, but you know, we are not going to change
people's race.
I sometimes wonder do you collect any statistics on family
structure, background of kids, you know, those subject to
discipline, those that are not? I know so many wonderful
children raised in all sorts of different backgrounds, but I
wonder are you making any effort to collect that information?
Secretary Cardona. I know that the information that we
collect from the Office of Civil Rights, that civil rights data
collection, is something that we have done last year, and we
are doing this year to get more information on
disproportionality. I could not tell you off the top of my head
now if it has background information that is required of
students to fill out on that. I would imagine that it is does
not.
Mr. Grothman. Why do you not do that, because maybe we
would learn something, okay? Why do we not request--you know
there is a famous football player who recently toured a prison,
obviously discipline on an entirely different level, but he
talked about you know disproportionately, way
disproportionately, kids in there without a father. Why not
collect that information, and maybe we will learn something
that might not be that politically correct, but maybe we could
do something to kind of get America back on the straight and
narrow?
Next question, and this is kind of along with my good buddy
Congressman Courtney, why with all these big spending bills
have we not put something in there saying that you could
refinance the government's student loans? Lower the interest
rate that way. There are several democrat Congressman that are
out there pushing it. I push it.
Is there any reason why that is not in any of your big
proposals?
Secretary Cardona. I am happy to have my team reach out to
you and get more information on that. I think what we are
trying to do Congressman, is really address some of the root
causes of the issues, poor oversight, or misleading.
Mr. Grothman. That is okay, then we will go on to the next
one. I just got out of a Budget Committee, and we of course
dealt with the huge inflation caused by excessive government
spending. I see that your request here in the President's
budget request for 2023, is a 20.9 percent increase over last
year.
I mean given that inflation, housing prices, gas prices,
which teachers' pay, too, seems to me completely out of
control, and I think there should be almost unanimous agreement
that it is primarily out of control because of excessive
spending. Do you feel that it is responsible for the President
to, in his proposal, increase Department of Education funding
by 20.9 percent?
Secretary Cardona. First of all, the supply chain issues
and the Russian War is contributing significantly. If anything,
the proposals that our President put forward helped Americans
with relief during a very difficult time. The reason for this
request, sir, is because of decades of under-investment in
education, and it is to me a symptom that we are seeing teacher
shortages, and we are seeing challenges in education.
This budget aims to address the years of underinvestment,
the decades of underinvestment, and I am proud that the
President----
Mr. Grothman. Decades? You mean like the Obama and Clinton
eras? Decades? Well, okay, we will give you another question.
We have a problem that is becoming a budgetary problem, a
problem in many other ways at our southern border. Your
department has asked for an expansion of the Pell Grant program
to include illegal immigrants.
I always felt that was kind of bizarre because of course we
are not including American citizens, and American middle-class
kids continue to have to go deep in debt for their college
education, but it has been the policy apparently of the Biden
administration to push for free, or almost free college, for
people who are here illegally.
Do you still stand by that proposal? Or do you think it is
something you might take off the table?
Secretary Cardona. Congressman Grothman, I remember having
a conversation with a teacher who was a Dreamer, who was
working twice as hard so that she could help the students in
her classroom. The Biden administration has been very clear
that we do support ensuring Dreamers have an opportunity for
Federal financial aid, including the Pell Grant.
These are students who are making a big difference in their
communities and----
Mr. Grothman. Are kids born in America making a big
difference in their communities?
Secretary Cardona. Yes, they are.
Mr. Grothman. Why insult them by offering these programs to
illegal immigrants, and not giving them to American citizens?
Secretary Cardona. Sir, we are proposing an increase in
Pell Grants for all students, and we hope you can support it.
Mr. Grothman. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the few
extra seconds.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Thank you, the gentleman yields
back. The next one up is the gentlelady from Oregon, Ms.
Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Chairman Scott, and thank you so
much Secretary Cardona for your service, for being here today
to discuss some of the most important issues facing our
Nation's students. I agree with your compelling words about the
tragedy in Texas, and we can, and we must do more.
Last year we discussed the student support and academic
enrichment flexible block grant program under Title IV-A of The
Every Student Succeeds Act. We know these grants enable states
and local school districts to support a variety of
opportunities and well-rounded education, including the arts,
music, civics, computer science, second language.
Title IV-A also supports safe and health students,
including mental health and violence prevention, and the
effective use of technology. Based on our earlier
conversations, I know we agree about the importance of Title
IV-A and that more must be done to make these opportunities
available to all students.
This year I, once again, led a bipartisan appropriations
letter asking for 2 billion dollars for Title IV-A flexible
block grants, which is significantly higher than the Fiscal
Year 22 Omnibus and the President's previous proposed funding
level.
Mr. Secretary, I am concerned about the consequences of
underfunding Title IV-A. What has the administration done in
the past year to make sure that all students are getting a
well-rounded education? Should Congress not provide funding for
Title IV-A in line with the bipartisan letter beyond what was
proposed in the Fiscal Year 23 budget? If not, how would that
affect students?
Secretary Cardona. Yes. Thank you for that, and again this
was an example of us putting a proposal in by the due date, but
the budget from the previous year was not done. We are thankful
for the fund and we agree, again, as an educator--and I
remember my visit to Oregon where we saw programs where
students had some enrichment with music, so the summer school
was totally different, and that is why you had over 300
students on campus.
Yes, I do believe Title IV, as an educator, I know the
impact of it. I know that it helps engage students. We fully
support the proposal to increase Title IV-A, and again, as an
educator, I have seen the impact of those programs like
wraparound services for students, that keep students engaged,
and keep them reaching at high levels.
Ms. Bonamici. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and
thank you for visiting Oregon. It was a great visit, and I just
want to again emphasize as someone who worked a lot on Every
Student Succeeds Act, including on the Conference Committee,
the importance of that well-rounded education piece, and what a
difference it makes for students.
I hope that we can meet in advance of the Fiscal Year 24
budget to discuss the importance of this funding. Secretary
Cardona, I applaud the fact that payments, interest accrual,
and collections on federally held student loans have been
paused since March 2020, to support borrowers as they navigate
the pandemic.
I have heard from many borrowers who are, let us say very
concerned about what happens at the end of the pause, which is
why I introduced the Student Loan Borrower Safety Net Act, so
when payments resume, my bill will help by providing earlier,
and more frequent outreach to borrowers, making it easier for
borrowers to get into income driven payment plans, and access
economic hardship support, also provide back-end protections
for those who end up missing payments after the pause ends.
The goal is to provide services and a support system to
help especially the most vulnerable borrowers. We should not
end the pause until we put these safeguards in place, along
with a comprehensive plan to help new and future borrowers.
What steps is the department taking to help borrowers when
payments restart, and how will you determine whether the
servicers have the information they need to best support
student loan borrowers?
Secretary Cardona. Again, thank you for that. This is an
example of something that we realize we have to do better. The
Department of Education has to do better. We are really proud
of the work that is happening under FSA, Federal Student Aid,
to make sure that there are better on-ramps for borrowers to
get back to repayment in a way that is manageable for them,
where they can be successful, and get back to repaying loans in
a way that they are not being asked to pay more than they can
afford.
We are working on income-driven repayment changes, to make
sure that it is reasonable and it is manageable for our
borrowers. We are also communicating early and often with our
borrowers. We are proactively engaging with them, especially
those that are at risk of delinquency, to give them options.
It is very intimidating for our borrowers to have to think
about going back into the system, but I can assure you the
system that they are going to be going back to, is not the same
system they left, or a system where they didn't have answers,
or it was unclear.
We take it very seriously, and we too agree that when we do
start to end the pause, and start the repayment process, we
have to have a more user-friendly process that is more clear to
the borrowers, and working with our services to make sure they
have the information that they need, and that they are taking
care of our borrowers, so that they can be successful repaying.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and as I yield
back, I just want to note the importance of yes, this is a
short-term solution, but in the long-term we need to make
higher education affordable and accessible for all. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from New York,
Ms. Stefanik.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, the
National School Board Association recently released the results
of the independent review into their letter to President Biden
calling for the DOJ to use counter terrorism tools to
investigate parents as domestic terrorists.
The report in fact confirmed that the Biden White House
colluded with NSBA on the letter, which DOJ immediately acted
upon to mobilize the FBI to target parents at school board
meetings. The investigation also revealed that the White House
used information from NSBA regarding the planned letter to
include in discussions with the Department of Justice before
the letter was even finalized.
In fact, a week before the letter was officially sent, the
White House had a detailed summary of the contents of the
letter, and its request for Federal intervention against
parents, including usage of the Patriot Act. Mr. Secretary, the
report also reveals that senior officials at your agency, the
Department of Education, had been in contact with NSBA
regarding ``concerns about the increased public activism at
school board meetings,'' as early as last July.
I want to ask you questions about your awareness and
involvement in the letter. In August of last year, you
participated in virtual town hall meetings with NSBA
representatives. During these events did you request that NSBA
write the letter, or otherwise indicate support for the letter?
Secretary Cardona. I think the same report you referenced
showed that there was no evidence of that, and we have been
saying since day one that there----
Ms. Stefanik. No?
Secretary Cardona. Correct. That is a no, it has been the--
--
Ms. Stefanik. Then my response to that is----
Secretary Cardona. Can I finish with my responses?
Ms. Stefanik. No. This is my time. Did you suggest in any
manner that the NSBA should solicit Federal intervention and
resources to deal in any way with local school board meetings?
Secretary Cardona. Congresswoman, I feel strongly that
parent's voices does matter, and especially during the pandemic
when things were not----
Ms. Stefanik. You are not answering my question. It is a
question.
Secretary Cardona. My understanding of your question is
that you are doing exactly what I did not want done. Let us not
use this for division. We talked to over 8,400 parents.
Ms. Stefanik. All I am saying is did you suggest in any
matter during those virtual town halls with NSBA that--did you
try to solicit any Federal intervention or resources to deal
with local school board meetings? It is a yes or no, and I
follow this.
Secretary Cardona. No. There was no attempt to do that.
What we wanted to do--I would love to finish my responses.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Secretary, you answered no. You answered
no.
Secretary Cardona. I think it is fair to give me an
opportunity to respond if you are asking me a question.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Secretary, you answered no. The report in
fact stated that, ``Some evidence also suggests that you
requested additional information be sent to your office on
disruptions at school board meetings during the August 16 town
hall meeting.'' What did you mean about the additional
information sent, and did you in fact receive this additional
information?
Secretary Cardona. Are you going to allow me to answer the
question?
Ms. Stefanik. Yes.
Secretary Cardona. Okay, thank you. The NSBA, as well as
other groups that are working with our families, including PTA
parent groups, routinely communicate with the Department of
Education, as we are trying our best to be a service agency.
Concerns were shared about some of the activities in some of
the board meetings, and that is routine conversation that we
have with different stakeholders when things are working well,
and what concerns they have.
That is typical practice here. As I said before, we did not
ask for any letters, we did not ask for any information that
you are alluding to. In fact, if you look at our track record
Congresswoman.
Ms. Stefanik. Why did you not make----
Secretary Cardona. We have met with over 8,400 parents. I
have had parent groups, parent roundtables at many of my
visits, and I know as an educator that parents are critical to
the success of their children. They are the best partners in
the process. That is why I am fighting for full-service
community schools that engage parents.
That is why I expected American Rescue Plan proposals add
parent engagement in. Look at our track record and social
footprint as well.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Secretary, I know I have hit a nerve
here, so I am going to continue asking questions. The answer is
yes, there was additional information as part of those
conversations. My followup is, were you, or any Department of
Education personnel sent a copy, or otherwise made aware of a
summary of the letter provided to the White House on September
21? That is a pretty easy yes or no question.
Secretary Cardona. I do not have any information. I do not
recall getting any letter, summary letter.
Ms. Stefanik. Were you made aware of the September 22
discussion between White House and DOJ pertaining to the
letter, or ``options we can pursue here'' where you, or any
personnel at the Department of Education?
Secretary Cardona. Not that I am aware of at this point. I
do not have any information on that.
Ms. Stefanik. When you first, and your staff first made
aware of the letter on September 29, is that what you are
testifying to today?
Secretary Cardona. I can have my staff get back to you on
what information we received if you like, if it is that
important to you. Let us focus on what is in the budget to help
our families.
Ms. Stefanik. These are important to parents across the
country, in fact we do have an outstanding Freedom of
Information Act request which was sent to the department
requesting all information documents or communications. If
there is no problem providing this to Congress, why has the
department not complied with this request?
Do you intend to comply with the FOIA request, and what is
the timeline for that?
Secretary Cardona. We always do, and we want to continue to
connect with families as we have done in the past, thank you.
Ms. Stefanik. What is the timeline for that FOIA, complying
with that FOIA?
Secretary Cardona. I will have my staff reach out to you
and give you that information, thank you.
Ms. Stefanik. I see them handing you papers. I can see it
on the screen. My final question is President Biden's DOJ has
in fact not rescinded the memo directing the FBI to use
counterterrorism tools----
Chairman Scott. The gentlelady's time has expired well
over.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. Okay. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Next on our side is Takano, Adams, DeSaulnier?
Mr. DeSaulnier. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I am here.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman from California, Mr.
DeSaulnier.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your
introductory actions and comments. Mr. Secretary, thank you so
much for your passion, and your honesty today. I had two, well,
I have one area of conversation in your budget, and
prospectively, but I am going to add a second one, so I will
ask these two questions at the same time because they are
inter-related, but we also have to distinguish the differences.
First on mental health, you and I have had this
conversation multiple times now, I think. We passed a bill out
offered by myself and the chairman just a week ago, and a
series of bills, a wonderful bill by Representative Wild,
Representative Hayes, just had a bill prior. On mental health,
our bill, the Mental Health Matters Act, the spirit of it is to
invest and a question on your budget.
In the whole array of how do we get more services for kids
and teachers, in particular, from Head Start to higher
education, a pipeline so we get more people into the field. We
know from the ACA and parity, that there has been a very large
increase in requests for mental health services. I very much
appreciate the hearings we have had, and the sentiment by all
of my colleagues, including the Ranking Members about stigma.
What can we do, and what are we doing in the budget, and
what could we do more in the budget, for mental health in how
we coordinate with other initiatives and other departments? HHS
just announced a week ago a grant for the study and
coordination of social media and its effect on kids. That is
the first question.
The second is more related to what is just happened. I am
reminded of the Steinbeck quote ``that a sad soul has killed
more people than any germ.'' This hopelessness over what is
happening in this country, in schools in particular that you
addressed, and we do have to distinguish these.
The United States is not an outlier when it comes to mental
health, but we are when it comes to gun violence. You are 25
times more likely to be a victim of gun violence in the United
States. The U.S. has 4.4 percent of the world population, but
we have 42.5 percent of the guns in the world.
Separating those two. First, what you are doing in the
budget to do more for mental health for teachers and students,
and a career pipeline for people to go into the field of mental
health, so we can get these services out. Second, can you do
more about school safety, and specifically gun violence? Do you
have more authority without the Congress?
At the same time that you look at that question, and the
urgency you expressed in your initial opening comments about
this, can you look at everything you can do to coordinate for
the very best evidence-based research, that we have had success
with the minority when it comes to criminal justice reform.
Give us the facts. Give the states the facts.
We know in Connecticut, California, what happened yesterday
is less likely. It still can happen, but it is less likely
statistically because of the legislative actions they have
done. If you could answer those two questions--can you do more
while you work with us to do more statutorily, and the
conversation with the minority maybe we can have success.
Secretary Cardona. Yes. Thank you for that and thank you
for your advocacy. I do believe the mental health needs in our
schools have been greater, even before the pandemic. In my
conversations with students, as recently as a couple weeks ago
when I was in Nevada, New Mexico, excuse me, there were
students who said that if it weren't for the supports that were
put in place post-pandemic with ARP money, one students said,
those supports saved my life.
We are at a crisis right now. I do appreciate the Surgeon
General lifting it to the level of crisis. This budget proposes
funds to make mental health supports not just a little bit
more, but pervasively change the system to make sure it is the
foundation under which professional development is provided for
our educators, making sure that more programs are available for
our families and our students.
We are supporting community-based programs in our schools
so that students have seamless access. We know students are six
times more likely to access the mental health supports in our
schools than they are in the community. That is why we are
promoting full-service community schools, and mental health
supports in our schools.
Thank you for the $90 million in the Omnibus, but we are
proposing more because we need more mental health support work
in our school, so yes, foundationally our schools have to be
transformative in their changes to make sure mental health
access is there for all students.
Going to the second question, we are working very closely
with HHS on an intergovernmental approach to work more closely
to make sure that these systems are pervasive in our country,
and not just pockets of excellence, and we look forward to
working with our republican colleagues to just remove the
politics.
Let us talk about what our kids need and give us the
opportunity to share from the perspective of educators what the
needs are in our schools, and I hope we can make some progress.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is up. I
will yield back, but I look forward to further the conversation
about what you can do more on school safety.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Allen.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary for being with us today. Obviously yes, a dreadful
day for America, and our great country. Obviously, we have got
some local issues that you may, or may not be aware of, but I
wanted to make you aware of, and in our largest city, which is
also they have demonized and defunded the police in Atlanta,
Georgia, that it is unsafe.
In fact, they are trying to separate parts of the city, so
that other folks get protection. It is just a mess, but I would
like to make you aware of politically motivated lesson plans
taught in one of Georgia's largest public school districts. The
Atlanta Public Schools is opposing Georgia's new election law
and voter identification.
I am concerned that our students at Atlanta Public Schools
are receiving one-sided information on this bill to advance a
candidate for office and their political aims. I want you to
know that I wrote a letter to the Georgia Department of
Education about this concern, in fact this week Georgia had
their primary election. Under Georgia's new election law, early
voting increased 212 percent above compared to 2020.
I think we need to move away from injecting bias, political
indoctrination, in the classroom, and teach comprehensive facts
on issues. Are you aware of this, Mr. Secretary?
Secretary Cardona. Specific to the issue in Georgia, I
cannot comment. Curricular decisions are made at the local
level, but what I can tell you, however, is the way our system
is set up is states and local municipalities are the ones who
pass curriculums, and it would be important for communication
to those bodies to take place.
Mr. Allen. Okay.
Secretary Cardona. I will tell you is that curriculum
should be the truth, should be the truth, and it should cover
you know what makes this country so great, but include the
parts that we are not so proud of as well.
Mr. Allen. Yes, well Mr. Chairman is----
Secretary Cardona. The department, that would be my opinion
based on myself as an educator.
Mr. Allen. Right, right, yes, yes, there is a big debate on
what is the truth, and I would like Mr. Chairman, I would like
to submit this letter for the record please.
Chairman Scott. Without objection.
[The information of Mr. Allen follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8092.024
Mr. Allen. Okay. Mr. Secretary, in your testimony you
stated that you are committed to reversing funding inequities.
There is nothing more inequitable than a wealthy parent being
able to send their child to any school they want, but outdated
education policies telling low-income parents they cannot have
the same opportunity.
We do not want to lose one child in this country. The idea
of school choice is not public versus private schools, but the
opportunity for parents to choose the best school for their
child regardless of their zip code, whether that be a
traditional, public, private charter, or faith-based school.
Last year, I asked you if you would support the idea of school
choice, and you could not give me a direct answer.
I ask you Mr. Secretary, will you embrace the idea of
school choice to allow every student to flourish in a learning
environment they are best suited for?
Secretary Cardona. Yes. I do support.
Mr. Allen. Okay, great, thank you. Mr. Secretary, another
issue I would like to discuss is the lack of transparency being
taught in the classroom, specifically lessons stemming critical
race theory. I am proud that Georgia State Board of Education
adopted a resolution affirming they will work to prevent for
more promotion of divisive ideologies.
Parents want an educational system that will allow their
students to gain skills needed to obtain good-paying jobs, and
that will allow them to be successful. I hope you will be
committed to addressing these issues, and to supporting school
choice in the department's budget.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
Mr. Allen. All right. Well, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman yields back, and
next we will hear from the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Norcross.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman and Secretary, welcome.
Unfortunately, very difficult circumstances in the last 48
hours, just incredible on so many levels. The idea of taking
your kids to school and dropping them off, no parent should
ever have to wonder whether those kids will be alive when they
pick up, so I appreciate the comments by the Chairman and by
you earlier on.
I want to make a small deviation on safety in terms of guns
and certainly violence and change a little bit to a letter that
we have sent to the appropriators, and certainly to your office
talking about the Office of School Infrastructure and
Sustainability. I understand that is going to be included in
the budget, but I would like to get a little bit of feedback
from you on why, given the experiences we just went through,
particularly with COVID, and the direct connection with
spreading of viruses, in this case COVID, but in general.
What we can do to upgrade our schools? Have that central
clearing house. Hospitals obviously know about this
particularly given the nature of what they are dealing in, and
schools do not always look at it that way because it is not
health and safety all the time the way hospitals are. Can you
talk a little bit about bringing the experiences from around
the country, and certainly from the experts that we are dealing
with in Washington?
Secretary Cardona. Certainly, Congressman Norcross. Thank
you for the opportunity to speak to this. You know, absolutely.
I think we have the responsibility under the Department of
Education to lift up best practices across the country, and to
support and be a service agency where we see that there is a
great need.
I can tell you from experience that you know when I was
serving as a principal of an elementary school during a
massacre that took place about 35-40 minutes away from where
the school I worked in was, we overhauled our protocols, our
sign-in procedures, our background checks.
We had devices in our office. We had a single point of
entry. We had as I mentioned in the beginning, windows were
numbered, and we had ongoing professional development and
training for this. There were some things that we did, and then
as things changed, the protocols changed, our connections with
the police department.
These are all valuable tools that we believe. When we are
talking about not only responding or preparing for these, but
when we are building schools, we need to be aware of what
things we should be taking into account to ensure student
safety and staff safety.
Mr. Norcross. Almost 10 years ago when I was serving in the
New Jersey Senate, there were a series of shootings--mass
shootings that all brought it home. There were those that want
to turn our schools into literally encampments that are locked
down, that you could not go outside. There is a definite fine
line in keeping our children safe, but making sure they are not
in a prison, that they still enjoy going to school.
This is where those best practices are going to have to
come into play. Not one size fits all when it comes to
infrastructure. We are a free and great nation, but we cannot
get locked down. If you can just talk about that sort of
dichotomy.
Secretary Cardona. We have to thread the needle right? We
want our schools to be happy places where kids are being kids.
They are jumping, they are laughing, they are playing recess
without fear of you know, having to worry about, having being
fenced in, or blocked in, or having recess indoors.
We have to thread that balance, and we wanted to make sure
that our school concerts have grandparents there, and family
members celebrating the achievements of the children. Schools
are happy places. They are communities. We have to have a
balance. With that said, it is really important for us to
broaden the conversation, right?
We have to be sensible about legislation that could protect
public places because it is not only schools, a week and a half
ago it was a grocery store. It was a church. We need to be
sensible and realize that it is not one solution that is going
to take care of all of that. We are a part of it. We always
have to be vigilant, and balance that, but it is not just that.
We had have to be thinking globally about things that over
80 percent of Americans agree on certain policies that are
being not discussed when I cannot find too many things that 80
percent of Americans agree on today, yet there is some very
sensible legislation that can be passed that we need folks to
act on now.
Mr. Norcross. Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my
time, chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr.
Banks.
Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, Title IX
of the education amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on
the basis of sex. However, your department is currently pushing
a rule to force every school in America to add non-binary as a
sex characteristic.
How can the Department of Education enforce sex-based
discrimination when the very definition of sex is so unclear?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congressman. We are not
pushing for that. We are allowing states who have different
categories to use those different categories of data collection
that they are already collecting.
Mr. Banks. You are not pushing for a rule to add non-
binary?
Secretary Cardona. We are allowing states to report
whatever classifications they have in their states, yes.
Mr. Banks. Interesting. Mr. Secretary, do you believe that
biological male athletes competing in women sports are in
conflict with Title IX protections for female athletes?
Secretary Cardona. Sir, I understand where your line of
questioning is going. I would love to talk to you about how the
budget is going to help the students in your community. I am
proud of the Title IX regulations.
Mr. Banks. Wait, Mr. Secretary, it is a question. Is it
fair for biological boys to compete against girls in sports?
Secretary Cardona. Really, all children should have an
opportunity to engage in extracurricular activities, including
athletics, including the arts because that is what our schools
provide. Every student should have access to it.
Mr. Banks. Mr. Secretary, never before have we had an
administration like this one, that is decimated Title IX like
you guys are. Do you believe it is fair or not for biological
boys to compete against girls in sports? It is a simple
question.
Secretary Cardona. I believe all students should have
access to sports.
Mr. Banks. You do support biological boys competing against
girls in sports?
Secretary Cardona. I believe I answered the question.
Mr. Banks. No you have not. It is a simple question, just
answer the question. The administration either supports it, or
you do not.
Secretary Cardona. You are saying do I believe transgender
girls should have access to sports? Yes, I do.
Mr. Banks. You and this administration support biological
boys competing against girls in sports? Furthermore, you do not
believe that that is in direct conflict with Title IX?
Secretary Cardona. Sir, I see where your questions are
going, and I am going to be very clear with you. Our
transgender students need to feel supported, included, and
seen, and your line of questioning is, even by describing it
the way you are doing it, shows me that you do not believe that
all students should have access to the extracurricular
activities that schools provide.
Mr. Banks. Well, I guess where I am going, Mr. Secretary,
is you can defend, you believe that Title IX protects
biological boys competing against girls in sports, does this
administration stand by that? We are about to celebrate the
50th anniversary next month of Title IX, which was brought
about with bipartisan support 50 years ago, and somehow,
somewhere, you and this administration believe that Title IX
somehow protects biological boys from competing against girls
in sports. You are okay with that.
Secretary Cardona. I have had conversations with girls who
are transgender, who also looked to sports to develop their own
sense of accomplishment, to set goals, to work as part of a
team. I do support their ability to access what the public
schools provide, both at the K-12 level, and at the higher ed
level.
Mr. Banks. All right. Now Mr. Secretary, do you agree that
school districts should keep a child's involvement and gender
transition a secret from their parents?
Secretary Cardona. Sir, I would love to answer questions on
the budget, which is why I am here, and I think what----
Mr. Banks. Mr. Secretary, these are policies that your
administration stands behind. You are asking me to fund your
budget, these are policies that you stand for. It is completely
relevant as to why you are here today, it is a simple question.
Answer the question, do you think that schools should keep it a
secret for their parents if their children are involved in
gender transition?
Secretary Cardona. Parents--listen, parents and schools
must work together to support students, and I do strongly
support, and if you look through the work that we have
supported, and our policies, and our practices, we want parents
and----
Mr. Banks. Should schools keep that a secret from parents?
Secretary Cardona. Excuse me?
Mr. Banks. Should schools ever keep it a secret from
parents if their children are involved in gender transition?
Should that be a secret from parents?
Secretary Cardona. Schools should be partnering with
parents and communication, and there are times where schools
are working and supporting students on issues that are very
sensitive, but I do believe that parents should be connected
with schools, and in many cases, working together is what is
going to help the student.
I have spoken to students who've shared whatever situation
is at the home, that they felt safe at the school, and we have
to be careful not to try to turn this into something that it is
not. Our schools are safe places for our students, and our
teachers are often the front liners when it comes to supporting
students when they have issues in their lives.
Mr. Banks. That is a very bizarre answer. Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman yields back. Thank you. Let
us see, the gentlelady from Washington, Ms. Jayapal, Mr.
Morelle, Ms. Wild? The gentlelady from Georgia, Mrs. McBath.
Mrs. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
Thank you so much Secretary Cardona for being with us today. I
was really prepared today to ask you about the Department of
Education's expansion of Pell Grants. I really wanted to kind
of bring those questions to light, but with the recent massacre
at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, you know, a story this
Nation has had to tell over and over and over again. It is just
difficult to discuss college grants for our children when we
cannot even be sure if they are going to survive elementary
school.
On Tuesday afternoon our Nation learned once again that we,
we the adults in this country allowed our children to be
slaughtered because some of our colleagues in the United States
Capitol, some of our colleagues on this committee, were too
afraid to stand up to the NRA, and prevent this from happening.
We lost 19 young children on Tuesday. 19 young babies,
children with goals, children with hope, children with futures.
We did not lose them, we allowed them to be taken, taken by
those who should not be able to access guns. As I have told
this committee before, and as I have told the American people
before, I sadly know these parents in Uvalde. I know how they
feel.
I know the horrifying, heartbreaking, soul crushing feeling
of losing your baby, realizing that they will never walk
through your front door again, that you will not see them walk
across their graduation stage. That you will not have that
first dance with them. That you will never be able to hug your
child again. It is a pain that never goes away, and while it
takes away your baby, your children, it leaves you with this
fiery and everlasting resolve to ensure that this happens to no
other mother, to no other family, to no other community.
That is why I am so thankful today that my Federal Red Flag
Bill will finally, finally, be on the House floor when we
return in June. Red flag laws have been enacted in 19 other
states and the District of Columbia. They empower our families,
household members, and law enforcement to ensure that those who
pose a threat to their community or themselves, do not have
access to firearms.
My bill will allow these close contacts to petition a
Federal District Court to have guns taken out of the wrong
hands. Once a Federal District Court has issued an ERPO order,
law enforcement will be empowered to take these firearms and
ammunition out of the hands of dangerous people, or people that
are a threat to themselves. I urge my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle, to finally stand up for the children in
their districts as well, for the children in America, and
support a Federal Red Flag law, my bill, H.R. 2377.
We have the power to stop this. I have been listening over
and over again as everybody talks about prayers and thoughts,
and how sorry they are for the families, but yet we refuse to
act. There are no excuses anymore to any of my colleagues, no
excuses. Not a one of us, not any one of us has constituents in
our communities that are immune to this kind of violence.
It is happening everywhere. We have the power to protect
our babies, we cannot continue to wait any longer. I yield back
the balance of my time.
Chairman Scott. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
from Kentucky, Mr. Comer, the gentleman from Idaho, Mr.
Fulcher.
Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I
should have interjected earlier, but these first few seconds of
my time to communicate that I do take personal offense to what
Congresswoman Wilson stated earlier. I took that as insulting
about being spineless and having some kind of elicit affair
with some lobby, so I just want the record to show that.
Now I will proceed with my questions.
Chairman Scott. All members are advised to leave out
questions of motive, or character of other members, so the
gentleman from Idaho's point is well-taken.
Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary for being here today, and I appreciate your comments
and testimony. In regard to that, you had previously discussed
in your written testimony the need to strengthen the budget to
address what you referred to as daunting barriers to students,
especially students of low-income communities, that face
obtaining high-quality education.
Your budget request seeks to remove those barriers, and yet
my colleague, which is Representative Jacobs, put forward a
letter that I, and many of us signed on the committee signed,
that seeks to prevent additional barriers the department is
putting in the way of charter schools to get started and
operating.
This is the notice of priorities, requirements, definitions
and selection criteria, NPP, for charter school and charter
school programs. These schools help the poor and the rural
students, especially in my State. Would you please speak to
that? How do you reconcile the apparent conflict here?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for the question, Congressman,
and I do agree that quality education comes in different forms.
Quality public charter schools are an option. As I have said
before, I have seen great examples of public charter schools
meet the needs of students and provide innovation.
What we are doing here through the regulatory process is
proposing what we believe are reasonable proposals that
increase greater accountability and transparency and fiscal
responsibility, responsiveness to community, and collaboration.
Now a lot of the information in these proposals are not--they
are not set yet, have been twisted a bit to make it seem like
we are requiring it, and that is absolutely not the case.
These are proposals, and we have done a lot of listening,
and we have gotten a lot of good feedback, which is the way the
process should work.
Mr. Fulcher. Mr. Chair, thank you for that. Just a
statement here. I want to make sure to communicate something.
Charter schools consistently enroll about 10 percent of Idaho's
students, and they have achieved largely positive results, both
academically in terms of career enrollments, especially the
brick-and-mortar ones, and our traditional public schools have
a large positive relationship within the school district.
According to a Stanford study in 2019, the average Idaho
charter school outperforms traditional public schools, and they
also do well on average with the ISAT, the Idaho Standard
Achievement Test, and so, they excel. The administration
appears to have some heartburn with the charter school
situation, and I just want to go on record and tell you that
look, it worked in our State.
If you would like to comment on that great, but I do have
another question I would like to get to here as well.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
Mr. Fulcher. Good, I am going to proceed. Mr. Secretary,
regarding loan forgiveness, on the borrower defense to
repayment, FSA's website states, ``The summary reports on the
number of claims filed approved, et cetera, are supposed to be
published on a monthly basis.'' Are you aware there has not
been any report published since December 2021?
Secretary Cardona. I will look into that sir, and have my
staff reach out to yours about the reporting frequency.
Mr. Fulcher. Please do. It would just be helpful that to
understand the volume of borrower defense claims before the new
proposed regulation is issued, and it is my understanding that
there is a proposed rule updating the BDR discharge process to
be released in the coming weeks. Is that your understanding? Is
that correct?
Secretary Cardona. Again, I can have our team reach out to
you regarding borrower defense. We know that over 2 billion
dollars in borrower defense was provided to 132,000 borrowers
to date.
Mr. Fulcher. We just need that information, Mr. Secretary,
it is important as part of the process. I also think a better
understanding of all the claims are important given the need to
be aware of some concerning practices by advocacy groups that
appear to have the President's ear with respect to debt
cancellation.
Mr. Secretary, are you aware of a group called the Debt
Collective?
Secretary Cardona. No, I am not in communication, or aware
of.
Mr. Fulcher. Actually, I am just about out of time here,
but it is an left wing organization. Their mission is to
achieve full debt cancellation for all. Just want to bring that
to your attention, that is what we are up against, thank you,
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman yields back. Next is the
gentlelady from the Secretary's home State, the gentlelady from
Connecticut, Ms. Hayes.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you Mr.
Secretary for being here. He is actually my constituent. My
questions--I had different questions for today, but as you can
imagine in light of everything that just happened, I want to
shift my line of questioning because like you, I was in the
classroom when Sandy Hook happened, and like you, I have
children who are being educated in this State then and now.
In 2020, 3 million teenagers reporting having serious
thoughts of suicide, nearly 4 in 10 people in the U.S. are now
reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression. Prior to COVID it
was 1 in 10. 1 in 5 young people report that the pandemic had a
significant impact on their mental health, and 80 percent of
youth in need of mental health services do not have access in
their community.
Finally, in 2019, no State met the student to social worker
ratio, for one social worker to every 250 students as
recommended by the National Association of Social Workers.
There is a lot of conversations being had about where we go
from here. Last week in this committee we marked up the Mental
Health Matters Act, which included my bill, the Supporting
Trauma Informed Education Practices.
My question to you Mr. Secretary, is what are the plans of
the department to address the mental health needs of not only
our students, but of our educators who are not prepared, and
should not be expected to deal with this type of trauma, and
also to better prepare them to identify red flags, and changes
in behavior, and have the resources and the support when they
try to report those things.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congresswoman Hayes. I
appreciate the work that you are doing to really lift up the
importance of trauma informed schooling and providing real
professional learning opportunities for teachers to really
develop those skillsets, to look for those flags, as you have
called them, to make sure that students are getting the help
that they need.
We appreciate in the Omnibus, the 90 million for mental
health supports, and in this budget proposal, we are proposing
not only funding for additional school social workers and
psychologists. I am very proud to say that the American Rescue
Plan dollars have increased the number of school psychologists
and social workers, so thank you for the support of that.
We are also looking at full-service community schools
because we know in our schools where mental health supports are
also community-based, it is more likely that our students get
access to it. As an educator in Waterbury, it is really
important that children have access to mental health supports
as a foundation of their learning, and that it is
destigmatized, so that there are various pathways to mental
health supports.
I appreciate the statistics that you shared. For us as the
Department of Education, we are really looking at mental health
access as a pillar of how we reimagine schools, and we have
asked the American Rescue Plan funds be used for that, and we
are expecting with our budget that it can also promote better
strategies across the country.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I will also add not
only for the professionals who are trained in those areas, but
many of our classroom teachers who never had any of this high-
level training are the first ones who have to deal with these
type of traumatic events. There is a lot of conversation about
where we go next, and I was discouraged by the fact that many
of my colleagues on this committee voted against supporting
trauma informed education practices, voted against many of the
mental health bills that we brought for to this committee.
As we go forward that has to be a part of any comprehensive
strategy that we have. My other question was actually about
Title IX, and I appreciate the answers that you gave, and your
commitment to supporting all of our students, because I do not
know how you single students out until there is a critical
mass.
I know that there will be coming up--there is going to be a
re-evaluation of the way--of Section 504, with regulations
regarding students with disabilities. Can you tell us how you
plan to engage all families as before, as part of the
decisionmaking process in that area?
Secretary Cardona. Yes. Thank you very much for that
question, and I certainly agree before I get into that, the
importance of classroom teachers, and making sure our teacher
preparation programs understand trauma informed instruction is
critical. Those connections are critical. Yes, we have an
opportunity here to listen, to engage families of different
backgrounds, people who have had good experiences with the 504
process, and people who feel that did not work for them.
As an educator myself I have seen examples where it seems
like the program, the implementation of it does not work the
way its intended. Our agency is aiming to have a very wide net
of stakeholder engagement to make sure that whatever we put
forward has the input of those families and students that we
serve.
Mrs. Hayes. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, because the answers
will be different than they were 50 years ago. Mr. Chair, I
yield back, thank you.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from Pennsylvania,
Mr. Keller.
Mr. Keller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Cardona, a
new rule for gainful employment was discussed in the
department's most recent negotiated rulemaking session. A
number of negotiators suggested that the department go back to
the 2014 gainful employment regulations as a base to jumpstart
negotiations.
However, the department did not do this. Instead, the
department limited negotiators to two sessions to view and
discuss their gainful employment. The proposal made several
changes, including the removal of any ability for an
institution to appeal the data before becoming ineligible for
Title IV programs and proposed to give the Secretary authority
to remove an entire institution's ability for Title IV because
of the small program rates, debt-to-earnings rates, and the
earnings threshold measure, among other items. Mr. Secretary,
what is the rationale for these changes?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for the question. We feel
strongly that we have a responsibility to improve, and I see
you do not disagree with that, to improve gainful employment,
and to make sure that students who are going to higher
education institutions have a good return on investment and are
able to be employed.
The processes that we are using does take into account
input, and I would be happy to followup with your team if you
want to hear more information about why it was done in the way
it was done.
Mr. Keller. Okay. Just real quickly, why was the department
unwilling to allow for institutions to appeal any of the data?
Secretary Cardona. Again sir, I would be happy to have more
detailed followup with the folks from the higher education team
with your team to share more information about how the
decisions were made to move forward with our gainful employment
processes.
Mr. Keller. Okay. I will move along here. On June 24 of
2021, when discussing higher education policy, you stated
before the committee your intent to hold all higher educational
institutions accountable for misleading students, not just the
ones the department does not support.
The department is leading an Office of Enforcement to
increase oversight over proprietary institutions while non-
profit institutions do not face similar scrutiny. The FTC, in
particular, has threatened to take action against the largest
proprietary institutions by their own admission, using the
Department of Education's published data on revenue and
enrollment size of these institutions, despite having zero
reasons to believe there has been any wrongdoing at these
specific institutions.
Mr. Secretary, can you please explain how the department
plans to keep its focus on providing value for the student,
rather than scrutinizing institutions based upon their
taxpaying status?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congressman Keller, and I
again appreciate your engagement on the topic. We are setting
out to improve services and ensure students are not taken
advantage of. We recognize that there are some institutions
that are more likely to do this, so we do have our FSA
enforcement unit, but we do believe that all schools should be
held to a high account when it comes to providing a return on
investment.
This is work that we are going to continue to do because
the system is not working now, and I welcome your input, I
welcome your thoughts on this, on how we can do better, but the
goal for us is really to make sure that we are enforcing good
practices, so that our students are not left in major debt and
inability to pay.
Mr. Keller. Well, that should be a goal of all of ours that
people get a quality education regardless of the institution's
filing status. We can all agree on that, right?
Secretary Cardona. Yes.
Mr. Keller. The filing status of an institution, whether it
is proprietary, not for profit, public, it does not matter. If
they are providing a good education, we need to support them.
If they are not, we need to make sure we hold them accountable.
I want to keep the focus squarely on the student, and I think
we all want to do that, and make sure that they have the tools
to succeed.
Again, I think we can agree on that. We did it in our last
meeting, and I guess I would just want a commitment. I know the
last time we talked we agreed on making sure everybody's held
accountable in the same method. Have you come up with any plans
since our last discussion on how we are going to do that?
Secretary Cardona. Well, yes. The strategies that are
coming out of higher ed with the scorecard. With our
conversations, we are meeting with these folks regularly.
Private, public institutions, and the message is the same.
Mr. Keller. Well, I would just say this. If that is the
case, and we care about the student, then I think we should get
a hold of the FTC, and make sure that they are not targeting
proprietary institutions, and using your information to do
that. I guess I would just--let us make sure that we have the
agreement that nobody should be using the Department of
Education's information to target any institutions simply
because of their status.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
yields back?
Mr. Keller. Yes.
Chairman Scott. Next is the gentleman from Michigan, the
gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Levin.
Mr. Levin. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Secretary
Cardona, it is so great to have you here. I have been honored
to have your leadership on many initiatives I work on,
including the Jobs Act, and expanding Pell Grants, WIOA, and of
course America's College Promise Act, and I was so delighted to
welcome you to both Oakland and Macomb Community College in
Michigan last year.
We have had deep and meaningful conversations about how to
protect and strengthen our public education system from pre-K
to post-secondary, and I want to focus--take a moment to focus
on one aspect of that all here right now. That is the student
debt crisis in this country.
You know about it so well. I cannot commend you enough for
the 17 billion dollars in forgiveness that your department and
the President have provided for students defrauded by
institutions, and for your strong start in fixing the broken
public loan forgiveness program.
That is all great, and yet we must do more. Millions of
Americans have been prevented from fully participating in our
economy, by buying a house, or changing careers, or starting a
business, or even starting a family because they are saddled
with this student loan debt.
The student debt crisis is a racial gender and economic
justice issue that impacts people of color and women
disproportionately. Black borrowers on average owed $25,000
more than white borrowers, and 58 percent of all student loan
debt is held by women. The student debt crisis is also fueling
other crises in our public education system, including the
educational staff shortage that threatens to leave us without
enough teachers and other school personnel that teach and take
care of our kids in the classroom.
Young people are not pursuing careers in education in part
because they cannot afford to pay off their debts, and
educators with debt are leaving the profession all together for
the same reason. We have an opportunity here to provide
immediate relief. Research shows, the bolder the cancellation,
the better the outcome.
Cancelling $50,000.00 of student loan debt will make 76
percent of current borrowers debt free, transforming lives and
delivering the biggest racial justice impact. Poll after poll
has indicated that Americans want student debt relief. It is
now really a question of when this will happen.
Secretary, can you give us an update on when the President
might announce--do you feel like this is going to happen, and
when might the President announce an effort to relieve people
up into, as you know, their 60's and 70's even, of this burden.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Congressman, for the work you
are doing around supporting our students, and I enjoyed the
visit with you to see it on the ground. You know with regard to
the broad-based student loan forgiveness, you know, the
conversations are ongoing with the White House, and the
Department of Education. We heard the President speak several
weeks ago, and while I have nothing to share on that, you do
know the conversations are going.
I will tell you that we are not waiting for that to act for
our borrowers who have been defrauded. We are proud of the work
in 1 year to relieve over 19 billion dollars now in loans for
over 770,000 borrowers, and this includes folks who are totally
and permanently disabled.
There is 8.6 billion dollars in relief there. Many of them
are veterans.
Mr. Levin. Yes.
Secretary Cardona. You know the public service loan
forgiveness, you brought it up, but in 1 year we are fixing
that program it went from 98 percent denial rate. Now we have
127,000 people who have benefited from it, teachers. You do not
have to wait for the announcement.
There are teachers who are eligible for loan forgiveness
today. Studentaid.gov. Check it out. Police officers, firemen,
professors, who are working in public service have eligibility
now, so we are going to continue to do that. We are going to
address the loans, outstanding loans for schools that have
closed, for schools that took advantage of students, and sold
them something they never delivered.
We are proud of that record. We are going to continue doing
that, and I appreciate your having this for that.
Mr. Levin. Yes, well thanks, your work there has just been
so fantastic. Turning to the budget for Fiscal Year 202023, and
I do not have a lot of time left, but I would love for you to
talk about steps you are taking to of course, bring down the
cost of higher ed, because we cannot just fix the problems from
the past, we have to fix it going forward.
You have been such a staunch champion of my America's
College Promise Act, I would love to hear you shout out again
that you and the President and the First Lady are still you
know, we are going to get that done at some point. Speak about
the budget, and how you are going to lower the cost of higher
ed.
Secretary Cardona. We are really--we want to stop the
bleeding. We do not want to be in the same position 5 years
from now. We have increased FSA enforcement, the college
scorecard, we have been meeting with institutions of higher ed,
and we are going to push for a return on investment. That is
what the American people need.
Mr. Levin. Outstanding. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next, we will hear from the
gentlelady from Iowa, Dr. Miller-Meeks.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Chairman Scott, and also
Ranking Member Foxx, and thank you to Secretary Cardona for
appearing here today, and I just want to say although Secretary
Cardona you were not in place at the time that ARP was passed.
I had two amendments of the time of that 14-hour markup that
would allocate or appropriate 2 billion for mental health
funding through K through 12 and 2 billion for mental health
funding for higher education that was voted against by every
single democrat on this committee.
I do appreciate my colleague bringing up mental health
issues, but I also want to remind that there were amendments
that were passed to funding that has gone out the door, and yet
there is still funding that has been unspent out of the ARP
fundings that were appropriated to schools.
We also recently heard about the student loan forgiveness,
and with all the discussion about student debt forgiveness, I
think it is important that we identify who in fact holds all
the debt, and I will say that I am a physician who left home at
16, starting at community college, worked myself through
college, through a masters in education, and then to medical
school, and was one of those individuals who did have student
loan debt at 13 to 18 percent interest rates.
According to Federal Reserve data, nearly 60 percent of
outstanding student loan debt is held by borrowers with
graduate degrees. During negotiated rulemaking sessions, your
staff repeatedly noted that including graduate students and the
new income driven repayment plan would provide benefits beyond
the limited scope to which these repayment plans were designed,
that is targeting benefits to low-income borrowers. I would
agree with that.
Can you confirm that the department will stick by its
initial proposal and exclude graduate students from new income
driven repayment plans?
Secretary Cardona. We are having conversations about that,
but I want to use this moment to share that teachers for
example have graduate degrees, and are woefully under
compensated compared to peers that have similar education
levels, so not all graduate--folks with graduate degrees are in
a position where they would not benefit from income driven
repayment.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. It does not sound like you have given me
no, you know, confirmation that you would limit those that are
not within low-income borrowers, so that is not very
reassuring. Furthermore, student loan forgiveness has also the
effect that there is no requirement for schools to address
spiraling or skyrocketing costs.
I would also like to thank my colleague, Representative
Fulcher, for bringing up charter schools. In our State in Iowa,
we have robust educational opportunities, and our Governor has
made that a point. Given the increase in achievement,
especially in our minority populations, I think that all of us
would agree that the most important thing we do is to educate,
regardless of what institution. With that, I am going to yield
the balance of my time to Representative Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr.
Secretary, to stick with this issue about loans, Operation
Fresh Start, do you plan on announcing the details of the plan
within the next week, and if not, when?
Secretary Cardona. I do not have the information from the
higher ed office when they plan on announcing, but I could have
my team reach out to you within the next week to share when it
is going to be set.
Ms. Foxx. Well, when we were talking about the issue
earlier your comments made me think we were talking part one,
past one another, pardon, past one another. Can you provide us
with the details of what ED is planning to do, whether you can
tell us when it is going to do it, but what are you planning to
do?
Secretary Cardona. Sure. We recently announced, Ranking
Member, the Fresh Start Program to allow borrowers who are
either in default or delinquent in their payments to have the
benefit of a fresh start, so that they can get back on, and it
would not harm their credit score, and their ability to move on
financially.
We have announced that. I am not sure if that is what you
are referencing.
Ms. Foxx. Yes. As I have brought up to you earlier, that is
going to cause a major problem with credit, with people who put
together the credit scores and credit histories and may indeed
harm those people from getting loans for other things in the
future. We do not believe you have the authorization to do most
anything of what you are doing, so we will continue to press
you under what authorization you are doing what you are doing,
and I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and Mr. Chairman, I
yield back to her.
Chairman Scott. The gentlelady yields back. Thank you. The
gentlelady from Minnesota, Ms. Omar, the gentlelady from
Michigan, Ms. Stevens.
Ms. Stevens. Ms. Stevens is present. Thank you, Mr. Chair,
and thank you, Mr. Secretary for coming to speak with us. I
very much appreciate the opportunities I have had to discuss my
passion around helping the 200,000 COVID-19 orphans in the
United States of America, and what we are going to do to help
them.
I also deeply appreciate you coming before this committee
as we are examining this year's budget. It is a profound and
deep irony that this committee, which has some of the greatest
opportunities to benefit the young people of America, had to
take a vote last week in a committee markup on Congressman
Johanna Hayes' bill to invest in mental health resources for
college students.
We had to take a vote on an amendment that would strip the
protections for LGBTQ students, and it is further ironic that
that is the priority of my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle, when we have yet again witnessed another tragic and
horrible shooting, and yes, we pray for, we honor, we mourn
with those families, of the 19 students.
I am not sure, Mr. Secretary, if you have had a chance to
hear the testimonial, the witness statement from the young boy
who survived that mass shooting, but everything we are doing as
lawmakers does not make sense if it is not prioritizing the
safety of our students, and we are failing at that, and I know,
Mr. Secretary, that this is a pain for you--a pain point for
you, a pain for your heart.
I know that in the Cabinet of President Biden you are
trying to do everything you can, and we will continue to
support you in that effort. The misguided attempts of our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, all 17, who voted to
strip away protections of LGBTQ students at the college level
seeking mental health when we have gun violence after gun
violence, and by the way they do not take the votes, even to
study gun violence in our schools.
Inner agency efforts to promote safety Mr. Secretary are
paramount. I wanted to ask you about a passion point of mine
which is around the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, IDEA funding, as we know the Fiscal Year 202023 budget, a
3.3 billion dollar increase for IDEA grants to states, the
largest 2 year increase ever for the program, and an amount
that puts us on the path to fully funding IDEA, the $250
million for IDEA Part D to support the pipeline of special
education teachers, and personnel, which is so, so important.
I was just wondering, Mr. Secretary, if you could lend us
some of your time in speaking to why these significant
increases in funding for IDEA are needed?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for that, Congresswoman
Stevens. Let me just put an exclamation point if I could. 60
percent of our LGBTQ youth who wanted mental healthcare just
last year did not have access to it. This is a group of
students that has told us repeatedly the pandemic has increased
the anxiety, the trauma, so thank you for sharing that.
IDEA grants, let me tell you as a principal, as a teacher,
as a school district leader, the work to make sure that all
students have access to high-quality learning through
individualized educational plans, based on the different
abilities that our students have is critical. Many times, these
plans are what allow for additional para-educators to support
students, assisted technology.
It gives students the ability to speak and speech services,
so for us this is fundamental. I will just be brief in the next
part. The pandemic exacerbated gaps between our students with
disabilities, and our other students, and we have heard loud
and clear from parents that they need more now, so this money
is critical.
Ms. Stevens. Yes. Well, I think to everyone watching back
home for this very important hearing, it is very clear who is
standing for all students, who is making sure that we are
pushing for equal funding for IDEA, for full funding for IDEA,
which is a critical part of my mission on behalf of Oakland
County, and as a Representative who has brought attention to
this topic through town halls and what not, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary too, for the datapoint because it is sad when we have
to take votes, which by the way many of our colleagues on the
other side of the aisle weren't even present for that vote.
When you cannot even take the steps to invest in mental
health for LGBTQ and also cannot do the basic work to keep
students safe. Thank you so much Mr. Chair, great hearing, and
I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from Utah, Mr.
Owens.
Mr. Owens. Thank you, thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary, and I would like to add a quick response to your
opening statement. I am one who has benefited throughout my
life from talking prayers (inaudible)--and represent this great
nation, a nation based on Judeo-Christian values, we should
never present our co-Americans with a false notion it is too
late, and too uncool, to have faith, prayers and God for each
other.
We are one nation under God, it is the one way to reconnect
with those experiencing dark times, and I am sure the community
of Uvalde would really appreciate it. Mr. Secretary, over the
past year the price of gasoline in Utah has increased more than
37 percent, between Utah's open enrollment in public schools
and charter schools, many parents in my district drive their
children to school outside of the neighborhood.
Families accessing school choice are not wealthy and are
struggling to keep up with inflation and rising transportation
costs. I have heard from several schools in my district that
have drops in the student attendance, for in part due to higher
costs at the pump. We are told inflation is (inaudible), and
yet the cost of living for families increased last month by 8.3
percent, which is knowledge that the inflation is negatively
impacting the choice of school education for students and their
parents.
Secretary Cardona. I did not hear the question there. I
heard you sharing about the cost of inflation.
Mr. Owens. Would you acknowledge that inflation is
negatively impacting the choice of school education for
students and their parents?
Secretary Cardona. I do not have information on that. I do
recognize the challenge that inflation has caused on all
aspects of life. Whether or not it has resulted in lessening
school choice, you know, I am hearing what you are sharing with
me, and I recognize that this is happening in your community,
but I do not have any other information that tells me that this
is in other communities.
Mr. Owens. Just know that across the country parents have
to get in their car and drive that distance to make sure their
kids' education, it is impacting all parents who care that
much, and I think investing in children that way. Okay. Like
you, I was devastated to watch the events in Texas unfold.
I was dismayed to see how some Members of Congress, and
other elected officials took such a harsh political line so
quickly. I speak on behalf of many of my colleagues who want to
invest in the conversation on this topic. I would be happy to
sit down and discuss what we can do to help schools address
these security issues.
Recently I looked into what school safety programs exist,
which are presently funded by the Federal Government. I learned
that we had related programs in several agencies, and those
programs are to address prevention, mitigation, and response,
and recovery. Mr. Secretary, your agency implements a lot of
these programs. Can you tell us the current status of school
safety programs under your jurisdiction, what guidance you have
issued to address school safety with other agencies to assure
that the guidance is responsive, correct, and also coordinated?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you very much. I appreciate your
sentiment about wanting to partner with us, and I welcome an
opportunity for my team to meet with yours to discuss this
because I agree with you. It should be bipartisan, and we
should be working together on this.
We have a team that is developing more strategies, bringing
together different strategies from across the country. We have
the Project SERV, which is school emergency reduction of
violence funds and team that has been in contact already with
this community in Texas, and will continue to be.
Part of this team's work is to lift up practices of what is
happening across the country. It is an ongoing process, but
happy to have my team meet with yours to hear your thoughts,
and to work together on this.
Mr. Owens. Okay thank you. I just want to wrap up with
something we talked about earlier. I agree with the concerns of
an answer that you gave to one of my colleagues earlier about
keeping secrets from parents. It was in all due respect, a
pretty different, or weird answer.
My parents, my dad and my mom were both educators, but
never would they have suggested that a teacher would parent a
children who are not theirs. They are keeping secrets from
parents regarding their children's physical and mental health
being a secret that they are not learning ABCs, but instead are
going through indoctrination of gender transitioning, is
extremely disturbing.
To be honest with you, it is hard to believe that any
father or mother (inaudible)--would be okay with secrets being
kept from them regarding the health and welfare of their
children. With that, I want to yield any remaining time I have
to Dr. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. Mr. Secretary, what
specific language in the ESEA authorizes you to add additional
requirements to the charter school program? We think the
statute is clear about your requirement to consult with charter
school officials before developing rules and regulations, and
you are not authorized to do it without that consultation.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you. I know the time is up, but I
do want to respond. This is for discretionary funds, and there
are proposals that we have.
Ms. Foxx. You have discretion, you have authorization under
the statutes because they are discretionary funds? Is that your
answer?
Secretary Cardona. We have authority to make proposals.
Happy to discuss.
Ms. Foxx. You are adding additional requirements to the
charter school program. What is the authorization in the
statute?
Secretary Cardona. What we are trying to do is increase
accountability, engagement, which are all things that I think I
have heard from you are important in education. I think there
is a misconception that we do not support quality public
charter schools. I want to be very clear that that is not the
case.
Ms. Foxx. Well you are not answering the question. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Owens. I yield back my time. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from New Mexico,
Ms. Leger Fernandez.
Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Chairman Scott and
Secretary Cardona, for getting today's hearing, by
acknowledging the 19 families who will not be telling stories
to their babies tonight, who will not see their child go on to
middle school, or take pictures of them before their first
school dance.
Who will not get to help them decide which college to
attend, or take them to college, or what their life plans are.
It is not just them, but we know that Uvalde, what we have
learned of it, is a tight-knit community, and the whole
community is suffering.
(Speaking in Spanish)
My constituents and I are sick of inaction. The House
passed multiple bills to address the gun violence crisis, some
of them even with some republican votes, bipartisan, and all we
need is ten republican Senators who have the courage to stand
with the nearly 90 percent of Americans who support sensible
gun safety legislation.
We can use the help of more republican House members. The
republicans on this committee and others who are going to put
our children as a priority instead of the gun lobby because we
cannot effectively teach our Nation's children if everybody is
not safe in those schools.
Secretary Cardona, thank you for the work that you are
doing with regards to safety and for your fairly measured and
intelligent responses today. I want to talk about minority
serving institutions because every institution of higher
education in my district is a minority serving institution, and
the majority of those are Hispanic serving institutions, or
HSIs.
In the wake of COVID-19, HSIs are being asked to do more
with less as they continue to educate and serve their students
in buildings which are not adequate, with inadequate funding
because we all know that HSIs are severely underfunded. I
noticed that $236.7 million dollar request in your budget, and
question I think it continues to be insufficient, and maybe the
needs of the 559 HSIs and the 5.1 million students they educate
and serve.
Secretary, how do you envision closing the disproportionate
inequitable gap for the 559 HSIs with a request for Title V
Part A at $236.7 million?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for your remarks, and for your
passion around not only Uvalde, but the responsibility that we
have to protect our babies. Hispanic serving institutions,
TCCUs, HBCUs, they all provide tremendous value, they punch
above their weight, and in many cases their institutions do not
have the level of funds that they need to keep up with research
and development, and make sure that they can continue to grow.
We are proud that in this new budget proposal there's 450
million dollars proposed for new initiatives to expand research
and development and infrastructure at minority serving
institutions such as HSIs as well. We recognize, and the
President has been very clear from day one, the importance of
these institutions, and how we need to make sure that they have
the funds needed to not only serve the students during the
pandemic, but also grow for their institutions as well.
Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you. I also want to discuss an
issue that is brought up to me wherever I go, and that is
education workforce shortages, especially the need to recruit a
diverse workforce here in New Mexico, it is Native American,
and Latino bilingual education speakers. We do not have a lot
of time, but how are you going to be working to support states
and school districts in strengthening and diversifying the
educator workforce?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you. My proposal does ask for
funds there, so I am going to be very specific. I want pipeline
programs in our high schools. I want high school students
getting high school credit and college credits and be connected
to a 4-year school, so that that 4-year school when they
graduate, they are ready to go back into that community that
served them so well to become teachers.
I want to use the funds to initiate programs that have
apprenticeships around teacher preparation programs, a
mentorship program to retain our teachers too. It is not just
getting them, it is keeping them in the profession, and I want
to make sure that we are supporting our teachers and elevating
the profession so more people want to go into it.
Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Secretary Cardona, and that
issue of getting them from the community because then they'll
stay in the community is so key. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for this hearing.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. My colleague from Virginia, Mr.
Good.
Mr. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for being
here, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary, I realize it is difficult
when you are on the losing side of every issue, and the truth
about your policies are not popular with the American people,
but I hope you can also appreciate that it is our job to
exercise oversight on behalf of Americans, and expose the
harmful impact of these policies, so you are succinct and
truthful answers would be most appreciated.
In your testimony, Mr. Secretary, you said that you were
calling for more COVID funding for schools. Why should we do
this when schools are requesting more time to spend the
previously allocated funds, and some are even spending them on
things like football fields and weight rooms.
Secretary Cardona. With regard to American Rescue Plan use
of funds, I can tell you I am proud of what I have seen when I
visited the 32 states. Schools were able to reopen better
ventilation systems. I visited White Plains, New York, and
their school was able to open as quickly as they could.
Mr. Good. Okay. Reclaiming my time. I am not asking what
they might have used it for, I am saying why in the world would
we give them more money when they have not spent the money that
is already been allocated? Some of them are using it for things
that obviously have nothing to do with the virus situation.
It does not cost anything to stop doing the things that
harmed our children over these past 2 years. Switching to
student loans for a moment, the Biden administration's
moratorium on student loans has already cost taxpayers some 100
billion dollars before any ill-conceived effort this fall in a
desperate attempt to buy votes that we might try to forgive
student loans this fall.
Who do you think should pay a person's student loan? Who
should that debt be transferred to?
Secretary Cardona. Congressman, if there are cases where
you think money is not being used, please work with our team
because we want to make sure that we are following that.
Mr. Good. Who do you think should pay a person's student
loan if they do not want to pay it, or who should that debt be
transferred to?
Secretary Cardona. I think our loan forgiveness work this
year is something that has helped many Americans----
Mr. Good. Answer me specifically, who do you think should
pay a person's student loan if they do not want to pay it, or
they cannot pay it, or they just wish they did not have it, and
who should that debt be transferred to?
Secretary Cardona. I am not sure. The person who took out
the loan should be paying the loan. If they were not misled--
Mr. Good. The person who took out the loan should pay the
loan.
Secretary Cardona. Correct.
Mr. Good. Okay. You agree we should not have somebody who
did not go to college should not have to pay someone else's
student loan, is that correct?
Secretary Cardona. I think I know where you are going with
this, and what I would want to say to that is there was poor
oversight.
Mr. Good. Okay. Do you think someone who did not go to
college should be forced through their tax to pay somebody
else's student loan?
Secretary Cardona. There was poor oversight, and I
believe----
Mr. Good. Do you think somebody who did not go to college
should be forced to pay somebody else's student loan? Do not
tell me about oversight. Do you think somebody who did not go
to college should be forced to pay somebody else's student
loan?
Secretary Cardona. I see where you are going with the
question.
Mr. Good. How about somebody who worked their way through
school so they would not have student loans, should they have
to pay somebody else's student loan?
Secretary Cardona. The public service loan forgiveness
program----
Mr. Good. Okay. How about somebody who has already paid off
their student loan. They just doubled down, they worked hard,
they worked two or three jobs, they paid off their student
loan. I mean you do know where the money comes from right? You
do know the money is from the American people? You realize
government has the money, right?
You cannot forgive student loans, we like to use that term.
You realize that it is just transferred to somebody else. My
question is who should it be transferred to, or who should be
forced to pay for that? Especially when 60 percent of these
student loan balances are held by high income owners who went
to grad school, and so it poses a disproportionate impact
toward high income earners if we forgive all student loans, so
who should have to pay that?
Secretary Cardona. The bipartisan public service loan
forgiveness is an example of a loan forgiveness program that
was bipartisan passed and was mismanaged.
Mr. Good. Okay, well thank you. That is what I was
referring to earlier, I just would like you to say the answer
on the impact of this administration's policies, and I have got
a Federal Student Loan Integrity Act that I have sponsored
along with Jim Banks who is on this committee that would
prohibit you from extending the moratorium on student loan
repayments at least, let alone forgiving.
School choice. You said today that you support school
choice. You said that during someone else's earlier
questioning, and that parents should be able to decide where
their kids go to school. Will you help us advocate for Congress
to pass school choice legislation?
Secretary Cardona. I do not push for specific legislation.
I ask that you work in collaboration----
Mr. Good. Could you support legislation that would support
school choice? For example, I have got H.R. 3704, the Choice
Act, which would allow struggling families a choice of where
their educational dollars go, they would follow their children
to the school, or educational opportunity of their choice, or a
529 savings account. Are you in favor of such things?
Secretary Cardona. I am in favor of making sure public
schools have access to adequate funding, so that all students
have an option, including----
Mr. Good. I have another question for you if I may.
Secretary Cardona. I would like to finish my response on
the previous question first.
Mr. Good. Have you gotten an update from regarding Attorney
General Garland's memo about going after school parents? Have
you gotten an update on that? We are having trouble getting
answers on what the status of that review is, have you got an
update on that?
Secretary Cardona. I support a choice, but I also do not
support----
Mr. Good. Have you gotten an update on the targeting of
school parents based on October 4 memo from AG Garland?
Secretary Cardona. My staff might have received information
on that. I have not, but I would be happy to have my team reach
out to you if you have questions about the roll out event.
Mr. Good. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from
Pennsylvania, Ms. Wild.
Ms. Wild. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Secretary Cardona, for being here today, and I apologize for
the tone and attitude that you have been experiencing from some
of our questioners. Dr. Cardona, the COVID-19 pandemic has
changed the life of every American. and has had an especially
dramatic effect on our Nation's young people, and I have to
tell you, I am candidly very proud to have helped in the
American Rescue Plan last spring, which sent 130 billion
dollars in Federal funding to schools and students.
Schools in Pennsylvania,--I represent Pennsylvania 7,
received more than five billion dollars through this law, and
schools just in my home at the Lehigh Valley received hundreds
of millions of dollars. I am very proud that this funding is
being used today to safely keep schools physically open and to
get students back on track.
I just, I have to say as a matter of pride, I want to tell
you a couple of examples. First of all, the Easton Area School
District in my district has hired new staff to provide
supplemental instruction to help students catch up on their
academics. That school district has also purchased new
technology for students, more library books, and more STEM
materials.
The Bethlehem Area School District has paid for new HVAC
systems for three buildings to improve air quality and keep
students safer in their classrooms. That district has also
hired new instructional coaches to improve students' math and
literacy skills, and to support their mental health needs by
providing extra social and emotional learning.
The Allentown School District, the most distressed public
school district that we have, has paid for facilities upgrades
and HVAC improvements which were deeply necessary because some
buildings in the district were built in the 1800's. In
addition, the district has prioritized programs to address
learning loss, including academic recovery and acceleration
efforts.
I am just proud to share these stories with you to
emphasize the ways in which the funding that was brought into
law as a result of the American Rescue Plan has continued to
support our students and educators.
Dr. Cardona, what I would like to do is have you highlight
some additional ways that you are aware of that schools and
educators across the Nation have been using ARP money to enable
safe in-person learning, and make up for lost instructional
time, and I do not mean to put you on the spot, but if any
cases particularly come to mind I would love to hear them.
Secretary Cardona. I will tell you I visited New Mexico
recently, and I was in a high school, and I spoke to a student.
We had a roundtable. This was really pointed for me. This young
man said, ``My life was spiraling out of control during the
pandemic.'' His mother died due to COVID, and he said that he
was engaging in very bad activity and got to a point 1 day
where there was going to be an act of violence committed toward
another student.
If it were not for the restorative circles that the school
did with a staff member whose salary is paid for by the
American Rescue Plan, that he might have committed that act. He
said to me literally, ``This saved my life.'' Now he is on a
path to mental health support and graduation. That is one
example.
I visited Oregon. I saw summer programs with double and
triple the size, the number of students who are benefiting from
social interaction. These are students who for the year prior
were working on a laptop, or on a device, and did not have
social interaction. We know the importance of social
interaction for young children.
I mentioned White Plains before. The improved air flow
allowed the schools to reopen quicker. After school programs
for students to get reading support because the reading
instruction was not what it should have been during the
pandemic. Mental health counselors, New York is hiring hundreds
of school social workers for their schools with the American
Rescue Plan dollars.
Ms. Wild. I am going to stop you there for a second,
Secretary, because you just--you have been talking about mental
health, and my next question was going to be about that. I
think it is wonderful the way states and districts have been
able to use the ARP funds to implement trauma informed
practices and support students' social and emotional and mental
health needs.
Can you tell this committee why this extra funding support
is necessary, and why will it continue to be needed for the
next few years?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for that second part of the
question. This is not a one-time thing. Mental health needs
were greater before the pandemic, but now I mean research study
after research study shows that it is at a point now of crisis.
The Surgeon General called it a crisis in our schools, a crisis
in our country, the mental health needs.
We have anxiety levels up. Suicide rates are up. If we want
to protect lives we need to look at mental health supports, not
only as a fix for the pandemic, but an underlying foundation of
successful schools that meet the needs of students
holistically.
Ms. Wild. Thank you very much. I would love to talk to you
further about this, but my time has run out. Mr. Chairman, I
yield back. Thank you for the time, and thank you, Secretary.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from Michigan,
Mrs. McClain is not on the screen. The gentlelady from
Tennessee, Ms. Harshbarger.
Mrs. Harshbarger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Foxx, and thank you, Secretary, for being here to answer
questions. I want to followup with the representatives to find
this line of questioning. Since you said no to having anything
to do with soliciting the letter requesting that the DOJ
investigate concerned parents as domestic terrorists, will you
instead commit to call upon Attorney General Garland to rescind
his memo asking the FBI to investigate parents? That is just a
yes or no.
Secretary Cardona. If you have questions for the DOJ,
please reach out to the DOJ about their letters.
Mrs. Harshbarger. Okay. I assume that is a no, but let me
turn my attention to your written testimony today. Mr.
Secretary, you only used the word parent once in your
testimony, even then not in any way that would indicate how
important parents' involvement is in their children's
education.
Do you believe parents should have a role in the education
of their children, yes or no.
Secretary Cardona. Yes. I believe if you will allow me to
followup I can share with you what we have done in the last
year.
Mrs. Harshbarger. Well, that is my next question. What role
do you think parents have in determining appropriate curriculum
for their children at our schools?
Secretary Cardona. I have always said parents are their
child's first and most influential teachers. We only play a
supporting role in the education system. As a parent myself it
is critically important that I am engaged, and that I am
involved in the process. I want to be very clear about that.
When we asked for states to submit plans on the American
Rescue Plan, how are they going to use the money, stakeholder
engagement was a requirement, even though it wasn't passed by
Congress, that it was a requirement, we required that states
provide that.
We have had conversations of more than 8,400 parents in 1
year because we want to hear from them. It is not just talk, we
have done that. In terms of curriculum, I do believe parents
engagement is critical for the holistic experience of children,
including topics like curriculum, and that is why we have
Boards of Education set up, made up in many cases by parents,
and that is why they should have public comment portions.
I support that, and as a former assistant superintendent, I
value the input of those local parents, the benefit of
curriculum, but also the challenges that they felt the school
was providing.
Mrs. Harshbarger. Well, you know that goes back to the
Attorney General and the letter sent you know by the DOJ.
Evidentially they do not think that parents should have a
bigger role in that curriculum, and I believe that parents
should have a bigger role in the curriculum their children are
learning, and honestly, you know I am sick of bureaucrats
telling us what is inappropriate or appropriate for our own
children.
If it were up to me ,sir, I have sworn I would just do away
with the Department of Ed and Labor all together and give the
authority back to the states. That is just me. In the time
left, I want to yield to Representative and Ranking Member
Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Representative Harshbarger. Mr.
Secretary, FSA and CFPB are clearly in regular communications
as their actions and press strategies are obviously
coordinated. I am not asking, I am simply observing a fact.
What I do want to know though is why you are not coordinating
or providing the same clear and consistent guidance to
borrowers and your contractors about how the various waiver
programs and the return to repayment are supposed to work.
I am not talking similar or close. I mean the same exact
guidance, so everyone understands the rule of the road. You or
CFPB cannot come back months or years later and change your
minds. Borrowers, as well as your contracted partners deserve
detailed and consistent guidance from all government agencies.
Mr. Secretary, is the lack of communication a failure of
your department to develop detailed plans before putting out
flashy press releases? Or is this vague, deceptive or non-
existent guidance intentional because the full plan is not
actually known at the time of flashy press kits?
Secretary Cardona. Dr. Foxx, with all due respect, I think
those are two bad options that I have. I could tell you we want
to work with you, and if there are ways that you think that we
need to improve communication, as you said at the beginning,
let us work together. As I said when I sent you that letter you
know 7, 8 months ago, there is so much coming out, let us work
together on the things we can improve together.
I believe we are in this situation because of poor
information, and we are working really hard to be clear with
our borrowers, to provide clarity so that they are not misled,
like so many places misled them, which is why we are doing
borrower defense the way we are.
Ms. Foxx. Well maybe it is because your contracted partners
and the loan servicers are not getting clear information from
the department on how to handle it. You should not be bypassing
those people because they are the partners you have to help you
do it. You cannot do this through the department. You
contracted with the people, and you are treating them very,
very poorly.
Chairman Scott. Ms. Foxx, you are on mute.
Ms. Foxx. Yes, I am sorry. I yield to the gentlewoman from
Tennessee.
Mrs. Harshbarger. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Chairman Scott. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
from New York, Mr. Jones, gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms.
Manning.
Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Secretary Cardona, for all your work, and for your patience
today. Before turning to my questions, I want to first response
to my republican colleague's claim that school districts are
not spending COVID-19 relief funding.
The Federal Government has awarded 100 percent elementary
and secondary school emergency relief funding across all 50
states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. As of March
23, 2022, approximately 91 percent of the CARES Act ESSER funds
have been drawn down or spent by states and districts.
Each week more funds are drawn down. According to submitted
State and district plans, which are required by the American
Rescue Plan, ESSER funds are being used to implement evidence-
based practices that address learning loss, and support
students' social, emotional, and mental health. I would like to
point out for my republican colleagues, that focusing on
spending data alone is misleading.
In a recent report the nonpartisan Government
Accountability Office found that it is important to consider a
State or district's financial commitments or obligations to
paint a more complete picture. For example, schools that have
used ESSER funds to hire teachers or school counselors, will
spend ESSER money each time payroll is paid from now until
2024.
Likewise, many school districts are required to pay out
contracts only after all services have been rendered. A
district that has a yearlong contract with a tutoring company
might spend ESSER funds to pay out the contract at the end of
the year. The Federal Government has obligated COVID-19 relief
funding, and as we have heard today, states and districts are
using these funds to help schools recover.
Now I would like to turn to my questions. Mr. Secretary, as
we know this pandemic has taken a tremendous toll on our
Nation's youth. There's been a 25 percent increase in pediatric
emergency room admissions for mental health cases since the
start of the pandemic, so we know addressing mental health
needs has become increasingly important for our Nation's youth.
That is why I have introduced H.R. 5526, the Improving
Mental Health Wellness in Schools Act to add mental health
education to existing guidelines for local school wellness
policies, and to increase resources for more mental health
providers in our schools. We know these resources are
desperately needed to help our students. I have heard it from
the superintendents in my district, North Carolina 6.
We have also been hearing Mr. Secretary, from our
educators, our first responders, and our healthcare workers,
that we simply do not have enough mental health providers in
our country. I was extremely pleased to see that the
President's Fiscal Year 2023 budget proposal includes a billion
dollars for the creation of a new grant program to increase the
number of licensed mental health professionals in our schools.
Can you speak to the importance of this proposed funding,
and talk about how the department will work to ensure that this
program has its intended effect?
Secretary Cardona. Sure, thank you very much, and I
appreciate the comments you made earlier about how districts
are actually using the money, and how you obligate it you do
not spend it all in 1 day. When the services are done that is
when they get the payment.
Yes, thank you for bringing up the fact that you know this
budget does propose long-term remedies to problems that we are
dealing with now, not just short-term remedies. What it does is
provides funds to create programs that help develop the mental
health personnel that we know we are going to need moving
forward. It is not only embracing the need for more mental
health support workers through some of the other funding, but
investing in programs that will lead to sustainable production
of highly qualified mental health support staff.
We are proud of that, and we are hopeful that this could
really launch model programs that could be replicated
throughout the country, not only with mental health, but
special education, bilingual education. There are so many areas
that are shortage areas, and I am pleased that this budget does
put funds to try to address that problem.
Ms. Manning. Mr. Secretary, I am also pleased to see that
the President's budget requests an increase of 752 million
dollars over Fiscal Year 2021 levels for HBCUs, MSIs and TCCUs,
including $450 million dollar initiative to expand research and
development infrastructure at these institutions. I have three
excellent HBCUs and an excellent MSI in my district. Can you
talk for just 10 seconds I have left about the importance of
that funding.
Secretary Cardona. I only have 4 seconds. They are punching
above their weight, and this is a recognition that education is
the great equalizer in our country.
Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Do we need a 10-minute break?
Secretary Cardona. Are you asking me, sir?
Chairman Scott. Yes.
Secretary Cardona. We could go a few more if that is all
right with you.
Chairman Scott. Okay, thank you. The gentlelady from
Illinois, Ms. Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Secretary, during the BLM riots in
2020, many left-wing school districts ended their contracts
with police departments and removed school resource officers
from schools as part of the left's defund the police movement.
Does the Biden administration now believe that the defund the
police movement was a mistake, and officers do belong in
schools?
Secretary Cardona. I have never mentioned anything about
defunding police.
Mrs. Miller. Sir, for 2 years the democrats have supported
defunding the police. Because of their defund the police
movement, school resource officers have been removed from
schools--Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, Seattle School
Districts--removed police from schools.
I want to know, do you now say it was a mistake, and that
officers do belong in schools?
Mr. Cardona. As a former Assistant Superintendent in a
district that had school resource officers that worked really
closely with our educators, our students, we found there to be
great value there. As I said earlier, I have never commented
defund the police, so.
Mrs. Miller. Well, the democrats definitely supported
defunding the police for 2 years. They painted on the sidewalks
of burning cities, they shouted out while burning down police
stations in Minneapolis. Vice-President Harris herself raised
money to bail out the rioters, and your favorite leftist TV
stations have covered it all, all Americans saw it.
Now what I want to know, you represent the Biden
administration. Has the Biden administration changed their
stance? Do they still support defunding the police, or do they
now say school resource officers belong in the schools? We
would like to know.
Secretary Cardona. I am not sure if you were present at the
State of the Union, but the President said we need to fund the
police more, not defund the police. I recall that sitting
there, and I felt pretty strongly about that message there.
Mrs. Miller. Right. I call that hypocrisy. I taught my
children that you know what you do is more important than what
you say, so following I will assume then that you are saying
that you still support defunding the police, the Biden
administration, and that you do not support having these
resource officers in our schools.
Moving on, Mr. Secretary, this week outrageously it was
revealed that the National School Boards Association wanted the
Biden administration to use the military--the military, to
prevent parents from attending school board meetings to speak
out in opposition to the Biden education agenda. Do you believe
that President Biden should use the military or the FBI's
domestic terrorism unit to prevent parents from opposing his
policies at school board meetings?
Secretary Cardona. I believe we should fund police with
adequate supports, so please do not mischaracterize my
responses, which I thought were pretty clear. With regard to
your question----
Mrs. Miller. You are saying then that the Biden
administration has changed their stance? They now support
funding the police, and they have changed their stance, they do
support putting resource officers in the schools? I am so glad
to hear that. I am glad you changed your mind because we all
want our children to be safe, thank you.
Secretary Cardona. Yes, we do.
Mrs. Miller. Well, like I say hypocrisy is when the actions
do not followup with the words. My next question has to do with
this past week, the National Schools Boards Association now has
revealed that they want the Biden administration to use the
military to prevent parents from attending school board
meetings. Do you believe that President Biden should use the
military or the FBI's domestic terrorism unit to prevent
parents from opposing his policies at school board meetings?
Secretary Cardona. Parents should have access to school
board meetings and their voice does matter. If you have
questions for the Department of Justice, I would suggest you
direct them toward the Department of Justice.
Mrs. Miller. Yes, but the Biden administration did send a
memo authorizing the FBI to go after parents for showing up at
school board meetings, so do you support, or not support using
the FBI against parents?
Secretary Cardona. I support parents having their voices
heard, especially during this pandemic, when they know their
children better than anyone else. We should work as partners,
and that is what I support, and that is what everyone at this
department supports. You can tell by the fact that we have
listened to over 8,000 parents and will continue to do so.
Mrs. Miller. We all know that the whole point of that DOJ
memo was to send a message to parents, to scare them from
showing up. Was that not the point? Well, what was the point of
the memo then?
Secretary Cardona. You would have to ask the DOJ. What I
will tell you is that we welcome parents' input now more than
ever.
Mrs. Miller. Yes. Well, you also said parents should not be
the primary stakeholder in children's education. Mr. Secretary,
to close up here every time you have appeared before this
committee I have asked you questions about parents' rights in
education because the Biden administration is launching a
coordinated assault against parents' rights, and the ability of
parents to make the best educational decisions for their
children.
We saw the result of your woke educational agenda in
Virginia, where parents were outraged by the Biden
administration's policies, and they loudly stood up for
parental rights, and I have to say that I look forward to
parents across the country sending you the same message very
soon, and with that I yield back.
Chairman Scott. The young lady's time is expired, and we
will now take a 10-minute break. Banyon, if you can put 10
minutes on the clock, thank you.
(Break)
Chairman Scott. Let us see, the next person in line on the
screen is the gentleman from New York, Mr. Bowman.
Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this important meeting. Before I get to my questions, first of
all thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us today. Before I
get to my questions, I just want to mention how impressive your
stellar career has been in education, Mr. Secretary. You were a
teacher in our schools, you taught the youngest and most
vulnerable among us.
You have been a school administrator, you have been a
district superintendent, you have been commissioner of
education for a State, and now you sit here as a Secretary of
Education. Your career has been stellar. You have served our
kids admirably. You are one of the only State leaders to open
schools safely, and I want to thank you for that, even prior to
the full American Rescue Plan, you opened schools safely, so
thank you for your stellar service and stellar career. I just
wanted to mention that.
Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask a question about common-
sense gun reform. You know democrats have passed common sense
gun reform in the House over many years, and gun reform
continues to be blocked in the Senate. Can you speak briefly to
how common-sense gun reform, which would keep assault rifles
out of the hands of those who are most dangerous, how would
that help decrease the amount of mass shootings and keep kids
alive and in our schools across the country?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for the remarks earlier. You
know, common sense, if more guns mean we are safe, we should be
the safest country in the world. I feel like in order to
protect our students there is no easy answer. We need to work
together on it. A recent poll found that over 80 percent of the
folks in our country agree or support with some level of red
flag provision, you know, and 81 percent of Americans support
background checks for private gun sales and gun show sales.
Like the American people, both sides agree that common
sense actions are needed now. We are becoming desensitized. I
said at the beginning, we cannot normalize this. We cannot ask
our educators to be going in, in addition to addressing the
disparities that were made worse, now to shoulder this. We need
to do better.
Mr. Bowman. 100 percent, and as a former educator myself, I
know you are grieving today for the 21 lives that were lost in
Texas the other day, and I know you still grieve for what
happened in Sandy Hook, and you grieve for Columbine, and you
grieve for Virginia Tech, and you grieve for the 3,656 school
shootings that have happened since Sandy Hook.
I want to thank you again for your service. I have another
question about student debt. As you know, American borrowers
across this country hold more than 1.7 trillion in Federal
student debt. I speak with constituents in my district, and so
many of them carry student debt.
It is our young people, and it is our elders. I frequently
hear from constituents in their 60's and 70's who are still
trying to pay off decades of old student debt. They have paid
back far more than they ever borrowed because of compounding
interest. This debt needs to be canceled. It has been
predatory, and it is crushing.
Looking forward, we absolutely need to have free public
college and free community college in my opinion, but we also
need to start by canceling student debt which has profited off
of everyday Americans for far too long. Two quick questions.
One, I would like to get more clarity around the 1.7 trillion
plus in student debt.
How much of the 1.7 trillion is made up of the principal
balance, and how much is accrued interest? The second question
is how many people have paid more than they originally
borrowed, but still have a student debt balance because of
interest?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for the questions, and I agree
with you. The system is broken. There are too many people that
are afraid of even thinking about higher education because of
the fear, and we have to fix the system. We have to be bold,
and make sure that we are not there again in 5 years.
Those two questions are very specific, and I do not want to
venture to guess right now a number, but I will have my team
followup with you on those very specific questions, but I think
your point is well-made. There are people who are paying just
interest, not even touching the principal, that is
unacceptable.
We have to do better with that, and while we cannot set
interest rates--that is an act of Congress, we are putting
together regulations that will improve this. We agree with you
100 percent.
Mr. Bowman. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next, we will hear from the
gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with
us. Since I think the last time we visited some--then part of
some discussions on the student loan issue, so I kind of wanted
to go back to that. There are a couple of things I think I am
hearing from constituents on that front, that I am not sure if
the department has had the ability to gather data on, and I
just listened to Representative Bowman kind of talking a little
bit more about a deeper dive on you know where we are at.
I think what I am hearing is the one thing that is out
there that is probably not being directly addressed is--and it
is kind of a nuance, it is the parent plus loans. It appears
that many families throughout America have kind of this
informal arrangement between the parent and the student where
the student obviously approaches the parent to say is there any
way that you can pick up the debt on this tuition bill?
Then informally says, but do not worry about it, mom or
dad, you know when it comes down to actually making the
payments when I graduate you know, I will make the payments
myself. There is kind of this informal arrangement, and I have
no idea if you have any numbers on that, or you know if that is
even tracked as to who is actually writing the check every
month to pay off some of these loans? That would be kind of the
first question I might ask you.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for that question, and as a
parent who is now thinking about that, my own son, you know I
recognize that this is something that many parents across the
country are wondering, and I am sure in your district as well.
I do not have specific information on that, but it is so
nuanced that I would not dare to make a statement without
having me verify it.
What I will do is, Congressman Fitzgerald, have someone
from my higher ed team discuss. If a parent is writing the
check, what happens if the student qualifies for some loan
forgiveness, and I think that is a very, very, valid question
that I want to make sure I give you the right information on.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Yes. That is kind of--that leads to the
second part of my question, which is as you do the expanded
PSLF, you know it absolutely would be something that I would
hope that the department would somehow be able to consider if
there is some type of final calculation.
That is without even you know making any judgments on how
much forgiveness should there be or should there be forgiveness
at all. What I will also--it is not news to you I do not think,
but the other thing I have heard quite a bit when you talk to
people about this issue is they are just frustrated by the
interest rates.
If there was some way of bringing that interest rate down,
and I understand you have already made it clear that is an act
of Congress, that certainly that would have just as dramatic
impact on the overall situation nationwide as some forgiveness
would be as part of PSLF. It would be another thing to
consider.
Let me just shift gears real quick. As a member of the
Small Business Committee, one of the things that we are
reminded of all the time is PPP loans, and it has been
determined to be successful. PPP loans saved many small
businesses throughout the Nation.
The second part I would say is we are hearing from
districts about some of the COVID relief funds, and whether it
was part of the CARES Act. How are you guys doing on tracking
that and making sure that districts--you know because you are
hearing these stories out there that the money was misspent or
misallocated.
I know as a member of Small Business, we are having a very
difficult time tracking how those funds were spent, and then
the direct SBA loans that have been made, the claw back on some
of those as a result of fraud and abuse is significant. This is
a different arena, but it feels kind of the same, and that is
why I would ask how the department is doing on tracking some of
those funds.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for those questions. I
remember the first part of the pandemic when I was in
Connecticut, the Commissioner having conversations about PPP,
and how we are making sure it is being used, and some of those
investigations.
With that experience, we wanted to at the Department of ED,
make sure that we are putting in checks and balances. We have--
I think we have a robust system here. We have--every district
has to submit a plan publicly. It has to be on their website.
We have quarterly monitoring reviews.
We created a program called ARP Paths, and it is another
form of public accountability, so it is not only accountability
to us, but more importantly to the parents, to the students, to
the folks in the community. We do annual reporting also, and we
are working closely with our Inspector General and auditors, to
make sure they have all the information they need as they do
their investigations as well.
Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you. I yield back, thank you,
chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired. Next the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Pocan.
Mr. Pocan. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for being here. It is good to see you again. I also
want to say thank you to Representative Fitzgerald for making
Wisconsin proud, the way he asked questions. He may disagree
with the Secretary, it was great. It was not MAGA open mic
night, which the Secretary has had to endure a little too much
of this afternoon, so hey, Fitz, thank you. You did Wisconsin
proud, and I just want to point that out.
I know a few people have said they have no words for what
happened in Texas. I do. Dereliction of duty, of Congress and
State legislatures to not act. Far too long these institutions
have been afraid of the gun manufacturers and their lobby, NRA,
rather than caring about the kids that we are supposed to
protect in our schools.
Again, Mr. Secretary, your moral outrage in the beginning
of your remarks I appreciate it, and felt with you, and thank
you for that. I want to ask you if I can get to two areas, but
one specifically. We had a special hearing yesterday in
Appropriations, talking about teacher shortages. I believe in
your opening remarks you mentioned something about 350 million
that might help go toward attracting and retaining teachers.
We had a great list of witnesses. Some of the suggestions
that came through were things like the Hawkins Center of
Excellence, providing more support to grow your own programs,
community schools to provide wrap around services, the teach
grants. Could you just give us a little bit of a deep dive on
what you are doing because in Wisconsin you know, we had a
significant drop-off in people applying to our schools of
education post some actions that happened a number of years ago
in the legislature.
In my Madison School District, which has been one of the
most attractive districts for people, it used to be almost
impossible to get in. Now sometimes they are getting two or
three applications for an open position. We have got a real
problem here, and I see it across the district. Love to hear
what you are going to do in this area.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for acknowledging that. First
and foremost we are going to lift the profession and really
honor educators and make sure that we are listening to them as
we reimagine schools. I think you know teacher salary, working
conditions, and teacher voice do matter, and that is what is
going to bring people into the profession, but we have to have
programs that incentivize it.
I am really proud that the budget proposal includes 350
million dollars to improve teacher recruitment and retention.
$132 for teacher quality partnerships, like grow your own
programs, which I really want to see because it takes folks
from the community, gives them training, opportunities to go to
the higher education institutions, and then they go back.
You mentioned the Hawkins Center of Excellence, to increase
the diversity in the teaching profession we want to make sure--
data shows all students benefit when they are instructed by
teachers from different backgrounds. $250 million for IDEA Part
D, which includes additional teachers for our youngest and most
vulnerable students.
I am really proud of this proposal, and the President's
commitment to education. Thank you for the opportunity to speak
on it.
Mr. Pocan. Yes, thank you, and just so you know, respect
was probably the universal word that everyone brought up, and
you know from personal experience I have heard that directly
from teachers, and you know whatever we can do again as you
said, to lift the profession I think is really needed right
now.
The other issue is the Pell Grant increase. I was very
fortunate. I was out with some of my college buddies on Friday
night here in Wisconsin, and we got talking about how at the
University of Wisconsin our tuition was $500.00 a semester. It
is not $500.00 anywhere a semester anymore. Even then we had
student loans. I came from a lower income family, so I had Pell
Grants. I worked throughout. I never took a spring break
because I had to work during that time, so I could pay for
school.
I am glad to not lift that ladder back up from other
people. I think the increase in Pell is really significant. Can
you just talk about that, and the goal that I know many of us
are trying to get to, which is doubling Pell Grants?
Secretary Cardona. Yes. I am happy to. We know, you know,
college affordability is like a runaway train, and we are
trying to put the brakes on that. We are putting in systems to
stop--what I call stop the bleeding right, to make sure that
there is a good return on investment, and I am thankful that we
have our partners in the higher ed field who are locking arms
with us, and working with us, so that is really good.
Pell is the best opportunity to level the playing field to
make education accessible to most students, and you are
absolutely right. Back in 1979, Pell was 80 percent of the cost
of attendance at a 4-year public institution. The Pell Grant
would pretty much cover 80 percent of it.
Today that number is 30 percent. It was 100 percent of
community colleges. Today that is at 52 percent. It is not
enough. We are thankful that we are able to look at Pell as the
equalizer, and we strongly encourage support for Pell. All
students benefit from that, rural communities, urban
communities, you know it is really leveling the playing field.
We are also holding colleges accountable for return on
investment, so it is not one without the other.
Mr. Pocan. Great. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, thank you very
much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from California,
Ms. Steel.
Mrs. Steel. Thank you very much, Chairman Scott and Ranking
Member Dr. Foxx, and thank you, Secretary Cardona, such a long
time hearing today. We have spoken a couple of times about the
Harvard Asian discrimination case, and I would like to submit
for the record a recent amicus brief I led on the Students for
Fair Admissions vs. Harvard and UNC.
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. I am sorry without objection.
[The information of Mrs. Steel follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mrs. Steel. Thank you. Your administration also filed a
brief, the brief said the Harvard admissions intend to treat
every applicant as an individual, yet the current
administration appears to support Harvard and their racially
discriminatory admission policies. Asian American applicants
are routinely rated lower than applicants of other races on
traits like positive personality, likeability, courage,
kindness, and being widely respected.
How is this not discrimination? As a Secretary of Education
is it okay for a university to discriminate against a student
because they are Asian, is that treating each applicant as an
individual?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for that, Representative
Steel. We are firmly in support of providing all students
opportunities and fighting against discrimination. I know we
have staff looking into that specific issue, and I would be
happy to have my staff followup with you on where we are with
that, and kind of the updates, and any information we have on
that. Thank you.
Mrs. Steel. Thank you, very much. Mr. Secretary, how would
you score me on my likeability or courage traits? If you will
give me a low score--you do not have to answer this.
Secretary Cardona. I understand the line of questioning,
and I understand why you are asking it, and I will have my
staff look into it, and provide you an update. I do appreciate
your advocacy on behalf of the students you represent.
Mrs. Steel. Will you commit to require schools that receive
Title IV funding to have fully transparent and easily
accessible admissions policies? Do you agree that if students
are being scored on personality traits, students, their
parents, and the public have the right to know how you use
personally use traits in making admissions decisions.
Secretary Cardona. Yes, parents should know. It should be
very clear how the decisions are being made. That is critically
important. I think you know those are decisions that have to be
looked at too when parents are deciding schools. I am a big
supporter of transparency, clarity around it, and making sure
that universities are able to explain how they select students
for admission.
Mrs. Steel. Mr. Secretary, as a parent, I believe that
school choice is good for my family. The Federal Government
should never create rules that pick winners and losers. The
charter school program allows for additional high-quality
schooling options that close the achievement gap for low-income
families, and I heard at today's hearing that you support
charter schools.
Why are your intentions to limit choice by proposing new
burdensome rules on the charter school program?
Secretary Cardona. We do support high-quality schools,
neighborhood schools, charter schools that are serving
children. As I said before, I have seen great examples of them.
I have highlighted examples of them. I do believe the
proposals, and they are just proposals at this point, are
reasonable. We want to make sure, across the board, not just
with public charters, but all schools, that there is a great
level of transparency and accountability.
We know that in many places our charter schools are places
of innovation, and we would love, and we would encourage
connections between our charter schools, and our neighborhood
schools, but it is not a requirement. We feel they are
reasonable; we are listening to the feedback that we have, and
we are taking that into account as we move forward with
whatever recommendations we are going to put out.
Chairman Scott. Steel, you have got on mute inadvertently.
Mrs. Steel. I yield back the rest of my time to Dr. Foxx.
Chairman Scott. Dr. Foxx, you only have 15 seconds, it is
hard to imagine that you are going to ask a question and get a
response within the next couple of seconds.
Ms. Foxx. Mr. Chairman, and you used up part of those, so I
will yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Mrs. Steel. I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from New York, Mr.
Espaillat.
Mr. Espaillat. Mr. Chairman, can you hear me okay?
Chairman Scott. I can hear you now.
Mr. Espaillat. I wanted to ask the Secretary a question
about EL students (inaudible) that is going to be provided for
English language learners. I know that our efforts are to make
students proficient in English as quickly as possible, but if
we want to be competitive, we must also allow bilingual
students have expertise in dual language. I want to know what
efforts are you making to get there?
Secretary Cardona. Claro que yes. I firmly agree that--and
the research shows that when students are bilingual there are
more opportunities, and the learning actually increases. We
have in the proposal a 1-billion-dollar request for Fiscal Year
2023. It is 244 million over 22 enacted level. I could not
agree with you more.
Looking at language as an asset is critical, and if we are
going to be competitive internationally, being bilingual is a
starting point. In many other countries students are multi-
lingual. They are bilingual or trilingual.
Mr. Espaillat. Okay. My last question.
Secretary Cardona. Yes, okay go ahead.
Mr. Espaillat. My last question is what measures is the
department taking to ensure they have complete and accurate
date for Title I Part D grant recipients.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you. We are working more closely
to make sure we are engaging with our stakeholders, our
recipients of grants and seeing how they are drawing down the
funds looking at best practices, we will continue to do that
moving forward. Happy to followup with your office if there are
specific questions, but oversight of the funds is critical to
them meeting the needs of our students.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Mr.
Secretary.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman
yields back. The other gentleman from New York, Mr. Jacobs.
Mr. Jacobs. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Secretary,
thank you for being here today to talk about many important
issues for our children throughout the United States. I wanted
to ask a couple questions regarding the proposed rule change to
the charter school program.
The section 4307 of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act requires the department to consult administrators,
teachers, and other individuals involved with the operation of
charter schools, and the development of any regulation that
impact charter schools.
Leaders in the charter school community that I talked to
could not identify any members of the community who were
consulted in regard to development of this new proposed rule
change. Could you tell me how your department complied with
4307, which specific individuals or groups were reached out to
in regard to the proposed rule?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for the question. Yes. We
recognize there is some concern about the proposals from some
in the charter community. We can assure you that the process
did take in feedback and comments, and it was the open comment
period that led to our proposed rules. I do not have that
specific information with you--I am happy to have my team
followup with you with very specifics, who was spoken to, and
who we received comments from.
Mr. Jacobs. Okay, thank you because I would be stuck with
the likes of national alliance of public charter schools, which
I would have thought would have been one of the first ones,
they were not contacted. I would say if, you know, I would ask
some consideration if you did in fact not comply with this,
that you might consider pulling back this process and starting
again right.
In regards to the rule itself, one of the proposals in that
rule effectively gives de facto veto power they over charter
school application to a traditional public school district if
it seeks to open. It requires a memorandum of understanding
with the district school. Having been a co-founder of a charter
school in Buffalo, New York, I can tell you that the public
school system works with us, but I do not think they would
choose to if they had to.
They were very comfortable being a monopoly. I think this
is you know, this is really tipping the hand to the traditional
school districts to the special interests kind of involved with
the traditional school districts at the expense of trying to
provide children and families who are desperate for high-
quality choices. I heard in your recent answer that it was a
reasonable proposal.
I just beg to differ that it is not reasonable, and it is
kind of a backdoor way, in my mind, of crushing innovation in
charter schools.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you. If I could comment on that is
that okay?
Mr. Jacobs. Yes, please.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you. I appreciate your
perspective, No. 1, having experience with charter schools and
seeing the benefits that they provide students. I think there
is a lot of misinformation out there, and that is why it is
really important No. 1, that I communicate that these were
proposals. They are not rules yet.
The word was encourage, not require. I hear what you are
saying, and I understand that some community schools or
neighborhood schools are not, are the reasons why maybe the
partnership will not happen. I have heard from charter school
leaders saying hey, even if we wanted to, maybe the school
would not want to. We would not want to hold that against our
charters, but we do know that in many cases there is a lot to
be learned when schools will work together.
It was an encouragement, and again these are proposed
rules, we have not completed, but I do appreciate your
perspective on it.
Mr. Jacobs. Okay. I also served on the Buffalo School Board
for 7 years, and I do believe the challenge and innovation that
came out, and the competition that came out by the charter
school movement in our city actually improved the Buffalo
schools, made us up our game. We have collaborated, but a sign-
off, or a requirement that there is no vacancies in the public
school system, if that was a hard and fast rule it would be
detrimental because typically the vacancies in our schools that
kids do not want to attend.
Anyway, thank you for your time, and I yield back.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, and I agree with you on that
last point.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. Are there other members that
wish to be recognized? If not, I will recognize myself for 5
minutes. Mr. Secretary, we heard a suggestion that democrats
support ``defund the police.'' Just for the record I would want
to point out that I am not aware of any meaningful number of
democrats that support defund the police.
Nobody in leadership, no committee chairs. A handful of
members apparently do support that, but it is the suggestion
that democrats support defund the police is not accurate. There
is on--let me ask you a question on Robb Elementary School.
Were school resource police officers assigned to Robb
Elementary, are you aware?
Secretary Cardona. Sir, I know there are conflicting
reports on whether or not there were officers present. I really
do not feel like I have the most up to date information.
Chairman Scott. Okay. Well the evidence I have seen on the
effectiveness of school resource officers are that whatever
value they have could be provided by counselors, not police
officers, or the presence of police, tend to add to the school
to prison pipeline, so if you could provide for the record
studies that show the effectiveness of school resource
officers, I would like to see it.
The other is, just clarify, there is a little uncertainty
of support for vouchers and public school or private school
charters. Could you State whether or not you support private
school vouchers, and private charters, or whether that support
is confined to the public system overseen by the school boards?
Secretary Cardona. Thank you for this opportunity. Without
question, you know, as a parent there might be--for example I
went to a technical high school. Those are public school
options that I had. I do not support Federal dollars for
voucher programs that leave a system gutted, so that we have
other options and not take care of our neighborhood schools.
The overwhelming majority of parents want to choose their
neighborhood school, but I do believe choices within the public
school options are healthy for families.
Chairman Scott. Okay, thank you. Are you aware of threats
to the lives of school board members?
Secretary Cardona. I am not aware of any current threats to
school board members.
Chairman Scott. In some of the meetings where school board
members have to be escorted into the school board meetings by
police protection?
Secretary Cardona. I have seen examples of that over the
last year.
Chairman Scott. Can you say what your budget does for CTE,
career technical education, you mentioned?
Secretary Cardona. Happy to do so. Let me just--I will talk
about the budget proposal, which is 183 million dollar increase
over the 22 enacted level. I want to talk more globally that
this has to be a big part of how we reimagine schools. Career
and Technical Education has often been pushed aside, and it is
a 4-years or bust mentality.
We need to change that. We are going to change the culture
of that. We are going to create better pathways in our schools.
This is a bipartisan issue. Every State that I visited is
working on this, but we have pockets of excellence sir, and we
want to make sure that states have access to great programs,
funding to make sure that the connection with the employers is
there, and that we can support good Career Technical Education
in our schools.
Chairman Scott. Can you say a word about how important it
is for states and districts to collect data, so we can know
which students to help? How we can deal with the achievement
gaps?
Secretary Cardona. Sure. Data collection, in particular
after the pandemic, it is critically important. We know
everyone was affected by the pandemic, but not everyone was
affected equally. In order for us to utilize the resources of
the American Rescue Plan for the next couple years, we have to
know which students were impacted the greatest, and the funds
need to make sure that we're addressing the inequities that
were made worse during the pandemic.
Collecting data not only on student outcomes and
achievement, but also on their ability to learn. Are they
coming to school? Do they have other issues at home? Are they
in need of support, additionally, from academics, to make it
more possible to move forward?
Chairman Scott. That data is required under the Every
Student Succeeds Act.
Secretary Cardona. Yes, it is.
Chairman Scott. Finally, what are you doing to deal with
the fact that the public schools now are segregated now as they
were in the 1960's?
Secretary Cardona. We are promoting and supporting programs
that are aimed at removing those racial isolation, racial
barrier between schools, promoting magnet programs that make
integration of students a core tenant of their school's
programming, and we're going to continue to do that.
We are also going to make sure that we recognize, and we
work with our stakeholders that are not education stakeholders,
to look at housing patterns that also impact where students
attend schools. Students are investing in diverse communities,
and it is really important that we promote that as a positive
thing.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. My time has expired. There being
no other members seeking recognition we will say that pursuant
to committee practice, materials for submission to the hearing
record must be submitted to the committee clerk within 14 days
following the last day of the hearing.
That means by close of business June 9, preferably in
Microsoft Word format. Only a member of the committee or an
invited witness may submit materials for inclusion in the
hearing record, and the materials must address the subject
matter of the hearing. Please submit materials to the clerk
electronically by emailing submission to
[email protected].
Again, I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for
participating.
Ms. Foxx. Mr. Chairman, will we have closing statements?
Chairman Scott. Yes.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. Again, I want to thank the Secretary for
his participation today, members of the committee will have
some additional questions for you, and we ask that you please
respond to those questions in writing. The hearing record will
be held open for 14 days in order to receive those responses.
I remind my colleagues that pursuant to committee practice,
witness questions for the hearing must be submitted to the
majority committee staff or committee clerk within 7 days. The
questions submitted must address the subject matter of the
hearing. I now recognize the Ranking Member for her closing
statement.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Pardon me, I appreciate
the Secretary being here today. I particularly appreciated his
comments about reimaging the schools to include pathways to
careers. As the Secretary knows, he and I have spoken several
times about his background, the fact that he has a technical
background I think gives him great background for what he has
done--for what he could do as the Secretary, and I appreciate
that very much.
If you are going to reimagine schools that way, I think you
give some comfort to parents, but if you are reimaging schools
in other ways, I think that is a great concern. One way I am
concerned about the possibility of reimaging schools is what
might happen with Title IX.
We did not talk very much about Title IX, but I think, Mr.
Secretary, you know this topic is generating intense interest
across the country on all sides of the issue. I know my
constituents are concerned that your actions are going to
subject their sons or daughters to potentially life altering
and irreversible medical procedures without any parental
involvement.
We worry that that is one of the ways you are going to
reimagine schools and what the schools are doing. I am going to
ask you to commit, and I know you cannot answer questions in my
closing comments, but ask you to commit, to personally briefing
both the republicans and the democrats on the committee on any
proposal which you put forward on Title IX to reassure us that
this was not one of the ways you are going to be reimaging the
schools.
Mr. Secretary, I was very interested in the way you talked
about having honesty and transparency coming from colleges and
universities and from charter schools, and you've asked us to
work with you. Mr. Secretary, we want that same kind of honesty
and transparency from the department and accountability.
What we see happening is that the department is pushing
through illegal shifting of responsibility from the person who
took out the loan for college to hard-working taxpayers who did
not get an advantage of even attempting to get a degree. Mr.
Good questioned you about who do you think should be paying for
those college debts.
He never got an answer from you. Well, the term forgiveness
is just a euphemism for pushing off from the person who assumed
the debt to taxpayers. That is what it is. Let us call a spade
a spade here. Forgiveness means you do not pay back your loan,
and the public eats that loan.
You talked about, again, transparency and accountability on
admissions. Well, let us be a supporter of accountability and
transparency everywhere, not just for certain segments of
education, but for all segments of education. Most importantly,
Mr. Secretary, we need transparency and accountability from the
Department of Education.
We are not getting that right now. We cannot get straight
answers from you, so we are having to turn to other agencies
like the GAO to get information you already have in your
possession, but you refuse to give us. As I have said to you,
Mr. Secretary, I think you have the capability of being as good
a Secretary of Education than any person who has ever been in
that position.
However, I do not believe you are living up to your
potential. It may be that you do not have the authority to do
what you need to do, but you are in the position, and you
should be held accountable for providing that information from
the people who report to you. We want to work with you, Mr.
Secretary. I have told you that from the very beginning, but I
cannot work with somebody who hides what it is that he is
doing.
I looked up a quote a few minutes ago to see the issue of
truth and silence. I do not know where this quote came from, I
will find it--the source because I am big on sources. The
source, when I went to Google--it is the name of--the person is
Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
When truth is replaced by silence, then silence is a lie.
We cannot trust that we are getting the information that we
should be getting in our role in oversight. When we get silence
back, our assumption is that you are not giving us the
information because there is something you are hiding, Mr.
Secretary.
Remove that feeling from us, Mr. Secretary. Give us the
information that you have, so that we do not believe that
silence means there is a lie there, or something you want to
hide. That should not happen in our government. The public is
getting more and more distrustful of our government. That is
not healthy for a republic, and we want you to help us keep
that distrust from occurring.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to make a closing
statement, and I look forward to getting the information we are
requesting, Mr. Secretary. God bless you.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. I now recognize myself for the
purpose of making a closing statement. I want to thank you
again, Mr. Secretary, for being with us today. Today we
reflected on the administration's work to expand access to
high-quality education--K through 12 and higher education--and
help students recover from the pandemic and succeed.
Notably, the Department of Education has helped reopen the
schools to fulltime in-person learning safely. They have helped
address persistent educational disparities to ensure that our
student loan program can deliver on its promise to students.
Simply put, the Department of Education has taken historic
steps to get us back on the right track; however, we know that
a lot more needs to be done in the future to improve the lives
of our students, educators and communities.
Mr. Secretary, I look forward to working with you as we
deliver on the promise of education to ensure that every
student in America can reach his or her full potential, so
thank you again for your time, and again we look forward to
working with you. If there is no further business to come
before the committee, the committee now stands adjourned.
Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Chair.
[Whereupon, at 3:52 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]
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