[inaudible] i would like to introduce tommy diaz. Tommy is a resident of downey, california. His educational aspirations are to earn a masters [inaudible] him for coming here to help ensure [inaudible] particularly efforts [inaudible] the bluethe one with around him. Stand up real quick. [applause] madam secretary, you have one of the most important jobs in washington, making young people have access to what they need to be successful in coming decades. Quite frankly, it is a cause you have dedicated her life to. Some schools are in need of support and significant reform. Is fact remains and that that we need to do the right thing for all of americas children and your job is to ensure that happens. The budget blueprint that came out in march was further detailed yesterday and proposes some dramatic shifts in the way your agency does business. It has a goal of Opening Doors for more educational choices the families, whether they be Public Schools, Charter Schools or private schools. I applaud your investment and highquality Charter Schools as a way to give options to many students who have had no options in the past. I support highquality education options for all students. I believe the neediest among us have the most to gain from an excellent education. I have long supported programs that have helped level the Playing Field for indian children, disabled children, firstgeneration College Students and poor children. I think that is a Common Objective on this committee. Today i will have some questions about how your School Choice proposals would work and how they would mesh with the reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act that was completed over a year ago and was nearly a decade in the making. I appreciate your budget aims to protect the most vulnerable populations, students with disabilities, english language learners and minority serving institutions. It is unfortunate the timing of the consolidated appropriations bill and the production of the full budget coincided such that the final fiscal 2017 your budget figures were not known at the time your funding proposal decisions were finalized. I understand that makes apparent , that sometimes makes cuts appear where there were not intended to be cuts at all. In many cases it is obvious the policy of your administration was to maintain current funding for programs. The congress increased funding after a particular program sometimes after the facts, such that your proposal would appear to be a cut when that was not the intention at all. We simply need to carefully explain ourselves when discussing proposed increases and decreases. Your budget shifts the way Higher EducationStudent Financial assistance flows by proposing dramatic changes in scog and college workstudy programs. I look forward to learning more about how you believe these will increase Student Access to and completion of college programs. Your budget consolidates and proposes over 20 programs for elimination. Many of these are cited as being duplicate, ineffective or not a key federal mission. I look forward to discussing those. Your budget proposes cuts, which i would advise you, i have a different point of view on. I will be interested in discussing this with you and learning your rationale. I have questions about your proposed funding levels for individuals with disabilities, particularly in light of the recent Supreme Court decision that found schools must provide a meaningful education opportunity to all children with disabilities and not just the bare minimum level of services. I want to commend you for making a special effort to protect these populations. Ultimately the subcommittee needs to know the specific details of how your cuts impact schools and students, and how new programs would be implemented. The budget provides some of the details. I know some are being developed, but we look forward to hearing what you are able to share with us today. As a reminder, our subcommittee and witnesses will abide by the fiveminute rule so everyone will have a chance to get their questions asked and answered. We have both the big chairman and the Ranking Member here, so i will move next to my thinking but wey Ranking Member, will be calling on them for whatever remarks they care to make. The gentlelady from connecticut. I want to welcome the secretary. I will take one second if i will because like my colleague, i too ise a young woman who shadowing me today from the city of new haven, connecticut. Programart of the dealing with foster children and making it through the system, which they both have. I want to welcome her. Thank you, christina. [applause] rep. Delauro again, thank you secretary devos for joining us and i offer my congratulations to you. But let me launch right in. We spoke recently. I believe proposals contained in president trumps budget are alarming, and quite frankly this puts us on a path towards the privatization of Public Education. This budget intends to shift Public School funding and to advance an agenda that transfers taxpayer dollars out of local community schools. Education is the great equalizer in our country. At the signing ceremony for the original elementary and secondary education act, president Lyndon Johnson described education as the only valid passport out of poverty. Decade later, he is still right. The economic benefits are indisputable. That is why our government must be committed to providing every child with access to highquality, Public Education. We need to focus on policies on strengthening Public Schools, reducing class sizes, supporting the teaching profession, providing more one on one attention, boosting student enrichment opportunities, supporting parental involvement, and making highquality preschool available to all. We have an achievement gap in this country. It is worse in high poverty areas. Both urban and rural. Yet these are the very areas we will starve with this budget. I know a concerted effort to help students of color, lowincome students make gains since the department of education was created. Reading and math scores have improved. I wont go into it, but later in the hearing, i will read you the success percentages of our students. At the same time, economic inequality, hide poverty districts receive less funding. Their students are more likely to be taught by novice teachers and less likely to take an ap course, for which they have shown potential. 90 of our kids are in Public Schools. We need more resources to help them succeed. You cant do more with less. You do less with less. We should not be siphoning off taxpayer dollars to pay for vouchers. Vouchers will destabilize not only our schools, but our communities. I will fight it every step against any attempt to take public money away from Public Schools. Cutting funding for critical programs to increase federal investments in Charter Schools also raises public accountability questions. I support Charter Schools, but i do not believe that they should supplant Public Education system. Transferring limited resources from Public Schools to private schools is wrong. It creates a false choice for families. When congress completed the bipartisan reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education 2015, it soundly rejected efforts to decimate neighborhood schools. We expect the administration to implement the new law as written. The trump budget request includes 1. 4 billion in new funding to expand socalled choice. At the same time, the budget puts 9. 2 billion in cuts on the table, slashing or eliminating programs that help kids in Public Schools to help pay for this illconceived proposal. Despite budget documents and rhetoric claiming it maintains funding for core formula Grant Programs, it cuts 578 million from title i and 114 million from idea. The budget also eliminates 1. 2 billion for afterschool enrichment programs that help keep nearly 2 million kids safe, 2 billion for Teacher Professional Development and classsize reduction, which would result in more than 7000 teachers losing their jobs. Literacy is a mark of a civilized society. We spend money to spread literacy internationally, yet we are eliminating 190 million from the largest Reading Program for lowincome children and youth, and 96 million from grants that help low skilled adults become literate. Despite promises of the administration the champion the american worker, the budget slashes funding by 15 for career and Technical Education programs that help prepare high school and Community College for in demand jobs. The list goes on and on. The budget proposes deep cuts or programs thatf help students access Higher Education. That has enjoyed bipartisan support on the subcommittee for many years. 15 cut to trio, Academic Support Services for more than 130,000 College Students. 50 cut to work study, which would punish thousands of students working their way through college. The complete elimination of both the supplemental education opportunity grant that 1. 5 Million Students rely on. Grants that allow schools to tailor programs to Student Needs and the strengthening institutions program, which helps nearly 200 Community Colleges and other institutions serve workingclass students. The budget calls for an end to Public Service on forgiveness, police officers, teachers, nurses and raids 4 billion from pell without helping students access the Economic Freedom they deserve, such as increasing the maximum pell award. Those in the administration claim to support historically black colleges and universities, but ignore the fact these Budget Proposals would harm the very programs that hbcus and their students rely on. I want to be clear. A frought and painful history of segregation in this country. Hbcus were not the product of School Choice. They were the product of the nations racist segregation. Aside from your budget, i have questions about how you plan to protect students from low quality, high debt for profit colleges. These companies prey on lowincome students, students of color, and the honorable men and women who served in the armed military and sacrificed her life for this country. Students at forprofits represent only about one in 10 of the total Higher Education population, yet they represent more than 1 3 of all federal student loan defaults, calling into question the quality and value of education provided by this sector. Gainful employment regulations are critically important steps in reining in these abuses. Thats why im alarmed that one of your first actions as secretary was to delay the gainful employment rule. Failure to fully implement this regulation will not only hurt students, it would be expensive. The Congressional Budget Office estimated a 1. 3 billion cost over 10 years to taxpayers. President george h. W. Bush once said, think of every problem, every challenge we face. The solution to each start with education. We owe it to the future of our society to make a commitment to all of our children. That they get the best start in life as possible. And that cannot happen if we make misguided cuts to education. I look forward to a robust discussion today and i thank you for being here. I thank the gentlelady. We are privileged to have the distinguished chairman and full committee here today. Chairman, we would love to hear whatever opening the market decide. Thank you, chairman cole. We look forward to your testimony and hearing your frank and candid views on any number of issues. Todays hearing is an important part of oversight duties of this committee. Now that we have formally received the administrations budget request, the committee will undertake a thorough analysis of each and every budget. We look at each and every budget line, question every witness, and demand critical spending justifications and only then will make our own determination on the best use of tax dollars. We intend to put forward a complete set of bills that adequately Fund Important program, while working to eliminate waste and duplication. I will work with chairman cole, the Ranking Member, in the coming weeks and months to complete the fiscal year 2018 appropriations bills. Today is part of a process. We determine the best use of taxpayer dollars. After all, the power of the purse lies in this building. It is the constitutional duty of congress to make spending decisions on behalf of the people that we represent at home. We owe it to our young people to would sure they have access to the best education possible in your department is vital in keeping that promise. Many programs administer by the department of education like pell grants and those established by the individuals with disabilities act, idea, ensure young people receive a quality education. I have visited many wonderful schools in my district in new jersey, some of the best in the nation. I hear from students, teachers, and parents on a range of issues. In middle schools and high schools, i often hear about the benefits of a wellrounded , supported by the every Student Succeeds at. It allows students to pursue interests in the arts, music, physical education, as well as Stem Education and english. In colleges and universities in my district many students remind me they would not have the opportunity to attend without programs like pell and federal work study. I am eager to hear how your department would ensure for the students with proposed reductions, including the elimination of supplemental Educational Opportunity grants. We further these goals by ensuring the next generation of teachers have access to quality Higher Education and the necessary tools in their careers. We need to work as we have in the past, in a bipartisan way to ensure every child in america is welleducated. In conclusion, met in chairman, i welcome you. I look forward to working with you and this committee to make sure we have the best possible legislation possible. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We are quite fortunate to have the full committee. Chairman to thank cole. It is good to have my partner here. Always good to have my friend, congresswoman delauro here. Thank you both for holding this hearing. I am very pleased to welcome secretary devos before this subcommittee for the first time. Madam secretary, i will get right to it. I believe that your Budget Proposal would do great harm to students in every facet of education, from kindergarten through graduate school. And for those with a student years beyond. It is another example of the broken promises in the trump budget that would harm hardworking americans and set us back in preparing a 21st century workforce. To me, this budget reflects the not represent the majority of people in my district and people throughout the country. Your budget would cut 9. 2 billion from the department of education, a cut of 13. 6 , taking us back to 2002 levels. It would siphon money from Public Schools to pay for private school vouchers, eliminate more than 22 education investments, including teacher training, afterschool programs, leaving 1. 6 million children without a safe enrichment environment. I want to say that has always been one of my favorite programs because if you can convince people they are enriching their children, at least they are keeping them safe while their parents are both working. It would make Higher Education more expensive by cutting federal work study in half, eliminating perkins loans for many of these students, preventing inflationary increase with pell grants, dropping surplus, ending Public Service loan forgiveness and more. In my district, rockland Community College is currently taking part in a department of Education Initiative that provides childcare for lowincome parents taking college courses. Allowing students to earn a degree and enter the workforce more quickly with less debt. Your budget would eliminate this program, destroying the dreams of these hardworking people who are trying to build a better life for themselves and their children. And i hope, by the way, before this budget is completed you would come to the district, meet these families, meet these parents who are working jobs, going back to school so they can have a positive, bright future. This budget reflects the views of an administration filled with people who frankly never had to worry about how they were going to pay for their children going to college. And yet, i am most upset that this budget would undermine our Public Education system and the working families who depend on them by reallocating funding for disadvantaged students, including the pell surplus entitlement funding to private school vouchers. Study after study shows these vouchers go to famil