With massachusetts representative Catherine Clark at a house appropriation subcommittee hearing on the 2017 Education Department budget. Now that hearing in its entirety. Good to have you here, madam secretary. Before we begin formally i want to recognize miss allard for the purposes of introduction. I would like to introduce tommy a former foster care youth for the congressional foster youth shadow day. Tommy is a resident of downey, california, in my district. His educational aspirations are to earn a masters in architecture and have a career in design i just want to thank him for coming to d. C. To help ensure that the our youth are involved in child welfare. His efforts to support the wellbeing, talent and educational aspirations of every child involved in foster care and tommy is the one with the blue around him. Why dont you stand up real quick. Yeah, stand up. There he is. Good morning, madam secretary. Its genuinely my pleasure to welcome you here to the subcommittee on labor health and Human Services an education. Were looking forward to hearing your testimony. Madam secretary, you have one of the most important jobs in washington and thats ensuring that all young people will have access to the education they need to be successful in coming decades. I know its a cause that youve devoted occur life to quite seflessly. Many of our schools do fantastic jobs. Some need some support and others are in need of significant improvement and reform. But one fact remains. And thats we need to do the right thing for all americas children and your job is to ensure that 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 to families whether those schools be regular public excuse, Charter Schools or private schools. I applaud your investment in high quality Charter Schools as a way to give options to many students who have had no options in the past. I support high quality education options for all students and i believe the neediest among us have the most to gain from an excellent education. Ive long supported programs that help level the Playing Field for indian children, disabled, first generation and poor children. Thats a Common Objective on this committee. Today ill have questions how your School Choice proposals would work and mesh with the reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act that was just completed over a year ago and was nearly a decade in the making. I also appreciate that your budget aims to protect the most vulnerable populations, students with disabilities, english language learners and minority serving institutions. Itsen fortunate the timing of the final consolidated an appropriations bill and the production of the full budget coincided such that the final fiscal 2017 year budget figures were not known at the time your funding proposal decisions were finalized. I understand that makes makes sometimes cuts appear that frankly were not intended to be cuts at all. In many cases, its obvious that the policy of your administration was to maintain current funding for programs, but congress increased funding after for particular programs sometimes after the fact such that your proposal would appear to be a cut when in fact that was not the intention at all. We need 0 carefully explain ourselves when discussing proposed increases and decreases today. Your budget also shifts the way Higher EducationStudent Financial assistant flows by proposing dramatic changes in seog and College Work Study programs. I look forward to learning more about how you believe these reforms 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 and effective or not a key federal mission. I look forward to discussing those and your budget also proposes cuts in trio and gearup which frankly il advise you, i have a different point of view on. But ill be interested in discussing this with you and learning your rationale. Ill also have questions about your proposed funding levels for individuals with disabilities particularly in light of the recent Supreme Court decision which found that schools must provide a meaningful Educational Opportunity to all children with disabilities and not just a bare minimum of services. I want to commend you for making a special effort to protected these populations in your budget. The subcommittee needs to know the specific details how your cuts impact schools and students and how new programs would be implemented. The budget provides some of these details and i know some are still being develop bud we look forward to hearing what youre able to share with us today. As a reminder the subcommittee and our witnesses will abide by the fiveminute rule so that everyone will have a chance to get their questions asked and answered. Obviously we have both the big chairman and the Ranking Member here. So im going to move next to my Ranking Member but well certainly be calling on them for whatever remarks they want to make. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I want to welcome the secretary. I will take one second because like my colleague, congresswoman, i too have a young woman shadowing me today justina rosario who is part of the program dealing with foster children and making it through the system which they both have. So i want to welcome her. Thank you, justina. Again, thank you, secretary devos, for joining us today and offer my congratulations to you. But let me launch right in as we spoke about recently. I believe the 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. Decades later hes still right. The economic benefits that accrue to the individual and society are induce putable. Thats why our government must be committed to providing every chide with access to high quality Public Education. We need to focus on policies on strengthening Public Schools, reducing class sizes, supporting the teaching profession, providing more oneonone attention, boosting student enrichment opportunities, supporting parental involvement and making high quality preschool available to all. We have an aachievement gap in this country and it is worst in high poverty areas both urban and rural. Yet, these are the very areas we would starve with this budget. I know the that a concerted federal investment has helped students of it color and low income students make gains since the department of education was created. Reading and math scores have improved. I wont go into it now but later in the hearing, to readed you the success percentages of our students with the sxorpz at the same time, economic inequities grew, high poverty districts receive less funding. Their students are more likely to be taught by novice teachers and less likely to take an a. P. 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 certainly should not be siphoning off taxpayer dollars to pay for crouchers. Vouchers in my view will destabilize not only our schools but our communities and i will fight it 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 a 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 in 2015, it soundly rejected efforts to decimate neighborhood schools. And we expect the administration to implement the new law as written. The trump budget request includes 1. 4 billion in new funding to expand panned socalled choice. At the same time, the budget puts 9. 2 billion in cuts on the table. Slashing or eliminating funding for many programs that benefit kids in Public Schools to pay for this ill conceived proposal. Despite budget documents and rhetoric claiming that maintain funding for core formula Grant Programs, it cuts 578 million from title 1 and 114 million from idea. The budget also eliminates 1. 2 billion for after School Enrichment programs that help keep nearly 2 million kids safe. 2 billion for teacher of professional development and class size reductions which would rumt in more than 7,000 teaches losing their jobs. Literacy is a mark of a civilized society. We spend money to spread literate sit internationally, yet we are eliminating 190 million from the largest Reading Program for low income children and youth and 96 million from grants that help low skilled adults become literate. Despite props by the administration to champion the american worker, the budget slashes funding by 15 for career and Technical Education programs that help prepare high school and Community College students for in demand jobs. The list goes on and on. The budget also proposes deep cuts to or eliminate nations of programs that help students access and succeed in Higher Education. That have enjoyed by partisan support and bipartisan support on this subcommittee for many years. 15 cut to trio which would end 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. Complete elimination of both the supplemental education opportunity grants that 1. 5 Million Students rely on, grants that allow schools to tailor programs to students needs and the strengthening Institutions Program that helps nearly 200 Community Colleges and other institutions serve working class students. The budget calls for an end to Public Service loan forgiveness, for police officers, teachers, nurses, and raids 4 billion from pell without taking steps to help 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 universitieses but ignore the fact that these Budget Proposals would harm the very programs that hbcus and their students rely on. I want to be clear. Fraught and painful history of segregation in this country, hbcus were not the product of School Choice. They were a product of our nations racist segregation. Aside from your budget, i have questions about how you plan to protect sounds from low quality high debt for profit colleges. These companies prey on low income students, students of color and the honorable men and women who serve in our military and sacrifice their lives for this country. Students at for profits represent only about one in ten of the total Higher Education population, yet, they represent more than a third of all federal student loan defaults calling into question the quality and the value of education provided by this sector. The borrower defense and gainful employment regulations are critically important steps in reigning in these abuses. Thats why i am an 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 ten years to taxpayers. President george h. W. Bush once said and i quote, think of every problem every challenge we face. The solution to each starts 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 and i thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank the gentle lady. Were privileged to have the distinguished chairman of the full committee today. Chairman, we would love to hear whatever opening remarks you care to make. Thank you, chairman cole. Welcome, madam sect devos to the appropriations committee. We look forward to hearing your frank and candid views on any number of issues. Todays hearing is an important part of the oversight duties of this committee. Now that weve formally received the administrations budget request, the committee will the undertake a thorough analysis of each and every budget will go through each and every budget line, question every witness, and demand credible spending justifications and only then will we make our own determinations on the best use of those tax dollars. We intend to put forward a complete set of Appropriations Bills that adequately Fund Important programs while working to reduce eliminate waste and duplication. I will work with miss lowie, chairman cole, Ranking Member delauro to move rapidly in thing weeks and months to complete the fiscal year 2018 bills. Todays hearing is part of a process we follow to determine the best use of taxpayers 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 we represent at home. We owe it to our young people to ensure that they have access to the best education possible and your department is vital in keeping that promise. Many programs administered by the department of education like pell grants and those established by the individuals with disabilities act idea ensure young people receive a quality shakes. I visit many wonderful schools in my district new jersey, some of the best in the nation throughout the school year and to hear from opportunities, teachers and parents on a range of issues. In middle schools and high schools, i often hear about the benefits of a wellrounded education inspired by every Student Succeeds act which allows students to pursue interests in the arts, music and physical education as well as s. T. E. M. Education and english. In colleges and universities in my district, many students remind me that they would not have the opportunity to attend without programs like pell and federal work study. Im eager to hear how your department will ensure opportunity for these students under proposed reductions including the elimination of supplemental education opportunity grants. Further, these goals can only be met by ensure 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 that every child in america is well educated. In conclusion, madam 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. And again, were very fortunate to have my good friend from new york is recognized for whatever remarks she cares to make. I want to thank chairman cole. Its good to have chairman freeing haasen here, my partner and always good to have my friend, congresswoman delauro here. Thank you both for holding this hear. Im very pleased to welcome secretary devos before this subcommittee for the first time. Mad dap 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 student loan debt, years beyond. It is just 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 vi views that do 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 2,002 levels. It would siphon money from Public Schools to pay for private school vouchers, eliminate more than 22 education investments including teacher training, after School 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 cant convince people that theyre enriching their children, at least theyre keeping them safe w