Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey (D-NY), Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee's hearing on the Department of Education's fiscal year 2020 budget request:
I thank Chairwoman DeLauro and Ranking Member Cole for holding this hearing and welcome Secretary DeVos before the subcommittee.
We are not far into appropriations hearing season, but I’m already tired of hearing about the Administration’s so-called tough choices. Secretary DeVos, your budget request does not reflect the reality in classrooms across the country, and if enacted, would cause irreparable, structural damage to communities across the nation.
Since you’ve taken over as Education Secretary, children continue to be at risk of gun violence in their classrooms, sexual assault continues to climb on college campuses, and student debt dictates almost every college graduate’s professional choices. Yet in your testimony, you criticize a Republican controlled Congress for increasing your agency’s resources.
This budget relies on anecdotal evidence and false concepts that you call “choice" and “freedom." You propose complete elimination of 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which would leave more than 87,000 New York students without safe, high quality afterschool enrichment, and significant cuts to K-12 funding and even the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults.
While gutting these investments, the Administration’s budget calls for a new tax credit to support private school vouchers, even though many of these schools are unequipped to accommodate students with disabilities and English Language Learners.
Not only do you ignore racial and socioeconomic disparities in our education system, you propose policies proven to increase the divide. By cutting Minority Science and Engineering Improvement by $1.5 million and the Child Care Access Means Parents In School program by 70 percent, your budget would actually decrease the diversity of STEM fields and exclude parents with financial need from access to a higher education.
You propose an increase of $105 million for School Safety National Activities with the hopes of implementing safety practices that are proven to make schools less safe.
The Department of Education’s budget request is just another example of this administration’s disregard for facts and disconnect from reality. With this budget request, I’m receiving President Trump’s message loud and clear: fund the wall with money from our children’s schools.
I hope your testimony and response to our questions will address these deep concerns.
Source: U.S. Department of HCA
