Senator Sherrod Brown

Education

Investing in our education system is essential to ensuring Ohio’s future. By investing in Ohio’s youth and young people from all over the nation, we prepare and help produce the leaders of tomorrow. For many, a quality education is a path out of poverty and disenfranchisement. I am committed to providing every American with the opportunity to receive a quality education, from pre-kindergarten to college or vocational school to job training programs.

Early Childhood Education

Providing students with the right start in school has been shown to improve their academic performance later in life. This is why I strongly support early childhood education and the Head Start program.

Head Start serves children and their families through education, health care, nutrition, social and emotional development, literacy, social services and parental involvement opportunities. These services help children in the most challenging life circumstances enter kindergarten ready to learn.

In Ohio, Head Start provides tens of thousands of children with a safe learning environment, while encouraging parents to be involved in their children's education. Congress recently enacted the Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act, which expands eligibility for Head Start programs and extends its funding through 2012. I was proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I will continue to work with my colleagues to expand early childhood education programs and ensure Head Start programs receive the funding and support they need. By giving our children an early start we can give them the best opportunity to learn and be successful in life.

Elementary and Secondary Education

Seven years ago, Congress made a promise to improve the quality of education for all children in America with The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Enacted in 2001, it added important accountability provisions to our education laws and required states to set clear timelines for improving student achievement. Unfortunately, the necessary resources have yet to be allocated to ensure NCLB’s success. The 2009 budget proposed by the President would underfund the No Child Left Behind Act by $13.5 billion. This would create a cumulative shortfall of $84.4 billion since NCLB was enacted into law.

In Ohio, there are nearly 700 schools designated as being in need of improvement and required under the law to take corrective action. States and schools must be given the federal resources and technical assistance they need so they can properly implement the requirements of NCLB. Student learning and achievment must be measured by more than standardized tests which can create perverse incentives in the classroom. Additionally when holding schools and districts accountable, the law must take into account and give credit for student growth at all levels of achievement and provide positive supports if a school or district is not measuring up.

Since coming to the Senate, I have worked for meaningful reform of NCLB to add fairness to the process by which student progress and schools are measured, direct resources to where they are needed most, and add a greater degree of flexibility to the teacher certification process. I will continue to fight for full funding of NCLB and for every child in America who deserves a quality education.

Higher Education

The cost of college has skyrocketed in recent years – doubling since 1980 and rising faster than inflation for 20 consecutive years. College tuition has risen faster than the price of any other consumer item, including health care. In Ohio, between the years 2001 and 2007, tuition and fees increased 67% at public universities and 54% at two-year public institutions. As a result, students are saddled with an average debt of $20,000. In addition, the purchasing power of the Pell Grant for low-income students has dropped dramatically and students and families are finding it harder to figure out a way to attend college.

As a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, I am dedicated to making sure college is affordable for all Ohioans. I will continue to fight to ensure that increased affordability is the focus of any Congressional action on higher education.

Private Student Loan Reform

With the price tag for four years of college exceeding $120,000 for some private schools and $50,000 for public schools, students are increasingly turning to private loans to pay for tuition. These loans can carry interest rates between 12% – 18% and are placing unreasonable burdens on young people.
Students should not be required to mortgage their future in exchange for a college education. Last year I introduced a bill to create a Federal Supplemental Loan program that would offer students an alternative to high interest rate private loans and save them millions of dollars. I will continue to pursue this and other measures to ensure college is affordable for all Ohioans.

Higher Education Act Reauthorization

Congress recently passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which reauthorized many higher education programs and took steps to address the rising cost of college. By requiring colleges to disclose more information on cost and increasing Pell grants, this legislation increases transparency and enables more low-income students to obtain higher education. In addition, the legislation provides added protections for service members, cleans up the student lending industry, and simplifies the financial aid process.

I was proud to be an original cosponsor of this legislation. In addition to the reforms above, the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 also includes key elements of legislation I introduced after hearing from Ohioans. This legislation provides assistance to students by:

Improving Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators

Providing students with the right start in school has been shown to increase their academic performance later in life. Yet, the coordination for professional development and training of early childhood educators has been fragmented, sporadic, and insufficient. To combat this problem, I introduced the Early Childhood Education Professional Development and Career System Grants Act, which would provide grants to states seeking to improve their early childhood professional development and career systems. Specifically, a state receiving a grant would establish a task force comprised of various early childhood stakeholders to design a comprehensive plan for creating a coherent system of early childhood professional development.

Increasing Assistance to Student Veterans

In late 2007, I conducted a roundtable at the Louis Stokes VA Hospital in Cleveland where I heard directly from student veterans about their experiences transitioning from the battlefield to the classroom. Many students spoke about the difficulty acclimating back to classes, finding housing, and securing financial aid. In response, I introduced the Supporting Education for Returning Veterans (SERV) Act to provide student veterans with the support they need to succeed in higher education. Modeled after a program at Cleveland State University, the SERV Act creates a grant program to provide schools with funds to establish campus Centers of Excellence for Veteran Student Success to serve as a single point of contact for veteran student support.

In addition to the unique challenges many student veterans face transitioning back to the classroom, many others have their academic career interrupted by deployments. When soldiers head off to war, they need to know they will be given the time and support they need without falling unnecessarily behind academically or financially when they return to their normal lives as college students. To ensure student veterans receive the support they need, I introduced the Veterans Education Tuition Support (VETS) Act. This legislation extends the time period before returning service members must reenroll in school or begin repaying their student loans and caps student loan interest rates at 6 percent during deployment. In addition, the VETS Act would require colleges and universities to restore student veterans’ academic status when they return.

Providing Loan Forgiveness for First Responders

Nearly three quarters of fire fighters have pursued college education, and in the past 20 years the cost of college has tripled, leaving students in severe debt. The average initial salary for a full-time firefighter is less than $35,000, making it difficult for communities to recruit and retain highly-qualified fire fighters. Last November, I introduced the Fire Fighter Higher Education Incentive Act, which expands Federal Perkins Loan cancellation programs for public service employees to include fire fighters. This legislation provides loan forgiveness to all full-time fire fighters employed by a local, State, or Federal fire department.

Investing in Rural Education

Only 12 percent of students in Ohio’s rural communities graduated from college in 2000, and college enrollment rates for young people are lower in rural areas than in all other locales. This deficit can thwart economic development in rural areas, and in February 2008 I introduced the College and University Rural Education (CURE) Act to address the lagging participation by rural students in higher education. This legislation authorizes grants to encourage more rural high school students to pursue postsecondary education and complete 4-year degrees, create an employment pipeline for regional economies, and enhance educational programs to provide targeted training for professions with worker shortages.

Renewal of Underground Railroad Educational Programs

The Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program provides grants to support the research, exhibition, interpretation, and collection of artifacts related to the history of the Underground Railroad. Since 1998, museums and educational centers across the country, including the Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, have leveraged these resources to educate thousands of school children about one of the most important and courageous social movements in our nation’s history. The Higher Education Opportunity Act reauthorizes the Underground Rail road Educational and Cultural Program through 2013.

Expanding College Access Programs for Low-Income and Minority Students

Project Graduation Really Achieves Dreams (GRAD) is a nonprofit educational reform program created in 1992 that currently helps more than 132,000 low-income and minority students attend college. GRAD is the only kindergarten through college program that delivers research-based results on a significant national scale, and I pushed to include provisions in the Higher Education Opportunity Act authorizing Project GRAD to expand its programs on a nation-wide scale and further improve college attendance among low-income students. Project GRAD has three Ohio sites located in Lorain, Akron, and Cincinnati.

Strengthening of TRIO Programs for At-Risk Students

Across the country, Upward Bound and other TRIO programs serve low-income, first generation students who are at risk of not completing high school or pursuing higher education. In 2006, the Department of Education proposed an evaluation model that requires Upward Bound programs to aggressively recruit twice as many students as they can serve, simply to provide enough students for a control group that will never receive Upward Bound services. Not only would students be given false hope under this evaluation, but there remain serious questions about the adequacy of research designs based on randomly-assigned control groups in educational research. I sponsored an amendment to the 2008 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act halting the implementation of this invalid and unethical program and successfully fought to include language in the Higher Education Opportunity Act prohibiting similar evaluations in the future.

The legislation also expands required activities in the TRIO programs, with a special focus on improving students’ financial and economic literacy, creates a process to ensure providers of TRIO services are treated fairly when applying, and enables GEAR UP programs to offer early intervention programs including extended day and dropout recovery programming.

Loan Forgiveness for Public Service Employees Program

More than two thirds of Ohio graduates leave college in debt each year, with the average student carrying a debt of nearly $20,000 dollars. To help students deal with their debt and encourage public service, Congress recently created the Loan Forgiveness for Public Service Employees Program. Under this program, borrowers who have made at least ten years’ worth of payments on federal student loans while employed in qualifying public service occupations will be eligible to have the remainder of their loan balance forgiven.

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