Rep. Slaughter believes that it is essential to ensure equal access to quality education for all Americans. She advocates high goals, tough standards, and sufficient safety measures for schools, teachers and students. She also wants to provide students with a safe place, with productive activities, to go after the school day ends. In addition, Rep. Slaughter wants to see schools gain the technological resources necessary to move students forward successfully into the information age. She is also committed to making higher education affordable for all families and individuals through tax credits for college expenses, tax deductions on interest on student loans, and tax-free college tuition "IRA" accounts. She is working to help economically disadvantaged youth and adults, as well as disabled individuals, overcome challenges and receive the excellent educational opportunities to which they are entitled. Working together, the nation, states and localities will enable schools, teachers, and parents to guide the next generation of students successfully through the 21st Century.
Improving Educational Opportunities for All Americans Rep. Slaughter is committed to level the playing field to ensure equal opportunities for all students. For example when she first arrived in Congress, she recognized that the educational rights of homeless children were threatened by residence regulations and economic disadvantages. She authored and passed legislation to keep homeless children in school and help remove the obstacles they face. She has been highly active in efforts to preserve funding for the Head Start and Title I programs so that all students get the help they need to succeed. These federal initiatives help our nation's most at-risk students learn crucial intellectual and emotional development skills from preschool through secondary school. She also supports programs that promote the empowerment and independence of Americans with disabilities by helping states invest in services for their disabled students ranging from teacher training to advanced technology. She supported a successful federal initiative to hire 100,000 new teachers in local school districts. This program, which targets schools most in need, is part of a plan to lower class size in the early grades to an average of 18 pupils per teacher. Additionally, Rep. Slaughter secured a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the Big Read program. Administered through Writers and Books, Inc, the grant will enable the Big Read to engage the entire community – young and old – in reading and discussing certain books. Finally, Rep. Slaughter has worked on an annual basis to ensure federal funding for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in Rochester. She is proud that NTID has achieved tremendous success in preparing deaf people to enter society and the workplace and to compete on par with their hearing peers.
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||