“‘In the middle of this economic chaos,’ [Miller] said, ‘this president knows we can’t compete in a world economy unless we modernize some of our basic systems.’”

…

“Creating a new standard educational model should incorporate the way that young people share information, he said.

“‘All of you create a huge amount of content every day, you teach your peers how to use that new phone, that new program,’ he said. ‘How do we call on people to participate in the educational process who are your peers?’”

“‘About half the people that show up for community college, they don’t show up for the second year,’ Miller said. ‘They don’t get the certificate they’re after, they don’t get the career opportunity, they don’t get the academic degree they were after and they may end up in debt.’

“Miller spoke in detail about recent reforms to the student loan industry. Subsidies worth $60 billion will be diverted over ten years from banks, which manage loans, to students in the form of grants and federal loans.

“The new law, he explained, also rewards those pursuing public service jobs. ‘If you get in the public health and education sectors, after ten years your loans go away,’ he said, ‘because you’re giving something back.’”

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As schools return from their summer break, many students will again have their only chance at a healthy meal all day. And those meals are key according to a new report by Georgetown University Assistant Professor of Public Policy Peter Hinrichs. 

According to the Associated Press, Mr. Hinrichs said:

"The research found that the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has not had a dramatic effect on health into adulthood, but it has had a significant effect on educational attainment," Hinrichs said. "The NSLP today is still broad in its reach, but it targets poorer children. There are higher standards for eligibility and also special funding for poorer schools. Had these elements been in place at the inception of the program, there may have been a more detectable effect on health in its early years."

That is why under H.R. 5504, the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010, the program increases the number of eligible children enrolled in the school lunch programs by using Medicaid/SCHIP data to directly certify children who meet income requirements without requiring individual applications and requiring states to establish and execute a plan to increase rates of direct certification. It also provides enhanced universal meal access for eligible children in high poverty communities by eliminating paper applications and using census data to determine school wide income eligibility. The more eligible students who are having a regular, nutritious lunch the more students will be performing in the classroom.

The bill passed out of committee and is awaiting a vote on the House floor. 

Learn more about H.R. 5504, the Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act of 2010.

“…with increased focus on school reform under this administration, it seems some companies with little or no expertise in education are purporting to be experts in school turnaround to try and take advantage of available federal money. Companies who are hired to help turn around schools as partners should have the best expertise and the best qualifications. I plan to hold a hearing and use the committee’s oversight authority to investigate the process of hiring providers to help turn around schools.”

“There are 5,000 chronically low-performing schools in this country doing a disservice to
hundreds of thousands of students.

“Two thousand high schools produce 70 percent of our nation’s dropouts.”

“With the Obama administration pouring billions into its nationwide campaign to overhaul failing schools, dozens of companies with little or no experience are portraying themselves as school-turnaround experts as they compete for the money.”

…

“Many of the new companies seem unprepared for the challenge of making over a public school, yet neither the federal government nor many state governments are organized to offer effective oversight, said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonprofit group in Washington.”

“From journalists and educators to politicians and parents -- there is a growing sense that a quiet revolution is underway in our homes and schools, classrooms and communities.”

“With a budget of just $5 billion dollars -- less than one percent of total education spending in America -- this minor provision in the Recovery Act has unleashed an avalanche of pent-up education reform activity at the state and local level.

“Forty-eight states voluntarily collaborated to raise the bar and create common college and career-ready standards -- solving the single biggest drawback of NCLB -- without a federal mandate or a federal dollar. So far, 27 states have adopted those standards. Even Massachusetts -- universally viewed with the highest standards in the country -- voted unanimously to adopt last week.”

"We now have the opportunity to really take that rigid system and make a trade-in, if you will, of some additional flexibility at the local level for outcomes, for results. The Secretary [of Education] has made that clear, the President has made that clear, and I think we've made that clear in the series of hearings that we have held. We'd really like now to put more emphasis on better teachers, more emphasis on better leadership, more emphasis on the use of those resources and the flexible use of those resources, and really put teaching and learning and leadership back into the classroom, back into the local systems, and then stand back and hold them accountable for those--for those results, and we're getting a lot of encouragement as we've held our hearings."

"And what we tried to address ... was to see whether or not we could bring down the cost of college for families with an increase in the Pell Grant, by lowering the interest rates on student loans over the next couple of years, and then make it easier for the students and the families to manage that debt that they're required to take out to get the degree that they desire. And one of the ways we do that is we have--we let them have an income determinant payment system. How much you pay every month depends upon how much you're making. So, if you start a career with a low entry wage, you can still have that career and you can manage your payments.

"If you go into public service or you work for a non-profit, if you want to become a nurse, a doctor, a teacher, a prosecutor, a public defender and you're working for a public agency, in ten years, your loans go away, and you never have to pay more than 10--10 percent of your discretionary income to pay that loan back. All of a sudden, people can envision careers that otherwise they couldn't have, where they may really wanted to be a teacher, to be a health nurse, to be a physician's assistant, but they couldn't see how they could balance the pay and the education. We need those people, and so this is really in the public interest.

"We also--when we moved to the direct loan programs, it required the companies bring jobs back to America because they're now managing federal assets when they manage the repayment of these loans, and that requires people--that it be done here in America."

"There is--clearly, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you have a big interest in children. It's about our children, our neighbor's children, our constituents' children, it's about the country, and that passion is on both sides of the aisle, certainly in our Committee."