Results tagged “ESEA reauthorization” from EdLabor Journal

Chairman Miller discussed public education and college affordability at Contra Costa Community College in San Pablo, Calif. on Tuesday.

The committee has held seven hearings on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as No Child Left Behind) during the 111th Congress. Chairman Miller has consistently stated his belief that the key to long-term economic recovery is a strong public education system. Richmond Confidential reported:

“‘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?’”

Miller also spoke about the rising cost of college and how many students struggle to attain a college degree -- he wrote the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act to make college more affordable by increasing federal financial aid and making federal student loans easier to repay. Richmond Confidential recorded his comments:

“‘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.’”

Chairman Miller was in New York City on September 28 taking part in NBC’s Education Nation Summit. Before discussing his views on education reform with other policymakers, teachers, students and parents he appeared on The Today Show, Squawk Box, and Morning Joe to discuss education policy and jobs.
 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Watch Chairman Miller on Morning Joe, the Today Show and Squawk Box:


 
 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

CQ reported today that Chairman Miller plans to, “hold a hearing this fall to probe companies that contract with school districts to improve failing schools.” Miller issued a statement on the issue yesterday:

“…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.”

Turning around under-performing and failing schools is one of the objectives of the committee’s bipartisan rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as NCLB). Miller chaired a hearing on successful school turnaround in May and made the importance of the issue clear, saying to his fellow committee members:

“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.”

Turning around chronically under-performing schools can have significant impact on local communities, and many private companies have begun offering turnaround services to school districts. But, a recent New York Times investigation revealed that some of these companies lack the necessary experience to effectively overhaul a failing school:

“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.”

Answer: Seven
Question: How many hearings has the committee held this year on ESEA reauthorization?

Greetings to all EdLabor Insider e-newsletter readers looking for the answer to this week's committee trivia question!  (Non-subscribers can click here to subscribe to the Committee's e-mail updates.)

And, drum-roll, please...The full list of hearings held by the Committee in 2010 on ESEA reauthorization is as follows:

Research and Best Practices on Successful School Turnaround
Full Committee Hearing
10:00 AM, May 19, 2010
2175 Rayburn H.O.B
Washington, DC

Supporting America’s Educators: The Importance of Quality Teachers and Leaders
Full Committee Hearing
2:00 PM, May 4, 2010
2175 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC

How Data Can Be Used to Inform Educational Outcomes
Full Committee Hearing
10:00 AM, April 14, 2010
2175 Rayburn H.O.B
Washington, DC

Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization: Addressing the Needs of Diverse Students
Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee Hearing
10:00 AM, March 18, 2010
2175 Rayburn H.O.B
Washington, DC

The Obama Administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization Blueprint
Full Committee Hearing
2:40 PM, March 17, 2010
2175 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC

Building a Stronger Economy: Spurring Reform and Innovation In American Education
Full Committee Hearing
9:30 AM, March 3, 2010
2175 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC

H.R. 4330, the All Students Achieving through Reform Act of 2009
Full Committee Hearing
10:00 AM, February 24, 2010
2175 Rayburn H.O.B
Washington, DC

Chairman George Miller is featured today in Politico’s video series called the “The Politics of America’s Youth” with Mike Allen. He discusses ESEA reauthorization, higher education, and the bipartisan spirit and support for education reform.

Watch the three part video here.

On ESEA Reauthorization:

"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."

On Higher Education:

"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."

On Bipartisanship:

"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."

On Tuesday, May 4, the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee will hold a hearing to examine how to best support teachers and leaders in schools. Studies show that teachers are the single most important factor in affecting student achievement.

This is part of a continued series of hearings the committee is holding as part of a bipartisan, transparent effort to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind.  

WHAT:         
Hearing on “Supporting America’s Educators: The Importance of Quality Teachers and Leaders”
               
WHO:            
Panel I: 
Deborah Ball, Ph.D, Dean, School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Pamela S. Salazar, Ed.D Assistant Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation Teachers, Washington, DC
Marcus A. Winters, Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute, New York, NY

Panel II:
Jeanne Burns, Associate Commissioner of Teacher Education Initiatives, Office of the Governor, Louisiana Board of Regents,
Baton Rouge, LA    
Tony Bennett, Superintendent, Indiana Office of Public Instruction, Indianapolis, IN
Monique Burns Thompson,  President, Teach Plus in Boston, Boston, MA
John Kaplan, President, Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Marie Parker-McElroy, Instructional Coach, Fairfax County Public Schools, Falls Church, VA
Chris Steinhauser, Superintendent, Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach, CA
                                            
WHEN:         
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
2:00 p.m. EST
Please check the Committee schedule for potential updates »

WHERE:      
House Education and Labor Committee Hearing Room
2175 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.

Note: This hearing will be webcast live from the Education and Labor Committee website.
 

Alyson Klein at Education Week has an excellent round up of President Obama's 2011 education budget proposal:

The president’s fiscal year 2011 budget, slated to be released Monday, will seek a 6.2 percent increase to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, including up to $4 billion more for K-12 education. The department’s discretionary budget for fiscal 2010 is roughly $63.7 billion.

A large piece of the increase, $1.35 billion, would be aimed at extending beyond this year the $4 billion in economic-stimulus program Race to the Top grants and opening up the competition—now limited to states—to school districts. The president highlighted the Race to the Top saying it had “broken through the stalemate between left and right,” and pledged to expand the reform priorities of that competition—among them turning around failing schools and increasing the supply of effective teachers—to all 50 states.

“The idea here is simple,” he said. “Instead of rewarding failure, we only reward success. Instead of funding the status quo, we only invest in reform­—reform that raises student achievement, inspires students to excel in math and science, and turns around failing schools that steal the future of too many young Americans, from rural communities to inner cities.”

...

President Obama also called on Congress to pass legislation that would make sweeping changes to the student loan program and redirect money from the projected savings to building new school facilities and bolstering community colleges, early-childhood-education programs, and Pell Grants, which help low-income students pay for college.

Chairman Miller said after the speech:

“I am especially pleased that President Obama called on Congress to rewrite our nation’s federal education laws. The key to getting this done will be bipartisanship. I plan to begin working on this immediately with this administration, Congressman Kline, our colleagues on the House Education and Labor Committee and all parties that have ideas about how to improve our schools.

“Throughout his speech, President Obama talked about changing the way Washington works. One way we can do just that is by enacting legislation already passed by the House that would invest billions of dollars to help families pay for college – at no cost to taxpayers – by eliminating taxpayer subsidies for student loan middle men. Ending these subsidies will save $87 billion that we can invest directly in our college students and in improving early education and community colleges. It’s a much better use of taxpayer dollars.

We encourage you to read the entire Education Week article. Click on the links to learn more about the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Race to the Top, and the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.