A high-quality education is critical for our children's future, and is key to America succeeding in the global marketplace. As a Member of the Education and Workforce Committee, I will address the important issues like early learning, the rising cost of college tuition and reforming No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Additionally, at a time of record unemployment, I will work with my colleagues to reauthorize workforce training programs and help ensure workers have the skills and education they need to succeed.
K-12
I have worked with my colleagues on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to advance two pieces of legislation to reform NCLB: The Student Success Act (H.R. 3989) and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act (H.R. 3990)
The Student Success Act will:
- Replace the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) metric with state-determined accountability systems;
- Eliminate federally mandated interventions and allow states and school districts the flexibility to develop and implement appropriate school improvement strategies;
- Repeal federal “Highly Qualified Teacher” mandates;
- Allow states and school districts to use federal funds across programs to address their own unique needs; and
- Maintain the requirement that states and school districts issue and distribute annual report cards, including disaggregated data on student achievement and high school graduation rates, while also streamlining data reporting to ensure meaningful information is easily available to parents and communities.
The Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act will:
- Require states and school districts to develop teacher evaluation systems that measure an educator’s influence on student learning;
- Support opportunities for parents to enroll their children in local magnet schools and charter schools; and
- Consolidate a myriad of existing K-12 education programs into a new Local Academic Flexible Grant, which provides funding to states and school districts to support local priorities that improve student achievement.
Adult Education and Workforce Training
As co-chairman of the Adult Literacy Caucus, I am working to bring needed attention to adult learners in our society. Programs to help reach kids and adults who have slipped through the cracks are one of the most cost effective solutions I know of. In Tennessee, 14,662 individuals earned their GED, and it only cost $275 per student to make this happen. This resulted in over $134 million in additional taxable income to the state because each individual was making over $9,000 more per year.
Additionally, the House Education and Workforce Committee passed legislation – with my support – to reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act.
The Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012 (H.R. 4297) will:
- Eliminate 37 ineffective programs, including 29 identified by the Government Accountability Office as offering redundant or overlapping job training services, fulfilling the president’s request to “cut through the maze of confusing training programs”;
- Create a single, flexible Workforce Investment Fund that will advance the president’s goal for “one program” and allow state and local leaders to create a wealth of dynamic programs to support workers;
- Strengthen the role of employers in workforce training decisions by eliminating 19 federal mandates governing the workforce investment board representation and increasing the number of employers on the board to a two-thirds majority;
- Require state and local workforce investment leaders to outline the strategies they will implement to serve youth, individuals with disabilities, and other workers with unique barriers to employment; and
- Enhance accountability over the use of taxpayer dollars by establishing common performance measures and requiring an independent evaluation of programs at least once every five years.
