Understanding Our Complex Education System
Understanding Our Complex Education System
As your Representative, I get to many places and meet many people. The Sixth District covers a lot of ground, and so do I. But everywhere I go, from Stillwater to St. Cloud, education is on everybody s minds.
The truth about our education system simple: it s frustratingly complex. This week I was able to hold an informational education forum for educators and interested parents, along with Congressman John Kline. We were pleased to host Congressman John Boehner of Ohio, the Chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee for the House of Representatives.
The values that these parents and educators express are the same as I hear from all over the district. The focus of our education system should be on preparing our children to become successful adults, and who better to make decisions for their education, than the people in their schools, who know their names?
As the father of four children, I understand how important it is that local school districts have the ability to effectively educate our children. One of the ways we achieve this is by Washington keeping its promises and not burdening local schools with unfunded mandates and unnecessary regulations.
The problem is, Washington has failed to keep its funding commitments to one program, special education, for two decades. This has forced school districts to spend billions on this federal mandate, taking local dollars away from local priorities.
Since I first arrived in Washington, solving this problem has been one of my top priorities. On a positive note, this session Congress took a critical step by passing legislation that I cosponsored to fully fund the federal government s share of special education. The not so good news is, it has yet to be reconciled between the House and Senate, or be signed into law. I plan to keep pushing the House Leadership to press the Senate on this before Congress wraps up this fall.
I was pleased to help shed light on our complex system with Congressman Boehner this week, and I will do my part as a Congressman, to work to fix those parts of federal education law that don t make sense, while making sure that Washington is doing what it should to help our schools effectively teach all our children.