Keeping Girls in School Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. FITZPATRICK. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend and my colleague, Mr. McCaul, for yielding and for his kind words and for his friendship.

Madam Speaker, first, I want to thank the entire committee, including yourself, Madam Speaker, Representative Frankel, and Representative Brooks, for all of your and their work on this very, very important issue.

As a co-chair of the bipartisan International Basic Education Caucus, I want to join with all of our colleagues today to voice our strong support for H.R. 2153, the Keeping Girls in School Act, a bill that many of us helped introduce.

Today, as was echoed earlier, many girls worldwide are not in school, and this bill will work to close the gender gap between boys and girls and work to keep girls in school through the high school level, when girls are at the highest risk of dropping out.

This is a commitment of the U.S. to support programs, policies, and resources to help vulnerable girls stay in school. This bill will provide results-based aid grants, lower the cost of secondary education, and make sure that schools are safe for all of our children.

We must work to ensure that girls in every country are able to stay in school so that we can empower them in order to reduce poverty and create safer, healthier communities. The Keeping Girls in School Act will help reduce barriers girls around the world face when trying to remain in school and help them access more opportunities.

Madam Speaker, the top line summary of H.R. 2153 states this bill is ``to support empowerment, economic security, and educational opportunities for adolescent girls around the world.'' However, this bill will do much more than that. This bill provides opportunity. This bill provides hope. This bill will give some of our most vulnerable a chance to succeed.

As Madam Speaker said earlier, we need to be a voice for the voiceless. And, Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for doing just that, yourself and Representative Brooks, because these 130 million girls, they need a voice, and we are going to be that voice for them here today.

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