Consider Teachers Act of 2021

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 848, the Consider Teachers Act of 2021. I introduced the companion bill with Congresswoman Victoria Spartz. I would like to thank Senators Mike Braun and Kyrsten Sinema also for their leadership on this bill, and my good friend, Chairman Bobby Scott, for bringing this bill to the floor today.

This bill would improve the service obligation verification process for the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grant Program, or TEACH grant program, as it is called. The TEACH grant program was created to attract the best and brightest to the teaching profession in underserved communities. The TEACH grant program provides up to $4,000 a year in grants to students who agree to serve for at least 4 years as full-time teachers in a high-need field in a public or private elementary or secondary school that serves low-income families. The obligation to teach 4 years must be completed within an 8-year period. Those who do not fulfill their service requirement have their grants converted into Federal direct unsubsidized Stafford loans which must be paid back with interest. These loans cannot revert to grants.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, 66 percent of the grants are converted into loans. Though 21,000 grant recipients have completed the program without conversion, 94,000 recipients have had their grants converted to loans. Those conversions are often triggered by small paperwork issues, such as submitting the annual form 1 day late or missing a date or signature.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education released a reconsideration process for recipients who had their grants converted into loans but had either fulfilled, or could still fulfill, their service obligations. The department also turned back the clock to allow teachers who had left the TEACH grant program once their grants were converted to loans to give them more time to complete their service obligations. These changes allowed the department to lift the debt of 2,300 recipients.

I am pleased that the department made additional improvements to the program on July 1, 2021, including opening the reconsideration process to all TEACH grant program recipients. This bill would codify some of these changes, creating a safeguard from changes in department leadership.

This bill would also outline yearly deadlines and notification requirements to rectify some of the TEACH grant program's previous administrative mishaps. Furthermore, with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, many recipients have had trouble finding qualifying work. This bill would create a grace period for those individuals by extending the service obligation fulfillment period by 3 years for anyone who was fulfilling their obligations when the coronavirus pandemic began.

This past year has given us all a hard lesson in the invaluable service that teachers and educators provide to our society. As many young students have turned to homeschooling and remote learning, we have all come to appreciate the hard work and incredible talent of our teachers who foster the mental, physical, and emotional growth of our children every day. This bill ensures that that pipeline of talent for the teaching profession remains strong and that we do not unduly burden TEACH grant program recipients who have dedicated themselves to serving our most vulnerable communities.

I understand what that means because my own mother, Vela Holmes, was a teacher in the D.C. Public Schools.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source