Education is of Great Importance to Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, and Constituents

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to co-anchor this CBC Special Order hour along with my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

For the next 60 minutes, members of the CBC have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on education, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, and the constituents who we represent.

Mr. Speaker, in the 1880s, my great-grandfather founded a school in his rural community because the State of Alabama did not provide a good education to Black children. As explained in his autobiography, he wanted to teach children, whose parents and grandparents had been enslaved on plantations nearby, to be of better service to themselves, their employers, and the community in which they lived.

In the 1930s, my father and his sisters attended that school because the State of Tennessee did not provide a good education to Black children. Like his father and his grandfather, my dad became an educator himself, ultimately teaching the next generation of educators at Virginia State University.

In the 1950s, my mother had to move away from her hometown because the State of Mississippi did not provide a good education for Black children. The only school that did was run by the Catholic church, but only up until the eighth grade.

As the third youngest of 14 children, she wanted more than the domestic and laborer jobs that were available to her parents, her grandparents, and her siblings. She had to move to go to high school, becoming an educator herself, eventually running the TRiO Programs at Virginia State University. These are federally funded programs run by the Department of Education to work to ensure that children like her have the support they need to go to and graduate college.

My parents understood how important a good education is not only to individual opportunity, but to a thriving, healthy economy, community, and democracy. Like my grandparents and great-grandparents before them, they dedicated their lives to ensuring not only that their children had a good education but every child did. Not every child is so lucky.

The legacy of 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow, massive resistance, and chronic underfunding have created too many obstacles to the ability of States and local governments to give every child an opportunity for a good education.

For the past 20 years, first as a State legislator and now in Congress, I have worked to ensure that every child in Virginia could have a good education. As the mother of two children in public schools, I know that, even with bipartisan and Herculean efforts, there are still gaps in Virginia and across the country.

The Department of Education was created to fill those gaps. The Department protects students' civil rights, particularly those with disabilities who often need special accommodation to learn. It provides support to attract, train, and retain the best and brightest teachers, school administrators, support personnel such as counselors, nurses, and mental and behavioral health specialists, especially in hard-to- staff rural or urban schools.

It measures and tracks academic progress across the country and helps those school divisions that lag behind address areas of concern. It manages student loan and grant programs that ensure children without financial means can go to and succeed in college without incurring more debt than they could ever pay off.

The Trump administration's illegal actions to dismantle the Department of Education will ensure that these gaps remain. The administration claims that it is just returning control of public education back to States and localities. States and localities have always had that control, but they have not always had the will or the ability to ensure that every child can get a good education.

In my own State of Virginia, State and local officials and educators right now fear that local agencies and the Virginia Department of Education will not have the funding or the staff to handle the workload, especially in areas like special education.

The block grant funding that the Trump administration promises comes with little accountability, making it unclear whether the funds will actually reach the students and schools that need them the most: children with disabilities in rural and low-income communities.

Education lays the foundation for a strong future. Our Founding Fathers understood that. Today's students are the entrepreneurs, civic leaders, teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and Members of Congress of tomorrow. We owe it to our parents, our grandparents, and our great- grandparents to protect and build upon the progress that they have made. We owe it to our children and theirs to fight efforts to roll back that progress now.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the gentleman from the great State of South Carolina, the Honorable James Clyburn.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Mr. Clyburn for his speech.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Georgia for speaking.

Moore), who represents the State's Fourth District.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. McCLELLAN. Clarke), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Ms. CLARKE of New York. Let me first start by thanking Jennifer McClellan of Virginia and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina for anchoring this evening's Special Order hour on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus.

I rise on this day in opposition to President Trump's unprecedented and alarming efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. With no consideration for the will of Congress or the will of the American people, Donald Trump has commenced an attack on education that we haven't seen the likes of since the racist segregationist Plessy versus Ferguson decision declaring separate but equal as an educational doctrine.

At a time when racial segregation is increasing in our schools to levels not seen since before the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal had no place in the United States, Donald Trump's actions will not only make our schools more segregated and less equal but they will put quality education out of reach for countless young Americans today and in the years to come.

No matter what justification the President gives, we know the real reason he is tearing apart the Department of Education. That is to steal money from public schools and funnel it into private ones that don't care about teaching our kids, only indoctrinating them into the cult of Trump.

Mr. Speaker, make no mistake. These attacks on the Department of Education are deeply, deeply unpopular in every corner of the country. In fact, two-thirds of Americans oppose them. They oppose them because families from all walks of life rely on the Department of Education to meet their children's needs.

Districts with high rates of poverty depend on Title I funding to serve their students, just as parents of children with disabilities or special needs depend on IDEA funding to give their kids the care they deserve.

In New York's Ninth District alone, the administration has already clawed back $4 million in funds that our schools were entitled to. That figure is as much as $300 million across our State.

Because of Trump's war on education, classroom sizes will balloon. Teachers' recruitment will plummet. Higher education will be inaccessible for thousands of students. Money will be taken from students with disabilities and special needs and given to the President's allies.

Let's be clear. The President's actions represent a disturbing new step in his crusade against public education and all it represents. I reject his war against education, just as I will reject whatever bill comes before Congress to further damage the Department of Education.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to end where I began and that is with the story of my mother who lived to be 94.

She was the third youngest of 14 children in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi where the only school available to her was the Catholic church because Mississippi did not deem Black children important enough to educate. She wanted more than the life that was available to her siblings, her parents, her great-grandparents, and her grandparents. She had to move to go to high school.

She ended up running the Federal TRiO programs at Virginia State University to ensure that a little girl, whether she is in Petersburg, Virginia, or a little boy on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, would have the same access to an education, no matter their parents' financial situation, no matter the obstacles in their way. As a mother of two children in public school who has spent almost 20 years in public service, I have dedicated my life to making sure that every child has that same opportunity.

The Department of Education doesn't run schools. They don't set the curriculum. They fill the gaps that State and local governments have been unwilling or unable to.

Without the Department of Education, there is going to be a little girl somewhere in this country as brilliant as my mother was, as dedicated as my father was to public education, as passionate about it as I am now, who will not be able to succeed because their school lacks a quality teacher or a principal who knows what he is doing or the school lacks the resources to provide a student with disabilities the tools they need to succeed.

Every Member of Congress in this body was privileged enough to get a good education to get here, but not every child we represent has that same ability. The Congressional Black Caucus, as the conscience of Congress, will fight for every child no matter their ZIP Code, race, creed, or background to get that education.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your attention tonight and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source