Protecting Education for Children with Disabilities

Floor Speech

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Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes) for yielding time. I thank her for her unwavering support of children and for having been the National Teacher of the Year. I thank her so much.

Mr. Speaker, I rise because dismantling the Department of Education is not just bad policy. It is dangerous for North Carolina's children. In my State, more than 60 percent of students rely on Pell grants and Federal aid to afford college. Nearly 1.5 million K-12 students depend on title I IDEA school nutrition and other Federal supports.

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, over 70 percent of students benefit directly from programs administered through the Department. When the Department is gutted, when staff are fired, grants are frozen, and financial aid systems break, it is our most vulnerable young people who feel it first. These are low-income students, first-generation students, students with disabilities, and families who cannot afford disruptions.

This isn't efficiency. It is an educational disarmament. I am proud to defend the Department of Education because protecting the Department means protecting opportunity.

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