Student Success Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chair, I rise today, along with my colleagues
Frederica Wilson of Florida and Danny Davis of Illinois, to offer an
amendment.

This amendment seeks to protect our most vulnerable students by
ensuring that high-poverty schools are not adversely affected by
provisions in H.R. 5, which propose changes in the funding allocation
formula for teacher support and the quality of educational services
under title II of the No Child Left Behind Act. Mr. Chair, if we don't
adopt this amendment, we may inadvertently break a long bipartisan
agreement on our fundamental need to ensure that our low-income
students are not assigned less qualified teachers and less quality
educational resources than their more advantaged peers.

The reality is that a school district that serves students in poverty
faces many, many hurdles and challenges in recruiting and in retaining
teachers as well as other qualified staff. Current law prioritizes
teacher development funding to States and schools serving the greatest
concentrations of students in poverty.

Specifically, the No Child Left Behind title II formula for school
districts focuses 65 percent of funds on students in poverty and 35
percent on the number of students, which is students in poverty versus
just the number of students. The State formula focuses 80 percent of
its funding on poverty and 20 percent on student population. H.R. 5
completely upends this. It eliminates this critical prioritization by
equally weighting poverty with mere student population, sort of cutting
the baby in half, 50/50. This removes substantial Federal support from
schools and States serving the poorest students and gives these funds
to schools and States without similar levels of economic need. This, of
course, Mr. Chair, has an impact on every single State in the Union
where there are disparate levels of income in our communities. It
undermines teacher training and student achievement for students in
poverty.

My amendment simply would delay the implementation of this formula
until the Secretary of Education certifies to Congress that students in
poverty are not adversely affected by this change in service, quality,
and level. This would provide the appropriate caution before
eliminating that critical safeguard of funds for students in poverty.

As written, we have strong reasons to fear that H.R. 5 would result
in Federal dollars being siphoned away from States and school districts
with the poorest students and being awarded to States and schools with
higher affluence. In fact, data from the U.S. Department of Education
released earlier this week show that H.R. 5 translates into billions of
dollars of cuts in school districts serving high populations of Black
and Hispanic students.

Mr. Chair, since all politics is local, I must decry the loss of
these educational resources to the largest school district in my
jurisdiction, and that is the Milwaukee Public Schools system. They
would lose upwards of $160 million in Federal funds for impoverished
students over a 6-year period if we ratify H.R. 5 in its current form.
Our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has called this kind of a
reverse Robin Hood--stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

While we are discussing this, I just want to point out one last
thing. This is budget neutral. This amendment doesn't add one dime to
the cost of this bill. Its only intention is to protect the very
teacher supports that help close the achievement gaps for low-income
students. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bill.

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chair, if this is duplicative, then it does no harm.
This was offered with an abundance of caution because the formula is
being proposed to be changed.

So just vote for it. I mean, if it is repetitive or redundant, what
is the harm? Please vote for it. Please withdraw your objection.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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