Transcripts For CSPAN Education Secretary Pressed On Protections For LGBTQ Religious Minorities 20170607

This is chaired by senator roy royt will stop senator blount. The appropriations subcommittee on labor, health, and Human Services will come to order. Morning to everybody, particularly good morning secretary devos and thank you for appearing before the subcommittee today. This is a difficult budget defend. To just over a month ago, the Congress Overwhelmingly cast and the president signed into law an appropriations bill that included 100 61 billion in discretionary funding for this subcommittee. While that was a billion dollars less than we had the year before, we were able to eliminate programs and prioritize programs in a way that allows us to do things, like return the yearround pell, the first time in nine years where students who begin this fall will have the opportunity to have a pell grant available to them yearround. This year, fiscal year 2018 budget proposes a significant funding decrease and labor, hhs, approximately 24 billion below what we are spending in the current year in the agencies that are reflected in the work of this subcommittee. That is a 15 cut. It includes approximately 59 billion, which is a 9. 2 billion reduction. You not only get the start with a new look at the department of education, but also with a new look at what we should be doing. We are glad youre here to talk about that. I think it is likely that the kinds of cuts that are proposed in this budget will not occur. So we need to fully understand your priorities and why they are your priorities. The committee will continue to have priorities. I think significant reduction to programs like career and education and federal work study will make it harder for students to get into and complete college and to go into wellpaying jobs. The outright elimination of several large formula Grant Programs, like the 21st Century Community learning centers will be all but impossible to get those kinds of cuts through this committee. But you were given this budget. Input. You had some but your input would of been light and your view of these issues as you get a chance to run the department every day will bring the ability to bring new information to the committee. Over the last two years, the subcommittee has increased funding for Charter Schools from 43 million. Wo 200 i would be interested to hear more about your broader proposals for more choice in school. And finally, many members on this committee look forward to realigning the department of education role in the Education System generally. I believe Education Systems should be made closer to students and families and local School Districts. Often, the state capital in my state is too far away for many of these decisions to be made and certainly, washington, d. C. , would be an even bigger challenge to make decisions that affect students and their families and their education all over the country. I look forward to hearing your testimony today. Im sure we will have a lively discussion. I am pleased to turn to my partner on this committee, senator murray, on what comments she would like to make. Senator murray thank you. Thank you, secretary devos, for joining us. As you know, i was very clear during your confirmation process that i had serious concerns with your extreme ideological commitment to privatizing our Public Schools. Your extensive financial conflict of interest and your lack of understanding of the role of the federal government in protecting the civil rights of students across the country. And i wasnt alone. Millions of parents and teachers across the country stood up. They rallied and sent letters and called the senators. The Senate Switchboard was overwhelmed and it made it very clear that they oppose your plans for students and our schools and supported Public Education in america. When it came to vote, every single democrat voted no good we were joined by two republican members who decided on their constituents strong concerns on a cabinet nomination for the first time in our nations history. The Vice President had to come and break a tie. So, i was hoping you would enter your role as secretary with an understanding that your extreme antipublic School Agenda and are on your opposition to the federal government playing a role in helping students just didnt have the support of congress or people across the country. I was hoping, instead of trying to jam it through anyway, you would work with us and join us at the table and share information and be a true partner in implementing our nations education laws, investing in our students and our teachers and our schools and helping all of our students succeed. I and many others have been extremely disappointed with what we have seen these past few months. You have not backed away from your unpopular and unsupported agenda. You have not made any attempt to compromise or work with us in good faith. You continue to allow potential conflicts of interest and ethical issues to exist in your department. And you have refused to answer basic questions democrats have asked you. You back away from commitments you made in your confirmation hearing. And this budget from President Trump today that you are here to defend, which has been attacked by republicans and democrats and people across the country is just the latest example. So there are many issues people want answers to, from the people that you hired, including your senior counselor, who came straight from a forprofit college that is under multiple investigations and now charged seeing regulations directly impacting his former employer to the policies you implemented or changed, including rescinding guidance protecting transgender students, after telling us in your confirmation hearing, you believed all students should be able to feel safe and free of discrimination in our schools. Eliminating protections for Student Loans borrowers and a lot more, but i will spend most of my time today asking you about your Budget Proposals because they truly highlight the way the policies and priorities you and President Trump are pushing would hurt students, would hurt our community, and represent a clear broken promise to workers and the middle class. First of all, your antiPublic Education plans. A year and a half ago, Congress Overwhelmingly passed the every succeed law to finally fix the broken no child left behind law. It wasnt perfect, but an important step. Instead of working with us to implement this bipartisan law and build on it, your Budget Proposal will continue the work you have already started to undercut it dramatically. Instead of seeking Common Ground in an area that should not be partisan, your policies around when rejected by both sides of the aisle during debate, like privatization and portability. After republicans spent years lambasting the department of education for using federal dollars as a tool for motivating states, and after you promised not to do this in your confirmation hearing when you were asked about it explicitly by senator cassidy. Of this budget does exactly that. It takes hundreds of millions of dollars from low Income School districts and holds it hostage unless states agree to your extreme ideological agenda. So i will be asking you to explain that. And i want further clarity on your confusing statements regarding whether or not you believe your privatization plans would cause students to lose their civil rights protections. I will also be asking you to explain the massive cuts you proposed to education investments across the board, impacting students of all ages. The trumpdevos education budget would cut investment in schools by 9. 2 billion, 13 from where we are today. I couldnt list them all, but includes more than 3 billion in cuts to kindergarten. Among these cuts are 2. 1 billion from state grants for investments. An entire program is eliminated that provides support and professional development for our teachers and school leaders. 1. 2 billion from 21st Century Community learning centers, completely eliminating investments supporting before and after School Programs and extended learning opportunities for nearly 2 Million Students across the country. 190 Million Dollars completely eliminating the striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Development investment, which i am particularly invested and worked with republicans to strengthen. 400 million in Student Support academic enrichment grant, authorized under title iv, to improve student safety and wellrounded education and a lot more. And its not just k12 that is under attack. This proposal would make Higher Education less affordable by taking 3. 9 billion from the Pell Grant Program and freezing the maximum reward, eliminating the supplemental education opportunity grant program, which provides nearly a billion dollars in federal and institutional funds to 1. 6 million low income undergraduates, cutting federal work study in half, increasing student debt by another 143 billion by making many students pay more interest, payback longer and eliminating Public Service loan forgiveness. And this budget cuts investments for students with disabilities, including 113 million in special education grants to states, pushing more costs to the states and local communities. 27. 5 million for the supported employment state plans, for those with significant disabilities to gain an employment, an invasive and that we on investment that we included in a bipartisan way. Finally, this budget even a limit all support for Special Olympics programs in our schools. So i will be asking about a lot of these. This budget would be devastating for our students and take away opportunities for so many families in this country. I hope, after hearing from a lot of pans across the country and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, you will reconsider this approach and come back with a budget that works for our students and reflects our values and our priorities as a country. Thank you. We are pleased to have the chair committee with us. Do you have a statement you would like to make . Mr. Chairman, i am concerned about the challenge we have to deal with. Resolution in terms of authorization to appropriate funding. We have children who are ready to be educated throughout our state. Nd everybodys and, we need to train teachers and support the training of teachers. Or are federal programs that are legitimate and needed to be on the front burner for the support and strengthening of our federal programs that help us teach our children. I guess i come at this from a biased point of view and i plead guilty. I have a grandmother was a teacher. A wonderful Elementary School teacher and mississippi. My father was county superintendent of what was then the largest Public School district in the state of mississippi. Teacher ands a math she came up to the university of mississippi with two children, me and my brother tagging along. And our father. Graduate work for our parents. We would sit in the classrooms students,ke we were thinking that we were just as smart as some of the students were. The evil point is, well have so much invested through our families, through our organizations back in our home states. Work that out. We have our work cut out for us. I will land my best efforts to squeeze is through this area so that we can make improvements and take a hard look at at the same time realize we need to get a bill. So thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator leahy thank you. I agree with chairman cochran, that we have the difficult task ahead of us. I point out to all the ranking members in my role as vicechairman, what senator cochran and i are doing, every cabinet member, this is will the where they will get a chance to testify, before the appropriations committee. So i appreciate this opportunity. I feel very unfortunate that the budget proposes a fundamental lack of understanding in the role of government of, by, and for the people. Supporting the middle class, lifting up the most vulnerable, serving our values and interests as a nation. We know sequestration has had devastating consequences on both defense and nondefense programs. Those consequences are going to but a generation or more, im afraid the trump budget only extends and deepens those problems. I think the Budget Proposal for the department of education can be summed up very quickly in one word abysmal. The submission from the public the budget proposed approximately 4 billion in cuts to investments in programs that support Public Schools. Recently, we authorized the bipartisan, bipartisan every Student Succeeds act. While proposing 1. 4 billion in new discretionary funding for the agenda and policies that promote vouchers and School Choice for schoolage children across the country. President trump has said that education is the civil rights issue of our time. I agree. Education can and should be the equalizer. Federal investments in Public Schools are intended to support all students, not just a few privileged ones. It is intended to close achievement cap. Disadvantaged students entering schools. Instead, this budget turns its back on millions of hardworking families and young people. It proposes to cut more than half 1 billion from the vast majority of School Districts. Sec. Devos might you should come to a rural area like vermont. Device, secretary devos, these are intended to support all students, not a few privileged ones. And it intended to close achievement gaps. This budget turns its back on millions of hardworking families, proposes to cut more than half 1 billion. Come to an rural area like vermont. Schools may be an hour or more away from where people live. School choice is not, under any circumstances, an option, especially in the middle of winter when we may have had 10 inches of snow overnight. It will leave the most vulnerable School Districts behind. It cuts aid to students struggling to pay for college by rescinding nearly 4 billion from pell grants, eliminating and reducing support for many other student aid programs. The best way to create a foundation for greatness is the as the trump budget purports to do is to invest in americas future, in our schools and our children. As vicechairman of this committee, i will work to put that in. I look forward to working with members of this committee on both sides of the out as we have done in the past to fulfill that goal. But you will not fulfill the goal of making America Great by cutting out opportunities for our children and for our schools. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator blunt this is her first time to testify before this subcommittee. Secretary devos has been involved in education policy and advocacy for nearly three decades, where she worked to empower parents and create new educational choices for students and families across the country. Im glad you are here and i look forward to hearing your testimony. Sec. Devos thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the administrations fiscal year 2018 Budget Proposal. I look forward to talking about how we can Work Together for opportunities and outcomes for all students while refocusing the federal role in education. Todays hearing is meant to focus on the numbers and mechanics of the budget. I hope we will all remember our goal and our shared purpose, how to best serve americas students. During the House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, i relayed the story one of those students, a young man named michael who grew up in East Hartford, connecticut. In his own words, he described what life was like for him in high school. I quoted him last month and i will do it again because his words are worth repeating. He said his assigned high school was nothing more than adult day care, a dangerous day care. Even though michael was failing his classes, they gave him a diploma anyway. He got a diploma but not in education. Since sharing his story, this young man has been barraged by attacks. But michael has tremendous courage. Instead of being intimidated, he wrote an oped where he admonished his attackers, sec. Devos instead of being intimidated, he wrote an oped where he admonished his attackers, writing rather than automatically getting into a defensive crouch, lets admit that these serious and real problems exist and that there is a lot of work to do. Lets give the kids and families who feel trapped the opportunity to find something better. Let me be clear my relaying of , michaels story is not a blanket indictment of Public Schools, of connecticut schools or even East Hartford high school. Just as the rest of michaels story, the story of his profound success, which has gone largely unreported, is not a blanket endorsement of Community Colleges, of the florida system of Higher Education, or the Valencia College where he is now in the honors program. What michaels story is is the reallife situation far too many of our students face. They are trapped in an Education System that, for whatever reason, is not serving them. And they have no other choices. In 2017, in america, we can and we must do better. Im proud to stand with michael. Students like him are why i am so passionate about reforming education. I ask you to keep michael and countless others like him in mind as we go about our shared work to support americas students. This budget lays out a series of proposals and priorities that work toward ensuring every student has a new opportunity to receive a great education. It focuses on returning decisionmaking power and flexibility to the states, where it belongs, and giving parents more control over their childs education, a right denied for too long. If taxpayer money were limitless, we wouldnt need a budget. But by its very definition, the budget reflects the difficult decisions of how best to appropriate the limited taxpayer dollars we have. This budget does so by putting an emphasis on programs proven to help students while taking a hard look at those that are well intended, but havent yielded meaningful results. The president s fiscal year 2018 budget would reduce overall funding by 13 . I would like to outline for you the principles that guided our decisionmaking. First, a request were devoted significant resources to giving every student an equal opportunity for a great education. It emphasizes giving parents more power and students more opportunities. Second, the administrations request recognizes the importance of maintaining strong support for Public Schools through longstanding state formula Grant Programs, focused on meeting the Educational Needs of the nations most vulnerable students, including poor and minority students and students with disabilities. Third, our request maintains funding for key competitive Grant Programs that support innovation and build evidence of what works in education. This also means strong support for the research and Data Collection activities of the department. Fourth, the request reduces funding for college while prioritizing efforts to help make a College Education accessible for lowincome students through programs like yearround pell. Commitment to improve the fifth, efficiency of the federal government, it would phase out 22 programs that are duplicative, ineffective, or better supported by a state and philanthropic efforts. In total, the president budget fulfills its promise to place power in the hands of parents and families. It refocuses the department on supporting states and the efforts to provide a highquality education to all of our students. It is time to unleash a new era of creativity and ingenuity and education. My hope is that working in , concert with you, we can make education in america the envy of the world. Thank you, again for the , opportunity to share the administrations vision for improving education across the country. I look forward to answering your questions. Senator blunt thank you. You mentioned yearround pell. We will have a round of five minute questions. We have to stay close to that. If you want your question answered during the five minutes, try to leave some time to answer the question, otherwise we may take those for the record. Theres five seconds left and you have got a threeminute answer, youre probably not going to hear it here today. The questions will be done as near as possible during the five minutes. That includes mine. So i had better get started. Im already down to four minutes and 30 seconds. [laughter] sen. Blunt madam secretary, you mentioned yearround pell. I think what we did in the appropriation for this year, returning to the yearround pell grant, gives adults returning to school, people paying their own way and working through school, people who are the first people in their family to hope to graduate from college, a greater likelihood they get that done. Anything that you do that doesnt disrupt the pattern that is working increases the odds he that you are going to actually achieve your goal of getting that degree and graduating. In my state and in most of our states, if you qualify for yearround pell, in every Community College we have in missouri, you get all your tuition paid, money for your books, fees paid, and a little money left over. And at least at one of our four year schools, yearround pell pays all of those things toward a fouryear degree as well as a twoyear degree and others. So, i am wondering i hope we have maximum flexibility as you come up with the implementation rules on yearround pell. I would like to hear where you are on that. I am very concerned. I will be watching closely. We dont need a lot of extra hoops to get that summer semester or third semester in that you didnt have access to for the last nine years now. Sec. Devos senator, thank you. Thank you so much for that question and for sharing the concern that we meet students needs and recognize the reality of education for many students today. By implementing year round pell, we do get nontraditional students. Lets face it more students entering Higher Education today are considered nontraditional. Give them the flexibility to set their own pace for their education. And complete their education as quickly or as over an extended period of time as they need to do so. And so you have my commitment in implementation of it we will honor the intent of congress in insuring that we leave and grant the maximum amount of flexibility to the students and recognizing their needs today. Sen. Blunt that would be good. Having the rules in place, i do know as people are thinking about entering the fall semester, the schools already are thinking about what their Summer Program should look like, if they return to the kind of student numbers they had before yearround pell was eliminating. Eliminated. The more they know how easy the implementation is going to be the better off well be. , now the pell grant is just that, it is a grant. It doesnt have to be paid back. Loans do have to be paid back. Weve been working with the department do create more competition in loan servicers. And among loan servicers, on may 19, the department of education put out a new proposal where there would be only one principle servicer. And im inclined to think that is not the best direction to go. Why did you make that decision as opposed to letting the department as it has been doing, allocate loans to servicers who are having the best experience and the best results . Sec. Devos senator, good question. That process was begun well before i arrived at the department. And in examining what had happened to date, the process was very complicated, confused, and was in fact moving to a single single servicer. We have proposed through the amendment that was put out on may 19 that we will be reexamining that process and those bids for the servicing arrangement. Our contention is that the method of servicing before with the department being the host so to speak to four different servicing platforms who went out and employed and engaged a number of other providers, became much more complicated for students to actually interact with. And was not servicing the customers, the students well. Through a single servicer, that servicer will be able to engage a wide variety of contractors to work with. They will have sole accountability instead of having four different points of accountability. We believe that this is going to bring much more effective and Efficient Service to the students and in fact, provide a , higher level of competition ultimately and greater level of accountability. Sen. Blunt well, i dont know that i agree with that. But we can talk about that later. Senator murray, im going to lead by example here and stop the clock on myself. Sen. Murray all right. Thank you. Secretary, your budget makes multiple requests for authority that is not provided in our bipartisan bill including a request to manipulate the Research Program to create this new 250 million private School Voucher proposal. Youve made some very confusing and concerning comments about how you see the role of the federal government in protecting students. So i want to be very clear and just yes or no, my time is limited. Will you require all schools participating in this Voucher Program to comply with idea . Sec. Devos absolutely. Sen. Murray and will you require all schools participating in this Voucher Program to comply with civil rights laws, including title ix that protects against discrimination based on race, religion, disability, Sexual Orientation, and gender identity . Sec. Devos yes, but let me also clarify. There is no specific proposal under that line item. It is really appropriations language, and the intent of that line item is to explore and experiment with sen. Murray so youre going to , be creating new regulations. Let me be very clear for this Voucher Program. Correct . Sec. Devos it wont necessarily be a Voucher Program specifically. That is really appropriations language. Its intended to be a Choice Program and to senator murray 250 million private tour as part of the program . Sec. Devos it is part of the Research Budget that will help us evaluate opportunities for students. Sen. Murray all right. Youre seeking authority for a new federal program. Its paid for my by constituents and all federal taxpayers. This question cant be left to states. The authority you are requesting says you, the secretary, will establish requirements for this new program. So should this Voucher Program ever come to be despite the opposition of a lot of people, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, will you require these schools receiving these funds to follow the i. D. A. . Sec. Devos any Institution Receiving Federal Funding is required to sen. Murray through a Voucher Program or anything else sec. Devos required to follow federal law. Sen. Murray as well as for discriminating against students, you will not allow . Sec. Devos let me be clear. Schools that receive federal funds must follow federal law. Period. Sen. Murray even through a program . Sec. Devos period. Sen. Murray more than half of our Public Schools, your budget proposed a cut of 578 million in this funding for districts that dont adopt your proposed policy. Are you aware your budget would result in these cuts . Sec. Devos i think, senator, we have a confusion here between the budget numbers that we were working with prior to the continuing resolution that was passed by congress. So the intention is to fully fund title i. Sen. Murray but this is a 578 million sec. Devos its not sen. Murray this is not planned with math. Were basing our numbers on the actual real world. Right now. The numbers that we passed you are not we cannot play that game. Sec. Devos this budget is based upon the numbers prior to that implementation in late april. Sen. Murray something that was never implemented into law. This cut is 578 million less based on current law, real , world. And, you know, thats that cant be played around with. Everyone knew that the 450 million in School Improvement Grant Funding would be consolidated. Consolidated in title i grants authorized under esa. , its the law of the land in both the house and senate bills provided that funding. Yet this budget is just choosing to ignore that fact and playing with numbers. And would result in a cut to title i School Districts that dont adopt your proposed policies. And i just have one more sec. Devos senator, let me just say. Thats incorrect. The budget numbers you received were based upon the numbers you had prior to april. Sen. Murray were playing with real world here. Sec. Devos the intention is to fully fund the title i funds sen. Murray based on numbers that dont exist. We cant play math with this. This is real world. Let me just ask you, i have a few seconds left. Many republicans actually attacked president obamas budgets proposing programs that were not authorized in federal law, but you not only cut the legs out from the bipartisan law with these massive cuts, you also proposed programs similar to one that Congress Already debated and rejected. And you claim your budget is focused on offering states and schools this flexibility. But then you propose holding a 1 billion hostage for states in districts to conform to youride ideology. You have requested new authority in this budget for a 1 billion proposal because essa doesnt allow you to use though weighted program for promoting your policies. Thats correct, right . Sec. Devos no, the 1 billion was intended to be in addition to the title i funds that would be fully funding, again, i refer back to what i said before that we were working with numbers that congress had not acted at the time sen. Murray you and i disagree on basic math. Let me sec. Devos it is in addition to 1 billion fully funding the title i sen. Murray well, im over time. What do you tell republicans who feel strongly that the federal government shouldnt use federal education dollars to bend states and School Districts to their will . Sec. Devos that it is a totally voluntary program on the part of states. Nobody will be coerced into using sen. Murray these are federal dollars sec. Devos but no state would be forced to utilize it or to enact anything as a result. Sen. Murray these are federal dollars. Sen. Blunt thank you, senator murray. Senator cochran. Sen. Cochran mr. Chairman, its a pleasure for me to join you and other members of the committee in congratulating dr. Devos for being here and being able to accept the responsibilities of being in her position. Shes contributed voluntarily a lot of time and effort to organizations like the Kennedy Center for performing arts, where i served with her on the board of directors. We have to depend upon a lot of volunteers in programs in our education area. Many federal programs are looked to to solve Serious Problems that really are responsibilities of state and local governments. Anyway, i want to join those who congratulate you for your agreement to serve and to work to help the department identify ways we can improve teacher recruitment. Student encouragement of moving on to graduate degrees and other programs such as childhood education. So the opportunities are there for a lot of meaningful work and i assure you this committee will i think, in a positive way, work with you to help make your service as secretary a great success. Sec. Devos thank you, chairman. Durbin . Nt senator sen. Durbin thank you very much. Madam secretary, welcome. Madam secretary, i think were facing a student loan crisis in america. Let me tell you why. Student loan debt now is greater than Credit Card Debt in america. Sec. Devos mmhmm. The 1. 3 trillion over 42 million americans owes Student Loan Debt. In the year 2016, the number of defaults on student loan repayments increased by 14 over the previous year. The average amount that students owe when they finish college has been growing dramatically year after year after year. When i look at the trump budget, the one that you brought before us today, i can find no relief for students who are facing this debt. In fact, just the opposite is true. When you freeze the pell grant, you require students to borrow more money to complete their education. When you eliminate the federal Work Study Program, you eliminate an opportunity for students to reduce their debt by working, by getting their education and working. When you increase the Interest Payments that are going to be paid by students over 10 years by 38 billion, in other words, accumulating Interest Payments while theyre in school, we dont do that to them now, but the new trump budget does. It means a greater debt at the end of the day. And finally, when you eliminate the Public Service loan forgiveness for students, those who want to go into teaching and nursing and critical professions dont get a helping hand. Theyre ignored, and they have a bigger debt. But sadly, that isnt the worst part of whats happened with the new department of education under the new president. Heres something you ought to think about. The most heavily subsidized for Profit Companies in America Today are for profit colleges forprofit colleges and universities. 80 to 90 or more of their revenue comes directly from the federal treasury. These are not crafty entrepreneurs. Theyre people who have learned how to game the government. The only protection taxpayers have is in your hands. So, heres two numbers id like you to think about. 9 of students graduating from high school go to forprofit colleges and universities. 9 . Yet 35 of all student loan defaults are students from forprofit colleges and universities. Whats wrong with this picture . 9 of the students and 35 of the student loan defaults. And yet, when we look at your policies, when it comes to the se forprofit college and universities, theyre troubling. From the hiring of your counsel which has been raised by senator , murray, directly from that industry, to raising questions as to whether youre going to police the ranks of those schools that are exploiting students across the United States and continue to. Whether its a question of gainful employment so that students dont get so deeply in debt they dont have a chance do to pay back their Student Loans. The defrauding of students by these schools thats been shown over and over again. The question is, what are you going to do about this . And attorneys general across the United States wrote you a letter on february 22nd of this year, spelling out in detail why your regulation of forprofit colleges and university is critical to protecting students from crippling and debilitating student debt. When i look at the trump budget, and the cutbacks when it comes to Student Loans, the new burdens that are being placed on the of, and the lack of policing the ranks of fourprofit colleges and universities, forprofit colleges and universities im afraid the , student loan crisis is going to get worse. Please respond. Sec. Devos senator, thank you. Im not sure exactly what your question was there. Let me just say that i totally agree with you that student debt and Student Loans are a of grave concern. I talked about that during my confirmation hearing. And i feel no differently now. In fact, i probably feel more strongly about the critical nature of the increasing student debt sen. Durbin so your budget increases the interest burden of students. Your budget freezes the pell grant, so they have to borrow more. Your budget n does not give them public loan forgiveness. Sec. Devos the budget actually gives students a relief, welldefined and new way to address their Student Loans long term. Their student debt longterm through incomedriven repayment plan that would cap the repayment that 12. 5 of their Discretionary Income. And after 15 years for undergraduates would be paid off. So its a really specific plan that will allow students to address this. But i think the question and the issue is a much broader one. And i think that in the context of your discussions around a higher ed bill and higher ed reauthorization or starting afresh, this is a real area of concern and one to address. We havent done a good job of helping students to know what their full menu of options are when pursuing Higher Education. Weve segmented out career and Technical Education in such a way that it seems like its a lesser of two in that weve put a higher emphasize on Fouryear College and university. And i think all of these areas are ones that we have to have robust discussion about as we consider how what is the proper role of the federal government in supporting students pursuing Higher Education in the future . And with the reality of todays world . Sen. Blunt senator shelby. Sen. Shelby thank you. Madam secretary, thank you for your service and thank you for taking on a job that is so challenging. We all realize that. Madam secretary, in your testimony, you stated that you support expanding Educational Options for lowincome families regardless of their zip code. Specifically, you stated that you are committed to locally developed, studentcentered charter School Programs. In many rural areas in america, including my state of alabama, the infrastructure needed to establish and effectively run a Charter School just doesnt exist. However, in some of these areas , there are established institutions of higher learning. Some colleges universities, learning, some colleges and some universities that know the , unique needs of students. Many of these rural areas are in need of alternative Educational Options that they dont have today. My question is, would you be open to examining the idea of a rural of rural institutions of Higher Education, establishing Charter Schools to create community specific curriculum to serve the needs of young people . Because a lot of it is not there today. Sec. Devos senator, thank you for your question. And to go right to the heart of the matter around giving parents more choices to find the right education for their child or children, i know that rural areas have unique needs and unique circumstances. Often, when we think about offering choices, we think about bricks and mortar and more in infrastructure. Maybe thats not the right answer for all rural communities. Sen. Shelby maybe they have infrastructure, but maybe the teachers are not there. Sec. Devos with regard to partnering with Higher Education for Charter Schools, i think that is a great idea to explore and would certainly encourage communities to look at that and explore that option. I would also encourage exploration of providing Virtual Learning for classes that they cannot necessarily hire a teacher for. There is many different options , and certainly, with technology today, thats a wider band of options and would look forward to talking with you about how that might work. Sen. Shelby thank you. Im going to shift to Technical Education. We have a lot of people going to the universities. My i constituency constituents generally tell me one of the greatest needs is a in america is a skilled workforce. In manufacturing and other things. A lot of the people arent going to college, but they need the skills for the marketplace. Both President Trump and you have stated strong support for career and Technical Education programs. However this is troubling in the fiscal year, 2018 Budget Proposal, there are large cuts to the career and Technical Education state grants program. This provides resources to states and local institutions so they can determine how career and Technical Education programs best fit their communities, their work force, and their needs. When your department was creating the 2018 budget, what were the perceived implications of cutting the Technical Educational program there . And how does the department of education expect to be able to continue to effectively meet the needs of state all of our programs rather than improve them . Sec. Devos senator, your right you are right about the emphasis that we are placing on career and Technical Education and opportunities for students in that direction. And while the budget does reflect a cut in career and technical support, it still maintains nearly 1 billion in support for those programs, and it also calls out a special 20 Million Investment in stem programs and initiatives. Sen. Shelby uhhuh. Sec. Devos more broadly speaking, there is an opportunity to look at how some of these efforts have been siloed between departments. And, you know, the reality is that the department of labor also has a lot of programs that have some overlap with this kind of education. So we ought to be looking holistically again, as we look ought higher ed bill to be looking holistically about how to best support and advance the opportunities that students have through career and Technical Training. I had the opportunity to visit three really great Community Colleges that have very extensive stemrelated and career and Technical Training programs. It was a pleasure and a joy to see how they partnered with the needs of the businesses in their Geographic Area to meet the needs both of students and the businesses they are supporting. Isnt there a crying need that we need to tailor our educational system to the marketplace and the jobs an d the demands for people . Sec. Devos we know there are about 7 million jobs that require skilled training that are going unfilled. There is a real need to offer these opportunities and to have real good dialogue and communication between those that have the opportunities and those students that may not know about them today. Sen. Blunt thank you, senator shelby. Senator shaheen. Sen. Shaheen thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary devos, you started your Statement Today talking about a young man named michael. I would like to tell you about a young man named raymond who wrote a letter about the summers youth connection, which is a 21st Century Learning Center in summersworth, New Hampshire, and he talks about , in this letter, what a difference syc, which is what they call the somersworth youth connection has made for him and , the community. Raymond says, growing up, life wasnt easy. Never knowing my real parents, being poor and moving made life tough. I was 10 when i moved from raymond to somersworth. I always felt like an outcast without any friends. I would see kids having fun, laughing, running around like they didnt have a worry in the world. I was there with everything on my shoulders. Months of passing by a cafeteria filled with these kids after school, i decided to go in. I was greeted by a man that i would begin to look up to and become friends with. He gave me the paperwork to go be able to go the next following day. Ever since that day, syc has been part of my life. , without syc,ay somersworth wouldnt be the same. It has had the biggest impact in this community. You talked about Education Programs needing to yield meaningful results. Well, this 21st Century Learning Center and dozens of others like this one, for thousands of students in New Hampshire, has yielded meaningful results. Yet, this budget that has been proposed would take away those opportunities for kids like rye raymond. What should you say to raymond and to other students who will no longer have a place to go after school, who are going to go home without supervision, where they can get into trouble, because their parents arent going to be home, who are not going to have the homework assistance, who are not going to have the help they need to succeed in school . What do you say to somebody like raymond . Sec. Devos senator, thank you for that story and the you for the opportunity to talk about the flexibility that the essa legislation affords for situations like this. And i am hopeful that and i would encourage that New Hampshire, as they are putting ssa plan together, think about what programs and areas are best supported. They have a lot of flexibility. Sen. Shaheen a state like New Hampshire sorry to interrupt, but a state like New Hampshire does not have the funding to put together programs if you take away the federal dollars that support these atrisk kids. I want to go on to follow up senator durbins question about Student Loan Debt. Because in New Hampshire, we also have the highest average Student Loan Debt in the country. We have over 52,000 students who receive subsidized loans from the department. We have an average of 36,000 per student graduating with Student Loans debt. So again, why are you reducing opportunities for hardworking outofstate students to earn the money they need for work . Sec. Devos senator if i could , just refer back for one moment to the 21st century program, half of the students that qualified for that have shown no outcome in general. Sen. Shaheen that data may be true nationwide, but that data is not true in New Hampshire. So why are you going to make the students in New Hampshire suffer for the fact that there are programs in some places not working as well as they should . And isnt that the departments job to make sure those programs work the way are supposed to for kids . Because in New Hampshire, they are working. Sec. Devos i think New Hampshire has the opportunity to support programs that are working. Again, flexibility there is plenty of flexibility in the funds that are going to New Hampshire. Sen. Shaheen flexibility if you have money, but if there are not dollars there, how do you support these kind of programs . That is the challenge. When you eliminate the efforts making a difference for students whether it be students in college to need help with Student Loan Debt or atrisk kids after school . They dont have any other resources. So what do we tell the students who are going to see their lives changed and disappointed because these are no longer available to them . Sec. Devos a think it is really important for us to remember that only 8 of the funding for education broadly comes from the federal government. 92 , the states are sen. Shaheen believe me i , understand that. As a former governor who struggled for years with funding education in New Hampshire. , i totally get that but i also , understand when a program is working on making a difference in their lives, to pull that rug out from under them with nowhere else to go is a defeat for the policy and a defeat for the students. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Sec. Devos i am confident New Hampshire can figure it out if it is a great program. Sen. Blunt senator alexander. Alexander thank you. Madam secretary, welcome. I want to ask about secondary education. There are two ways to be education secretary. One, as an advocate higher standards, better teacher evaluation, more choice. The other is always from washington. I think the reason we got 85 votes for the law fixing no child left behind was because so many were tired of the orders from washington. You are going to be approving a plan from every state about how to spend its title i funding. The law says you can only approve them you only failed to approve it, if it does not follow the law. Will you follow the law or will you be tempted to use your own policy ideas in approving or rejecting state plans . Sec. Devos senator, we will be following the law and approve plans as congress intended. Sen. Alexander we also put in a prohibition to say there is a waiver in the law for exceptional circumstances, we did not want the secretary of education conditioning the waiver by using the secretarys own ideas about what a community might do. Will you respect the law saying that you may not use the waiver to condition receipt of federal funds to follow your own ideas of what a community might do . Sec. Devos that is correct sir. I will definitely respect that. Sen. Alexander madam secretary, we talked before about this report that the Higher Education community did at the request of senator mikulski, senator bennett. We said, give us specifics about what you do not like about what they call the jungle of red tape that takes away money that interferes with their administering the 6000 colleges and universities money which might be better used for students. About a dozen of those recommendations can be done solely by the secretary. Four of the 10 most important can be done solely by the secretary. I think you know what those are. They have to do is simple time, return, title iv funding, updating standards, modifying state authorizations, distance education. There is also another one that would streamline the reporting data that now comes through 11 different annual surveys. Will you make a priority and give it your attention the dozen proposals within the kirwan zephyrs report to get rid of the jungle of red tape and in Higher Education . Will you make that a priority . Sec. Devos yes. Yes, in fact we are well , underway examining the steps we can take to accept and examine exactly what has been recommended in with regard to one of them, the look at all of the regulations, that coincides also with the president posix s executive order to really review regulations in every the executive department. We have begun a deep dive into all of those and you have my commitment to continue that process. Sen. Alexander thank you. In the Authorization Committee chair,ator murray and i we hope to make education a high priority soon. There has been a lot of bipartisan work within our committee for example, a dozen senators have worked to take this 108 question College Application form that families 20 million fill out every year, we have an equal number of democrats and republicans ready to change this. We even have suggested, senator bennett and i, getting it down to two questions. President obama said he thought he could get rid of onethird of the questions. Our staff thinks it has it down to two dozen questions. Will you work with us . The department cant do that all by ourselves. Will you make it a priority getting rid of this unnecessary burden on families who are applying for federal student aid . Sec. Devos absolutely. Sen. Alexander and also we have , bipartisan proposals that would simplify the number of loans. This is also in the president s budget, that we would do. That came after many hearings that we had. Of ways toe number repay federal Student Loans. I have had College President s tell me they had a hard time paying Student Loans because it was so complicated. We have bipartisan consensus of cutting that down to two. So, will you also work with us as we work to the Higher Education act to simplify the repayment of Student Loans and the number of Student Loans, which is one way we could help improve access to college . Sec. Devos yes, indeed. In fact, this Budget Proposal contains the land for the puzzle to consolidate down to one repayment plan, and i think is a good step toward simplification. Sen. Alexander thank you, matt of. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Sen. Blunt i think well have after this first round a chance for a second round of questions if anybody has more questions they want to be sure in state for that. We are going by order of the tenants. Senator schatz is next. Sen. Schatz thank you, mr. Chairman. Madam secretary, thank you for being here. As you know, the budget calls for 9 billion of cuts to the department of education. For clarification, is this your budget . Sec. Devos yes. This is our budget working in concert with omb. Sen. Schatz ok. The cuts you said could be afforded by other state, local, and private sources. But this is contrary to evidence , as you likely know, state funding for education has been declining at all levels. State, county, city. I know you know there is not private Foundation Money to the tune of 9 billion a year. So how are we going to come up , with 9 billion or do think you think there should be 9 billion less spent in education overall . Sec. Devos the approach to the budget was to make tough dishes decisions and recognize the fact that money is not limitless, and respect the taxpayer. Sen. Schatz but that is not what hold on one second. You say the programs that are cut could be supported by federal, state, and local , and private sources. You dont say we are in an constrained fiscal environment where wed like to spend more if , we could. There are two ways to approach 9 billion of cuts. One is, we want to make 9 billion with of cuts, we think it is in the best interest of public and private education because we think the federal , government should play less overall and the burden should switch to the private sector. And to local does. That is one philosophy. The other is, we dont have it enough money. If we could do more, we would do more. Which philosophy are you articulating in this budget . Sec. Devos some of the programs recommended for scaling back or cutting our duplicative are duplicate it. Some are ineffective. Some could better be supported by state, local, or philanthropic efforts. Sen. Schatz did you include the cut of 40,000 teachers, federally funded, in that category of duplicative or could be supported by some other entity . Sec. Devos i do not know exactly what 40,000 teachers you are referring to, but if you are talking about the teacher training program, that sen. Schatz now, i am talking about title ii, 40,000 teachers salaries. Sec. Devos for reducing class sizes . Is that what you are trying to suggest . That has been used by a broad range of teacher initiatives. Sen. Schatz go ahead. Sec. Devos they have been very thinly spread, and in many case, like 20 of the cases, the funds are less than 10,000 to a school. So, there has not been an there has not been evidence of great outcomes or effectiveness from this program. Sen. Schatz have you i have limited time. [crosstalk] sec. Devos not wanted to talk about the implementation of the ssa, allowing for greater flexibility to target resources to effective teacher improvement programs. Sen. Schatz service goes back to what i really do have limited time. This goes back to what the former governor shaheen mentioned. You are imagining revenue not in evidence. You are imagining flexibility that does not exist at the local level. So to say that, for instance, 21st Century Learning Centers or what is happening in career and Technical Education, or these dollars that support 40,000 teachers across the United States to say it will be handled , by the private sector or through increased flexibility, you reduce the flexibility that Education Systems have by reducing the funding that they have. It is a sort of rhetorical device to say they will be basking in new flexibility. But anybody who has run a government, or anybody who has run a school does not want flexibility. They want resources. What you are doing is cutting them massively. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Sec. Devos actually, what i have heard from a lot of them as a lot of state and local leaders is what they do want and need is flexibility. Sen. Blunt madam secretary, thank you for your service and for stepping up to be able to take on this. I would have to tell you that there is not a person on this dais who does not support education. We certainly support education. We have 50 Million Students in elementary and secondary education. 20 Million People involved in Higher Education. That is 70 million americans. That is an awful lot of families and people directly affected by what is going on, and so, we are all exceptionally passionate about this. I can also tell you, in the short time i have been in the appropriations budget it is a , fairly rare moment, i would say, to sit in any hearing and to have a conversation about how we reduce federal spending. It seems to be every request that comes from every agency is, we need additional funds. There is always more to do, there is no question. But for somebody to say, we have to be able to find a way to serve students and taxpayers as well is a fairly rare conversation around these parts. Let me have some clarification. You brought up about this 1 billion increase in title i funding dedicated to furthering options for children to unlock success. The question came up earlier. Excuse me. How is this different than a race to the top . There was a concern from this that when president obama was putting in race to the top, it was a federal requirement. If you want these dollars, you have to do this curriculum, our way, and if you do not do it our way, you cannot get the dollars that came out of your state back to your state. How is this different from race to the top . Sec. Devos this proposal is very much voluntary on the part of the states. It is only if they want to attempt an experiment, really, to allow students to attend other Public Schools in their region. And it is in no way going to be mandated from the top that this has to happen or how it has to happen. Other than that, in order to do so there has to be money to , follow the child to the other school. Answer, that is really the framework around which states or local districts would be able to opt into or adopt that. And getting that, how to do testing requirements, additional reporting that is beyond the requirements put down by congress sec. Devos no, we have seen that movie. We all have. Grateful for that. There is a concern as well when i talk to people in colleges about the parent plus loan program. This is something we will have to address in module. We want to be able to have the administrations since as we walked to the street many colleges talk about the growing size of Student Loans on these families, and these are students taking it out. The colleges are made aware of the Student Loans and there are caps for those Student Loans and criteria for those Student Loans. But when you get to their parents and the parent plus loan, that is not true. Many parents in their 50s are 50,000 or 60,000 worth of loans that will be garnished from Social Security checks in the days ahead based on the requirements of it. The colleges tell me they are not aware of that. Theyre able to work with students to limit their amounts of Student Loans and counsel them, but they are not made aware of the parent plus loans and they continue to accelerate , and become a bigger issue. Do you have any other input or background on that . Sec. Devos i am aware of that issue and it really plays into , the much larger question about how students are prepared and informed for their Higher Education options and alternatives. And i think that as the higher or higher ed legislation is discussed, this is an area of concern that should be a part of that. We would love to have your cooperation because we have to resolve that. Click story. I had a superintendent at a primarily africanamerican School District in this particular area of my state that called me a couple years ago and said, we have got to have your help. The office of civil rights is out of control. I had heard that from Higher Education. Ive heard that from secondary schools. I am hearing that from yet another superintendent. Yet another principal. The comments coming back to me were, we want to be able to honor every student but we are being given instructions from d. C. On how to manage things. The president specifically gave instructions to be able to review regulations. I would assume this is going to be all regulations in all areas but i would tell you in , particular in Higher Education, universities work exceptionally hard to make sure every student from every background is honored in the process. But they tell me over and over, when someone comes up to a title ix piece, they have been given instructions from d. C. To find something. Stay there until you find something to put into this report and require the university to be able to write a letter. What i would like to work with on in the days ahead is let us help them succeed not actually , put someone out there until they find something to put into a report. Lets walk alongside of them and where theres a problem, correct it, but let us not humiliate schools in the process. I would like to work with your office on ways that is coming out. Sec. Devos i would welcome that opportunity, senator. Sen. Blunt thank you, madam secretary. Senator . Earlier you said if a Charter School or dollars school gets a dollar federal late they have to follow all the federal laws regarding discrimination. Is that correct . Sec. Devos that is correct. Thank you, but those laws are somewhat foggy in that area, so i want to be absolutely clear about what you are saying. Private schools generally set their own admission policies. Is it you they will not be allowed under your program to discriminate against lgbtq . Tudents sec. Devos on areas where the laws unsettled, this department is not going to be issuing decrees. Sen. Merkley so, please just answer the question. Is discrimination going to be allowed or not allowed . Under your understanding . Sec. Devos on areas of unsettled law, congress sen. Merkley so discrimination is allowed . You are refusing to answer the question . Sec. Devos i am going back to what i said earlier. Sen. Merkley what you said earlier did not help us because it is an area of unsettled law. I think you said that where it is unsettled, such discrimination will be allowed. If that is incorrect, please corrected for the record. How about discrimination based on religion . While such discrimination be allowed with charter or private schools . Sec. Devos again, schools that receive federal funding, federal laws must be followed. Schools that receive federal funding will follow federal law. Period. Ok, you are refusing to answer the question. I think that is very important for the public to know that today, the secretary of education, before this committee, refused to affirm that she would put forward a program that would ban discrimination based on sexual lgbtq status of students, or ban discrimination based on Sexual Orientation or religion. Sec. Devos that is not what i said. Discrimination in any form is wrong. I do not support discrimination in any form. Sen. Merkley does your program ban such dissemination, yes or no . Sec. Devos what program are you talking about . Sen. Merkley your private score and political grant programming. You are not answering the question. Lets turn to your thoughts on college. You say you want to reduce the burden of debt, but you have established a new program that exactly the same program. Income payment driven repayment program. You made up more expensive. How does that help a student today pay for college if you take an existing program and make it more expensive, by 76 billion i might add. Sec. Devos the proposal is to move to Discretionary Income repayment. I saw an example of this the other day. In the end, it ends up being less costly for students. Sen. Merkley let me point out, your budget takes 76 billion out of the program by raising it from 10 to 12. 5 . And, does that require additional years of a graduate student loan is involved . Is it 30 years . Sec. Devos 30 years for graduate students. Sen. Merkley and wouldnt it be better for students to do work study in order to reduce the amount of debt they have . But you cut in half the federal Work Study Program. Why not encourage students to be able to hold a job in college and reduce debt rather than make them have higher debt . Sec. Devos we are proposing reducing the Work Study Program, but not eliminating it. Sen. Merkley but do you see the logic of my point that a student, a lowincome student struggling with massive debt, wouldnt that person be better off being able to work in college and reduce debt . Sec. Devos i think it is straight for students to work in college. Worked is not have to be limited to oncampus activity. There is other opportunities, but the Workstudy Program is targeted to undergraduate students, not to graduate School Students. Sen. Merkley another thing that increases the amount of debt is the Pell Grant Program you put forward does not keep pace with the inflation in Public Schools. Students go from having the pell cover roughly 30 to covering only 25 . Doesnt that make it harder for americas students from working and struggling families to pay for college . Sec. Devos well we believe , having yearround options will help actually students get through school much more quickly if they choose to. And the pell program is a very Important Program for students most in need. Sen. Merkley would you like to repropose a pell program that does keep pace inflation, so it covers the same percent for working families . Program,s the pell max award is it is an Important Program that has received Priority Funding in this budget. We want to continue to support those who are most vulnerable and the populations most in need of our support to pursue a blank Higher Education, but i go back to what i said earlier on a broader scale. We have to do a much better job of talking with students early on about their wide range of options. Sen. Merkley ok thank you. , my time has expired. But let me just the secretary has failed to sen. Blunt senator, your time has expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and madam secretary. I want to say at the outset, to thank you for the yearround pell initiatives. I think that, in a state like West Virginia, will have great meaning and certainly around the country. I do have to express some frustration. Im trying to touch in a very specific situation at West Virginia State University regarding the upward bound program. Upward bound has functioned on the campus of West Virginia State University, which is the institute of West Virginia for , 50 years. Sen. Capito unbeknownst to them, they got knocked out of the program. They had an error on their worksheet, not even on their actual application. 104 over the maximum. So 104 on a worksheet has ruined a 50year relationship. I have cosigned to letters with letters with my colleagues two here in the senate because other upward bound programs are experiencing this great frustration. Last week, you testified in the house that you would have a willingness to review these rejected applications. And i am asking you for the same commitment today and if you have begun doing that . Sec. Devos senator, thanks for the question. The upward bound situation as you know brought great frustration to me when i discovered that competition that was opened and closed before i ever got in this role was rejecting applicants based on formatting errors. Sen. Capito right. Sec. Devos were talking about two Different Things here. Sen. Capito right. Sec. Devos the only way we could actually revisit the 77 applicants that were rejected because of formatting errors was because of the action in the omnibus bill that specifically said to look again at the formatting errors and additional appropriations accompanying that. So, were talking apples and oranges here, unfortunately. Though i would love to look at that one again i would ,sen. Capito i do not accept you cant look at it again. I have letters from students in the program. Many of them, students with no options. They have parents that have not gone to college. They, for the first time, their gradepoint averages have gone up. Several of them are in really desperate family situations. If it were not for upward bound, they would not have the opportunity or the aspirations to attend college and further their education. So, i am asking again to look at that. Look at that one again. I am going to move to Something Else right now. Something senator shaheen was talking about. We both come from rural, smaller states that have limited budgets. Having visited many of them myself and our state, 7000 kids in West Virginia will not receive service because of this cut. You are talking about after school. Many times parents are not there. The mentoring, the fun, the nutrition, the leadership skills, homework help, all the things that occur in after School Programs. It is a situation where either both parents are working or a lot of times there are some reasonable Single Parents or grandparents raising children who cannot be home when he children at home. What alternatives . You mentioned in response to her at alternative is the state is going to take it over but she rejected it because of funding issues. In my state, 500 million in the hole. This is not something were going to be able to span statewide. You question whether they are successful, of the Higher Education students at operatives that have participated. In the program in our state, there has been 100 graduation accomplishment which is well above our statewide average. I would ask you to relook at that and talk about when he about 21st century and why that was written out of the budget. Sec. Devos thank you senator. As i said earlier, the decision in the Budget Proposal was based on tough choices and tough decisions. Looking at programs for their effectiveness and the amount of students served. Again, the 21st century learning plan, 21st century programs, are reaching the only less than half of the students for whom they are intended and of half of the students that participate, there is very inconsistent participation on their part. We were really trying to focus on actual education settings, 21st century is before and after school. Summertime, so forth. So not really focused on the core mission. As i said, tough choices. We made some tough choices and tough decisions around this. This one was deemed to be one that was not as effective and not as appropriate for funding proposal from this department. Sen. Blunt senator manchin. Senator manchin thank you, secretary devos for testifying today. I will reiterate what my colleague and good friend said about the concerns we have. One thing that keeps us bipartisan here in the senate is veterans and children. We seem to really cross over and really want to help. I think we all very much care about that but one size doesnt fit all. I would like to welcome a couple of West Virginians. They were concerned about the planned cuts from the 21st Century Committee learning center. We have pam shup from the playmates preschool and Child Development center in cerita, West Virginia. She has her children, brendan and aiden with her. I hope you get a chance to meet with them. They are really quite something. Rural schools, we have talked about rural schools, the cuts and all this that is coming. I know you still feel strongly about the school of choice. In states such as West Virginia, a rural setting makes it hard. We dont have that luxury of having that choice, because we have a lot of schools consolidated already, closing because of lack of students an things of this sort. With the cuts because of the support of the Choice Program in a state that doesnt have a Choice Program or an effective Choice Program that would work because of our ruralness. How can we make up that difference . Is there any flexibility that you have that we could work to help some of the schools, programs that were cut, through the money that they are not going to be asking from you for choice . Sec. Devos thanks for the question and more broadly, the question around rural schools, as you know, the special line item for rural schools has been maintained and is proposed to be the same as it was for the last year. That does provide rural schools the opportunity to do some things differently or in addition to what all of the funding through the other title plans do. When it comes to addressing specific needs in West Virginia, i go back to the opportunity that the state has through its essa plan to really target in and focus on addressing the needs that West Virginian students have and the uniqueness there. The flexibility that is built in that you all put into that legislation to allow states and local districts to be able to do some things differently than before. We believe it will provide a lot if opportunity. I am hopeful that will see some creativity in that regard. Sen. Manchin let me talk about another subject here. Every Student Succeeds act included a new program called the title 4 students support academic and enrichment grants program. The block grant is designed to provide state and School Districts for wellrounded education. We are getting pummeled by the opiate addiction that goes on in our state and around this country. I understand the department stripped the funding from the block grant that can be used to help states like mine that is being devastated by opiate addiction. I dont know whether you realize the effect it is having in the family and the Family Support and why this was so important to try to build some type of a structure when it functionally has collapsed in the family or in the community because of opiate addiction. Sec. Devos well, the issue of opiate addiction is a very concerning one to many communities. Again, i go back to the contention that West Virginia has an opportunity to really focus. Sen. Manchin they dont have the opportunity to do it. Thats the problem, when you cut it. We all have well and good intentions, i understand. The state is facing some budget challenges like other states. These programs are so vitally important to stabilize a structure that has fallen apart. The opiate addiction that affects the childs family is just devastating. Sec. Devos the promised Neighborhood Program can help in that regard, i believe. I also want to go back to a comment that was made earlier about state and local School Budgets that are reducing and correct that. In fact, the spending estimate increase in state and local funding for education between this year and next year is expected to increase 21 billion in the state. So there is not a decrease in funding at the state and local level. There actually continues to be a greater investment on the part of state and local governments. Sen. Manchin we are going to hope that somebody from your department would come to West Virginia and go through our department with them and explain that. They are looking at it as cuts. Maybe there is some way we can work something out. We love to do that. I know my time is running out. I want you to consider medicaid in schools. Medicaid in schools is sometimes the first line of delivery to some of these children that get any type of health care. It is very, very concerning to us. I hope you would consider that. I would love to get with your agency and sit down and see if we can have a visit to West Virginia. Sec. Devos i would welcome that, thanks. Senator blunt kennedy . Senator kennedy thank you, mr. Chairman, madam secretary. Thank you for your service. My Research Shows that the department of educations discretionary budget has quadrupled from fiscal year 1989 to the current fiscal year. It has gone from 17. 1 billion to 68. 3 billion. Does that sound about right . Sec. Devos that does sound about right, yes. Sen. Kennedy i know that part of your job, the biggest part of your job is to advocate for education. Also, part of your job is to manage taxpayer money. Is that not the case . Sec. Devos that is correct. Sen. Kennedy now, when you were sworn in and got comfortable at your department and you had a chance to go through the 68. 3 billion budget, did you find waste . Sec. Devos we are finding waste pretty regularly and part of the president s admonition to us is to actually do a whole review of the department and that has been an initiated and i expect in the coming months we are going to have a lot more to say about that. Sen. Kennedy do you find it at all strange that in america now we seem to judge success and education by how much money we are spending as opposed to whether our kids are learning . Sec. Devos i do find that strange. In fact, in the last administration, there was 7 billion invested specifically into schools that were failing or deemed failing to improve them. There was absolutely zero outcome from that investment. So, yes, the notion that spending more money is going to bring about different results i think is illplaced and illadvised. Sen. Kennedy what do we spend on average throughout america per Public School student . I have read 12,000, 13,000 . Sec. Devos it is between 12,000 and 13,000, i believe. Sen. Kennedy i read once that slovakia spends about half the money but we rank the same. Have you seen that . Sec. Devos i have seen those statistics, yes. Sen. Kennedy you are aware, im sure, that some people dont like you because you support vouchers and Charter Schools . Sec. Devos i am peripherally aware of that, yes. [laughter] sen. Kennedy i have this theory about education in america. Our problem is not Higher Education. We have got the best colleges and universities in the world. We have a problem paying for kids to go there. People from all over the world want to come here to further their education. Our problem is elementary and secondary education. Americans have demonstrated that they can do extraordinary things. We can i was out at nih yesterday. We can unravel the human ginome. We can take a human heart and replace it with a new one and make that thing beat. We can send somebody to the moon and bring them back but we cant seem to teach our kids how to read and write and do basic math when we have got 18 years to do it. Sec. Devos thats true. Sen. Kennedy i dont understand that. Now, i will support anything, and i suspect you are the same, i dont care what the political cost is. I am willing to try just about anything to improve element tear and elementary education, including vouchers and school of choice and Charter Schools. I can go down to my overpriced capitol hill grocery and choose among about six different types of mayonnaise. How come i cant do that for my kid in school . Let me im almost done with my time. What percentage of the elected officials in america that give advice about elementary and secondary Public Education do you think really know what it is like to be in a classroom . Sec. Devos i think thats a very good question. I dont have the answer to that but it is a really good question to ponder. Sen. Kennedy would you support a bill that said that any elected official, we may have to narrow it down, any elected official that makes policy for elementary and secondary education, should be required to substitute teach in a Public School at least once a year . Sec. Devos that would be an innovative approach for sure. Sen. Kennedy now, i want you to understand. Im not talking about going to a civics class and talking about how a bill becomes a law. I mean a real teacher. You start at quarter to 7 00 and go to 2 45. You do lunch duty and bus duty and you teach four or five classes. It is you and the kids. Sec. Devos that would be an interesting exercise for sure. Sen. Kennedy well talk about it. Im out of time. Senator blunt thank you, senator kennedy. Sec. Devos thank you, senator. Sen. Baldwin thank you. Secretary devos, we had a chance to meet prior to your confirmation hearing and you and i talked about a lot of issues. One of the things that appeared to be an area of agreement was the importance of career and Technical Education, otherwise known as cte. As a cochair of the senate cte caucus, it is an issue of great importance to me and certainly to my home state of wisconsin. I look at your proposed budget cuts for the perkins career and Technical Education act. It is 168 million cut and the more than 1. 5 billion in cuts through the elimination of the Student Support and academic enrichment grant and the 21st Century Community learning Centers Program that some of my colleagues have been asking you about from both sides of the aisle, both of these programs request be used to support Stem Education. Instead, you propose an unauthorized 20 million competitive grant for career and Technical Education programs in stem fields. So i want to ask you how would 20 million for competitive grants make up for or replace the more than 1. 5 billion in formula funding for programs that could support career and Technical Education and Stem Education efforts in every state . Sec. Devos senator, thanks for that question. Let me reiterate, we do share the real interest in ensuring na students have all the options on in ensuring that students have all the options on the table for pursuing really great futures through career and Technical Education. Sen. Kennedy i want you to speed up your answer because i have two more questions i want to get in in the time. So get to it. Sec. Devos as we talk about Higher Education legislation, i think career an Technical Education need to be a part of that broader discussion. Right now, we have a lot of efforts that really overlap this housed in the department of labor and administered there. Sen. Kennedy so you are suggesting that this 20 million competitive grant would do the job. Sec. Devos disperse some innovation and creativity. It is meant to spur innovation, encourage and foster innovation and creativity. Sen. Kennedy while eliminating the others. I want to get on to my next question. College affordability is a huge issue. Your budget would make college less affordable for students in my state. It targets three campusbased programs, perkins loans, the federal Work Study Program and the supplemental education opportunity grant, all of which allow campuses to target and finetune Financial Aid to students they know to be in need. Sometimes saving from a situation where somebody is about to drop out. Yet your budget slashes all of them, including the supplemental education opportunity grants. It cuts work study in half and supports an end to the perkins loan program. That program, by the way, has provided over 60 million in aid to students in need in wisconsin this past academic year. It also cuts billions from other programs that make college more affordable like federal subsidized loans and Public Service loan forgiveness, which breaks a promise in my mind. Just some of these cuts in aggregate in my home state would mean that we would lose about 107 million in fine napgsancial in Financial Assistance to students. How do these truly drakonian cuts reflect anything other than an effort to push college further out of reach to more and more young people . Sec. Devos the budget really seeks to make college and higher ed options more flexible for students. The perkins sen. Kennedy the campusbased program. Sec. Devos was not reauthorized. Sen. Kennedy because they are controlled at the local level. Sec. Devos the perkins funding was not reauthorized by congress. Sen. Kennedy it is in effect right now. Sec. Devos well, again, going back to the bigger picture, offering yeararound pell and and giving more flexibility to students to pursue their education as quickly or over as long of a period they need, realizing that students today have different needs and are going to go about their higher ed in different manners, the other program to which you were referring, the ciag, is dueplicate of pell. The students that get the most out of it through the pell program sen. Baldwin secretary devos, i am going to cut you off. We have run out of time. I hope to get to a third question. I will submit it for the record relating to the title nine guidance to schools about the rights of transgender students. Senator rubio thank you. Thank you for being here today, madam secretary. It strikes me, this whole debate about education. I approach it as someone who went to Public School my entire life who would not have been able to go to College Without pell grants. I paid sally may a lot of my money. Over 130,000 in Student Loans. It strikes me. All these debates we have about education nowadays are basically about how much money we out or not put into a model of Public Education. One of the nuances. Im not accusing you of this. The question is, how does this budget account for this reality that i see it with four children still in the k through 12 system. How does the budget account for this new reality that what we are dealing with is incredibly nuanced and complex . I have three teachers in my family. Thanksgiving and christmas is always interesting, one is an assistant principal, my sister. One of the things we do that the other countries dont do is we teach everybody. We should. There are places if you are disabled, if you dont get enough grades in second grades, they stop trying with you. We dont and should never do that. That makes us unique. Children bring to the classroom everything, they bring it all. So if a child, here is the reality, if a child is living in a dangerous neighborhood in sub standard housing in a broken home, this child is going to struggle to learn unless there are things in place to assist them inside and outside the school. That costs money. Not only does it cost money, it takes innovation to try to figure out what work ns as in a certain place. This summer, right now, we are a few days away from school letting out, if the kids dont stay on school work, they are going to lose a lot of what they learned. We are able to afford some help in that regard. But what about the people that cannot . In years and years of these disparities build up, by the time a child is in 7th, 8th, 9th grade, they are literally behind the curve and do not have an equal opportunity of success because of socioand economic problems. The reality of it is that the nuances are difficult and in particular as our society continues to change and become diverse. One of the things you experience, a reality, the best schools in Miamidade County where i live are Public Schools. But a lot of people pay to take their kids out of those schools because they are paying for environment, because they have a bad perception that may not be based on reality or whatever it may be. There is excellent work happening at our Public Schools across this country. In a country ha has become so diverse and so different geographically and along so many different lines, how does this budget account for that in terms of the federal role in incentivizing competition and innovation while still understanding in order to address some of the basic things in the School System if a kid does not have access to wifi, nowadays, they are going to struggle to be able to complete homework. If they dont have access to a computer network, an electronic device, they are going to struggle. Thats a fact. Among other things. A child is showing up to school hungry, if the child is homeless, living in an environment that is not conducive to learning. If a child doesnt have someone at night thats making sure they are doing their homework or following up or interacting with teachers, they are going to struggle. The School System and government cannot step in and fill the entire gap. How does this budget account for this . We want an Education System that our motto that all of us are created equal and we all deserve the equal opportunity to fulfill our godgiven potential. Sec. Devos senator, thank you. I couldnt agree more with everything that you have just said about the students and our opportunities. This budget seeks to fund and give the greatest amount of flexibility to states and local authorities to make the decisions that are best and are going to be best for the students that they are serving. It seeks to turn over control and one size fits all topdown mandated approach that has been a part of this department for a number of years. And really recognize the fact that every student, every child is unique. It starts to in some ways help empower parents to make decisions for children, for their children not based on their zip code. The assigned school to which they are forced to attend sometimes. It really does seek to shift that focus toward states, local communities, and more importantly to the parent to allow the parents to make the decisions that are right on behalf of their children. It certainly doesnt get us all the way there. I believe fundamentally that parents should have that empowerment and that right. We talk about parental engagement. When parents have an investment because of a proactive decision they have made, there is a lot more engagement naturally as a result of that. Senator rubio my time has expired. Not a question but you would agree the ability of a child to learn is not simply based on the classroom experience . All these other programs we debate, whether these kids are eating, have access to health care, all of these other things are relevant factors . Sec. Devos indeed. Senator blunt thank you, senator rubio. Senator murphy . Senator murphy thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here, madam secretary. With all due respect to my colleague from louisiana, education is not mayonnaise. Frankly, the day that we start treating the education of our children like we do the we do the marketing of a condiment is the day weve given up on our kids, and thats at the foundation of my worry about some of the proposals you put forth in your budget. K12 is a forprofit operator. It was a forprofit operator, one of the biggest in the country. Your family was invested in it, a New York Times article on this organization said that a portrait emerges of this company as trying to squeeze profits from Public School dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher work load, and lowering standards. As a researcher at the university of colorado said, the people running these forProfit Companies are fundamentally trying to do to Public Education what the banks did with home mortgages. You and i have a fundamental disagreement. I just dont think theres any room in our Public Education for individuals making millions of dollars, making their fortune off of taxpayer dollars, but to the extent you want to move more public dollars into the private sector, some of it will end up in the hands of these forprofit Charter School operators, so my question is, does your proposal require any of these companies to disclose their profits . Will it cap the salaries of these ceos . What protections are will be specific protections will be in your proposal in your program to make sure that taxpayer dollars dont just end up enriching the pockets of the folks that own these companies . Sec. Devos senator, thanks for that question. I think your question more broadly is better framed around what are students achieving, and i think the question is not what the tax status is senator murphy that wasnt my sec. Devos i dont think the question is the tax status senator murphy no, that was my question. Sec. Devos the question is not, in my view, its not the tax status of the school, its what are students achieving. Senator murphy are you going to have any view of my question as you want, but my question is what protections will be on taxpayer dollars to make sure the heads of these companies dont end up being millionaires or billionaires off of the operation of these schools . Sec. Devos if parents are making choices regardless of the tax status of the school to which they are sending them, whether its a forprofit managed institution or not, i think those are the better measures to be oriented around. Senator murphy heres i understand that your question is there will be no protections for taxpayer dollars. I understand that you have a belief in the market, that that will end up solving the problems that may encounter, but heres my worry. You spent some time today talking about students in connecticut, and i fundamentally dont believe that this administration cares about the outcomes of students at East Hartford high school, because if you did, you wouldnt be proposing these massive cuts, talking about massive cuts for after School Programs that help in places like East Hartford, cuts in career education, teacher training. All youre giving is the opportunity to choose a different school, but the fact of the matter is, thats not a panacea, right . In michigan alone, right, 70 of the charters in detroit ranked in the bottom 25 of the states schools. And you cant just chock that up to the difficulty of educating kids in detroit, because the majority of africanamerican kids that were attending charter districts statewide performed worse than many of the students in those city schools. So, ultimately to me this cant be about the kids in East Hartford, because if it was, you wouldnt be taking all this funding away from them, and you wouldnt just be throwing them out into a marketdriven system that seems mostly about enriching the salaries of the ceos who run these companies. This seems about a massive transfer of money from the Public Sector to the private sector with no protections around it. So i would hope that in devising this proposal, you will go back and think about making sure that kids get protected, right, whether they are in a Public School or private school, and that our taxpayer dollars dont end up simply being transferred to pad the pockets of the folks that are operating these schools. I understand that you talked a lot about students in East Hartford, connecticut, but i dont see anything here that will help these kids. All of their programs get cut that matter, right, massive cuts in support for Public Education, and then an invitation to go into the private sector, and in the private sector theyll find good schools and theyll find bad schools, but those private sector schools or Charter Schools will be enduring the same set of cuts that come to the Public Schools, and in the end it may simply be a way to pad the pockets of the folks that operate the schools. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator blunt senator maran . Senator moran chairman, thank you very much. Madam secretary, thank you for joining us. Let me ask, when i was last in the room, senator blunt, chairman blunt, was asking about pell grants. Let me make certain i have an answer to a question ive been asked. We authorize pell grants in the fy17 budget. However, colleges and universities cannot distribute that aid until they issue guidance. Summer courses have already started on many of our College Campuses. How simple the guidance be issued and will it be in time for this summers classes . Thank you, senator. We are on track to have them ready for launching the program july 1. Just a reminder, some classes have already started, but that is good to know. They can include this summer in the plan. Yes. Funding, you committed yourself to seeing it is fully funded. It appears the administrations budget is level funding. That is not always bad in todays environment, but i would again ask you if there is not a way to prioritize any funding included in the budget towards idea, as compared to Something Else. Yes, well actually, the level funding would actually represent if you are looking at cuts to other areas, we have a real commitment to funding ida. Target was passed, the was to support it at the 40 level. The current funding has run somewhere around 15 and certainly, if congress wanted to approach a higher level of funding, the students that we serve are certainly deserving of that. I think your point being that it is a priority for you. It is a priority, yes. Let me ask you about title i. There is a billiondollar increase in the budget request for title i, but it is over and above other funding at title i. Additional 1 billion is to support local education agencies who adopt an open enrollment system. Again in a conversation you and i had, you committed to me that you would not support the department did not support options for uninterested states and local boards of education, uninterested in having that option. Sec. Devos correct. Sen. Moran thats still true . Sec. Devos that is still true. Sen. Moran and i can in fact, it would be perhaps better if you would reassure folks in kansas that there is not money, pardon me, thats coming from current funding for title i that is being used elsewhere. Sec. Devos that is correct. That is correct. The proposal is to level fund title i funding and then have an additional billion dollars that would be available to states that want, states or local districts, that wanted to opt into a Public School Choice Program in their geography. Sen. Moran but no state that doesnt make that option would have title i funds reduced. Sec. Devos correct. Sen. Moran let me mention finally impact aid, and just reiterate to you its importance and to remind you and the administration of its value, particularly in the president s stated desire of supporting our military men and women and their families. We need to make certain that impact aid is appropriately supported, and while i make that statement, i would welcome any response that you might have. Sec. Devos correct, and the Budget Proposal does continue to fund impact aid programs with the exception of the recommendation for payments for federal property where there are no federally connected children involved. And kind of a reminder that i think its been 40 years since the legislation was initially passed, and hopefully those areas would have been able to figure out that taxbased issue over the period of 40 years, but there are no children involved with that particular piece of the federal impact aid budget. Sen. Moran thank you, madam secretary. You, mr. Chairman. Senator blunt thank you. Senator reid . Senator reid thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Thank you, madam secretary. Following along a similar line of questioning that senator murphy engaged in, is it the proposal that these forprofit Elementary Schools either or nonforprofit, must take all children that apply . Is that a requirement . Sec. Devos the im sorry, sir, the forprofit Elementary Schools . Sen. Reid you have a parent that wants to go to a particular school, a forprofit school, notforprofit school, Public School, would that school be required to take the student . Sec. Devos are these schools receiving federal funds . Sen. Reid youre proposing a voucher system. Sec. Devos im just trying to understand the hypothetical question. If there are schools that are receiving federal funds, they need to follow federal law. Sen. Reid so a private forprofit school would have to take a disabled student. They couldnt reject anyone who showed up with a voucher. Sec. Devos any school that is receiving federal funds has to follow federal law, period. Sen. Reid but what does that mean . Specific question, would they have to sec. Devos just what i said, theyd have to follow the federal laws. Sen. Reid theyd have to accept a disabled child, they would have to have an individual education plan, which they would follow, it would be exactly like a Public School. Is that your position . Sec. Devos if the school is accepting federal funds sen. Reid let me ask another question. Devos let me also refer to the fact that states have implemented programs that for disabled students that parents willfully elect into and opt into. Parents are making those decisions. There is no requirement. Sen. Reid thats what im saying, the parent decides they want to go to this school and they come up. The school would have to accept that student. If the student had severe disabilities, they would have to accommodate their program to deal with that students special disability. Is that your position . Sec. Devos if a school is accepting federal funds, they are going to follow federal law. Sen. Reid so the voucher that is used to pay sec. Devos i will repeat again, if they are accepting federal funds, theyll follow federal laws. Sen. Reid you would consider that voucher federal funds requiring them to follow federal law . Sec. Devos well, first of all, there is no Voucher Program currently, so this is all a hypothetical question. Sen. Reid its not hypothetical. Sec. Devos it is. Sen. Reid youre going to publish rules, madam secretary, thats going to say you have to follow federal laws if you accept this voucher, which is federal funds. Sec. Devos ive said before that if a school is accepting federal funds, they have to follow federal laws. Sen. Reid so let me ask you a question. A forprofit school accepts a voucher, because thats what youre talking about, giving the parent the chance to move out of a public system into a private system. That would be considered by you the acceptance of federal funds, requiring the school to follow all the requirements that a Public School would follow . Sec. Devos any school that accepts federal funds will follow federal laws, period. Without discrimination. Sen. Reid so your answer is yes. So the voucher system will trigger forprofit, private schools, or not for profit private schools to accept all students, as Public Schools do, to follow all the rules, particularly with regard to disabled children. Thats the only conclusion i can draw from your answers, which are rather cryptic. Let me turn now to the Higher Education issues. The pell grant you seem to be suggesting as the appropriate mechanism and the only appropriate mechanism, because most of the other federal programs are zeroing out. The supplemental Educational Opportunity grants, cutting federal student aid in half, and yet you take 3. 8 billion from the surplus of the pell grants rather than providing for additional larger pell grants, et cetera. How does that make college more affordable . Sec. Devos well, sir, the proposal is to take 3. 8 billion from the surplus, leaving 4. 9 billion in the surplus, and if there is a desire to increase the pell grant, you know, the pell grant amounts for students, i think that is something that you have to consider. Sen. Reid well, we already have 3. 8 billion in the pell grants system. Where would we get the money . Sec. Devos the pell Program Continues to be fully funded and have supplemental resources there, so it will continue to be very healthy into the foreseeable future, and if you want to adjust the pell rates, you certainly have the opportunity to do that. Sen. Reid and you would support that with a Budget Authority . Sec. Devos im not suggesting it, im saying that if that if its your desire to increase it, you certainly have the opportunity to do that. Sen. Reid we also have the opportunity to reject your suggestions and increase significantly the pell grants. Sec. Devos i acknowledge that. Sen. Reid thank you very much, madam secretary. Senator blunt well, thank you, senator. Were going to take time for a second round of questions if anybody wants to participate in that. I think senator murray and i both do. On the pell grant issue, when you go to yearround pell, that increases the pell potential by 50 . So the pell cap would be 8,880, and some observation was made here earlier that the pell grant only pays for 25 of education costs. That, obviously, depends on where you go, because a lot of places you can go that the pell grant pays for 100 of the education costs. May not pay for living cost, but i think we dont want to underestimate the impact of yearround pell to help people progress toward their goal of getting a degree, getting whatever they are in school to enhance their future abilities, but the annual cap now on pell if you choose to go year round would be 8,880, not 5,900. Doesnt mean we shouldnt look at the 5,900. It just means that that is not a cap that somehow spread out over 12 months instead of nine. That cap increases. Also i mention for senator kennedys test on education, senator murray and i both were Public School teachers, so we can pass the test. Were not sure that wed want to wish our colleagues on every student in america for even a day, but some of them would be really good, and some of them not so [laughter] sec. Devos that would be interesting. Sen. Blunt some of them not so good. Now on this issue of federal law thats come up several times, im not going to ask you to repeat what you said on that, but i would say that your predecessor wanted to write his own federal law. My impression is, thats not what you want to do, and the department in the past sent guidance letters. Didnt even want to go through the regulatory process that had input, sent guidance letters of what the secretary of education thought the federal law should say, even though that clearly was not what the federal law did say. I dont believe its your job as secretary of education to decide what the federal law says. If its sec. Devos i agree. Sen. Blunt if its the department of education, not the place to settle what federal law says. Thats the job of either the courts or the congress, not the department of education, and i think thats what i hear you repeatedly saying, and i agree with that. Th that. Something you said i dont agree with on impact aid that no federally connected children involved. But if you have a if you have a School District that has National Forest, that has military facilities that your school buses have to run through, that you have lost that tax base. The argument for impact aid has always been that the federal government needs to in some way restore the lack of potential for a School District to deal with that issue that the federal government has created. You know, when the school bus has to drive another 60 miles because thats what it takes to get through the National Forest, even if there arent any students there, that 60 miles of no taxpayer is created by the federal government, and while the impact aid reduction is not a big reduction, it is a reduction, and the federal Property Program eliminating that payment of 69 million does impact these districts. And no matter how long the National Forest has been there as an example, it doesnt minimize the challenge that the School District has dealing with this large amount of federal property that can never be part of the property tax. A lot of property tax is paid on property that doesnt involve students. And so this issue that i think a lot of people on this committee will be interested in. Let me on one more quick question, because we do want to stay with our time on this, but on further options for children, the focus idea is that billiondollar idea would solely be focused on Public Education. Is that right . Sec. Devos thats correct. Sen. Blunt and youd have the opportunity to look at that as a district that had multiple schools or as a state. Either one, is that right . Sec. Devos intradistrict, state. Sen. Blunt two districts together could come together and try to figure out how to make that work in that is totally 100 a Public School Choice Program. Sec. Devos correct. Sen. Blunt all right, thank you. Senator murray . Senator murray thank you. Secretary devos, last month your committee released school crime and Safety Report for last year. Do you know what showed an increase . Sec. Devos i would assume sexual assault. Sen. Murray it was forcible sex crimes, and depending on the survey that you look at, we know that at least one in five women are being sexually assaulted on college campus, and thats one of the lowest estimates out there. That to me is really appalling and unacceptable, and your budget cuts the budget for the office of civil rights, which addresses those title ix enforcement on College Campuses, among other important civil rights work loads. My concern is that your Budget Proposal will leave ocr with about 60 fewer staff and the same high work load. And that is really concerning to me. That will really deny victims of Campus Sexual Assault violence timely resolution of their complaints and delay improvements on campuses that keep students safe. Dont you agree with that . Sec. Devos let me just say that ocr is level funded. It is not the the budget is not reduced. Sen. Murray were going back to bad numbers. We have to go by what we have approved, what current law is. Sec. Devos the intention is to fully fund ocr based on whatever numbers again, were basing all of the budget numbers on the numbers prior to your action. Sen. Murray okay, current law, by current law it will reduce it by 60, and thats a fact. Your proposal. Let me just i have just a few minutes left, and i did want to ask you a couple pertinent requests that i have. First of all, its been widely reported that President Trumps Justice Department is telling agencies they have the Legal Authority to ignore written questions and requests for information from democrats, and im not going to ask for your opinion on their legal analysis regarding what youre required to do, but given that agencies certainly have the option to respond to inquiries and be transparent above and beyond what President Trumps white house is saying, i wanted to ask you, do you plan to respond to inquiries from democrats, or just ignore them and only respond to republicans . Sec. Devos senator, we have been responding to inquiries. In fact, i know that youve submitted 23 letters to me since ive been in office, and weve been able to respond to over half of them. I think eight of them came just in the last month alone, so we are definitely responding to letters as we can. Sen. Murray well, we have sec. Devos let me just say, i would just encourage if you have questions, i invited this the day i was confirmed. I really do want to work with you, and i would love to have sen. Murray we have not gotten those. I dont know if your staff is not handing those to you sec. Devos thats, i guess, going to snail mail. I just encourage you. Sen. Murray will you commit to responding to the letters we have sent to you . Sec. Devos we have been responding, and we will commit to continuing to respond. Again, i just encourage that we sometimes talk. I think that might be a really good sen. Murray sometimes its really helpful to us to have answers in writing so we have that as a record. And i would really appreciate your getting those back to me. We have not seen them. And secondly, senator alexander asked about the implementation. We worked very hard in a bipartisan way to do that. I have a number of fairly technical questions. I dont want to take up this committees time, but my staff has been unable to get from you and your staff a full briefing on the implementation and how youre going to do that. Can i get a commitment from you that within the next two weeks from your staff to my staff . Sec. Devos i believe that weve had ongoing conversations with your staff, but, yes, for whatever questions you dont yet have answered, we will certainly endeavor to do so. Sen. Murray okay, i would appreciate that. Extremely important we implement this in a way we all understand. Thank you. Senator blanche senator cochran . Senator cochran mr. Chairman, i think weve had a good hearing, and ive enjoyed the questions and answers that weve had before the committee. Because of constraints in other areas, im going to ask that my remaining questions be made a part of the record. Senator blunt will have an opportunity for that and thats how that will be handled. Senator murray, then senator langford, and that will conclude this hearing after i make a final statement. Senator murphy thank you, mr. Chairman. Thanks for sticking around. I wanted to ask you about the state plans being submitted. When you and i talked prior to your nomination, we had, i thought, a good conversation about how i think there is a marriage between innovation and accountability that people are more willing to support innovation. More willing to support choice, frankly, if they believe theres real accountability. And we came together in a bipartisan way to pass the accountability section of the Obama Administration sent out regulations trying to be helpful to School Districts on how they would craft state plans that included accountability, and unfortunately republicans on this committee supported a Congressional Review Act process that stripped away those regulations, leaving you with the sole discretion to enforce the statute. And so one of the things thats important in those accountability regulations is the idea that the schools identify schools that need support that are constantly underperforming, and unfortunately, some of the plans that have been submitted either completely leave their policy around providing supports for underperforming schools undefined, or they propose policies that are really unclear or sometimes they are totally inconsistent with the law, you know, to say youre just going to have a policy of painting the walls of a school thats underperforming. That actually is not consistent with the law. So, can you give us some idea or some commitment that you are not going to approve a state plan unless it clearly identifies how its going to support schools that are constantly underperforming or subgroups that are constantly underperforming . I want to make sure youre not going to be a rubber stamp for these plans and youre going to hold states to the requirements, especially when it comes to these really vulnerable kids. Sec. Devos senator, thank you. I am, obviously, very interested in ensuring that the plans that states put forward comport to the law that congress has passed, and that is really going to be the measure by which the plans will be approved or not approved. If they follow and address all the parts of the law as congress has intended, the plans will have to be approved. Whether i agree with everything in the plans or not is another question, and whether you agree with everything in the plan, whether its, you know, robust enough or not, that, obviously, could be one a matter for interpretation, as well, but the intention is to approve plans that comport with the law and, you know, just parenthetically, i am very hopeful that states are going to be really creative as it comes to addressing some of these issues and taking a look in a new way, because, obviously, some of the things that weve been doing in the past hasnt been working as well. Senator murphy so let me i understand you cant opine on specific state plans, but if there are turn around proposals that are that you deem insufficient if there are supports that are not evidence based, do you reserve the ability to either deny those state plans or send them back . I want to make sure when you say creativity, that youre going to look at state plans and make sure the supports they are proposing are real supports, and if you dont believe that they are real supports, that you will not approve that plan or ask them to submit something new. Sec. Devos well, they are all required to comport with the law, so that will be the measure by which the plans will be approved. Im not going to invent new regulation or new law in order to accept or reject a state plan. Sen. Murphy but you will conduct an evaluation im trying to understand. Are you saying that you are not going to conduct an evaluation as to whether they are providing meaningful supports . What is going to be the standard by which you are going to judge whether they are providing meaningful supports. Sec. Devos whether it answers the law as required by essa. Senator murphy but the reason why we needed regulations is because the law is silent on that question. It just says they have to provide supports. Its up to you to decide whether those are meaningful supports. Sec. Devos i think its up to the states and the local communities to determine what supports they are going to implement, and its going to vary from state to state, thats for sure, but the goal of the legislation was to return the power back to the states. Sen. Murphy what if they submit a plan that says they are going to paint the walls of the school . Sen. Murphy thats a hypothetical. Murphy is there any support you would deem to be insufficient under the statute . Can you imagine any support that you would reject . Sec. Devos i am going to evaluate plans sen. Murphy answer to that question is yes. Sec. Devos the important thing is are they following the law or not . I may not agree with everything they suggested, but sen. Murphy is there any support they could propose that you would deem insufficient under the law . Sec. Devos i cannot say that. If it responds to the law as requested and required by the essa act, then they will have fulfilled the sen. Murphy no, you interpret senator blunt thank you. Senator langford . Senator langford thank you. Appreciate the long day and the long conversation on these issues. It is interesting to me that in the beginning of the Obama Administration, they came to this committee and requested funds for race to the top funds for additional dollars for. C. To be able to say there are additional dollars if you do our curriculum we pick, if youll do it our way, if you go through our plans, if you have a system we approve, well give you additional dollars. If im tracking this correctly, youre coming to this committee saying we would like additional dollars to get to schools if they pick a plan and they run a plan, and if they provide choice to their students in a Public School setting. Am i tracking that correctly . Sec. Devos you are tracking that correctly. Sen. Langford i grew up in an innovative district that did School Choice from schooltoschool. I did not go to the high school closest to me. I literally drove all the way across town. They had a band program and i liked at all those Different Things, as a middle School Student talked to my mom and ended up in a school way across town, because my district allowed that. I had a great educational experience, but my parents in a Public School setting had a choice within the district of four high schools that they could that i could choose from, and i was allowed to do that. I was the beneficiary of that. By the way, i met my wife at that school, as well, so im forever grateful for a district that just allowed parents to be able to choose what school they went to within a Public School setting. That doesnt seem like a revolution to me. Thats something i did in high school a very long time ago that i understand some districts dont want to do and some states dont want to do, but thats their choice. What youre saying is, if you choose to do that, well help you in that transition and allow parents to have that choice. Am i correct on that . Sec. Devos thats correct. Sen. Langford senator merkley brought up the issue of religious liberty on campus and asked you some questions about protecting religious liberty on campus, as well, which i think is a pertinent question to be able to deal with. This is an interesting conversation that really seems shocking to me thats even a conversation in america at all that we would have to discuss should religious liberty of students be protected. The department of education decided for the First Time Ever to be able to post all of the schools, the higher ed schools, that asked for a title ix religious exemption, to put them in a special place on their website and be able to basically put them out. It appeared to be for shame purposes to say these are all the schools that asked for religious exemptions. And it was a new method, i think, to be able to basically try to humiliate schools to not ask for a religious exemption. Is that something youre going to continue . Will there be a public display of every school . Because it never has been in the past since it was actually put in place in 1971. Theres never been a public release of that, unless someone did a foyer request and, obviously, you can get that through a foyer request. Will there continue to be in a special setting . Sec. Devos doesnt sound like its a necessary thing, and its something i will certainly look into. Sen. Langford well, i think its something that should be looked into. If any institution asks for a religious exemption, thats something the law allows them to do and shouldnt be a way to publicly humiliate folks because they are following the law and following through on that. Same thing, we have some states right now that are experimenting on College Campuses to say if they are an extracurricular group thats honored on campus, just like most other campuses, fraternities, whatever it may be that has campus access. If the leadership of the organization, not the membership, if the leadership of the organization cant be individuals that actually violate the religious principles of a religious faithbased group, if the leadership of that group is not open to people that are nonpractitioners of that fiteaith, then they cant come on campus and cant have access. Its literally defining for that group of what the religious of that group, of a religiousbased group has to be. I have an issue with that. Its one thing to say your membership should be open to everyone. Its another thing to say the leadership of your group. Do you have an initial impression on that . Sec. Devos i think this is an issue that bears a lot more discussion and one that has, i think, come to the fore in recent years in a way we have not seen before. Religious liberty is a very key and important issue to be discussed in the context of all educational settings. Sen. Langford right. This was an issue that president clinton put out a great piece decades ago honoring the religious protections of every individual on every campus. This appeared to have been a settled issue and suddenly its rising up again, whether on a secondary campus or institution of Higher Education. What is and not permissible for a faithbased student. I just personally believe that every individual should be able to live whatever faith they choose to live or no faith at all and that be acceptable on a campus setting and not try to require them to be able to practice one thing or say you can in writing have one thing but not in practice have another. Thats not consistent with our values, so i appreciate your testimony today. Senator blunt thank you, senator langford, and thank you secretary devos for being here today. The record will stay open for one week for additional questions. The subcommittee will stand in recess until 10 00 a. M. Thursday, the 15th. Sec. Devos thank you, mr. Chairman