Rush Holt: Education Reform Based on Evidence, Not Ideology

From Congressman Rush Holt's Newsletter:

Last week, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, on which I serve, considered a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind.

While I agree with the basic principles of ESEA – that schools should be accountable for demonstrating that students are learning and that any definition of success must include all students and not just the best – I believe that the law needs reforming. I am working to improve teacher training, to increase funding for science and foreign language education, and to strengthen collection of student data so that we can see how well individual students are learning.

Education reform has always been bipartisan in the past. Since the first ESEA in 1965, Democrats and Republicans have worked together to close the skills gap and eliminate inequality in education, not just provide additional funds for schools to use as they please.

Unfortunately, the Committee considered two partisan bills that would move away from the crying need to close the gap between good schools and the many underperforming schools that are condemning millions of children to diminished opportunities in life. These flawed bills would let states and local school districts reduce education funding and even shift funds away from the schools with the most need. Particularly glaring, they ignored science education all together.

I voted for a comprehensive alternative that would address the concerns raised by parents, students, teachers, principals, and other school officials. You can watch a video of my remarks here.

Federal Procurement Workshop on Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, I’ll join representatives from the U.S. General Services Administration, the U.S. Small Business Association, and the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers to host a free federal procurement workshop for Central New Jersey small business owners.

We will share information about doing business with the federal government, an overview of the federal procurement process, and insight on obtaining federal contracts.

For more information or to RSVP, click here or call
Andrew Black of my staff at (609) 750-9365.

Federal Procurement Workshop for Small Business Owners

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Monmouth County Library Headquarters

125 Symmes Drive

Manalapan, New Jersey

Daylight Saving Time Begins on Sunday

As a reminder, daylight saving time begins this Sunday, March 11 at 2:00 a.m. Be sure to remember to set your clocks forward by one hour.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt

Member of Congress

President Obama's Weekly Address 9/24/11: Strengthening the American Education System

WASHINGTON—In this week’s address, President Obama told the American people that it is time to raise the standards of our education system so that every classroom is a place of high expectations and high performance. On Friday, the President announced that states will have greater flexibility to find innovative ways of improving the quality of learning and teaching, so that we can strengthen performance in our classrooms and ensure that teachers are helping students learn rather than teaching to the test. By modernizing our schools and improving the education system, the United States can continue building an economy that lasts into the future and prepare the next generation to succeed in the global economy.

President Obama's Weekly Address 5/21/11: Congress Should Reform No Child Left Behind This Year

WASHINGTON – In his weekly address, President Obama praised the progress that schools like Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis have made, and he called on Congress to fix No Child Left Behind this year. To strengthen education in this country, we need to encourage reforms not driven by Washington, but by principals and parents so schools can determine what is best for their kids. And that is why it is so important that Congress replace No Child Left Behind this year, so that schools have that flexibility. Reform just cannot wait.

How Far Does an Education Take You?

Because I somehow found myself on the mailing list of American's For Limited Government(www.getliberty.org) I receive all kinds of right-wing press releases and articles, many of which I disagree with but read to stay informed.

In yesterday's email I received a link to a blog posting by Rebekah Rast who is a contributing editor to the Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau, her blog post was titled "How far does an education take you ?" and for the first time in a long time, I was reading something from ALG that I can say I truly agree with, but not necessarily for the same reasons.

I agree with the principal that the cost of a college education is much to high and it is a fact that people who are graduating from college today often have debt of over $40,000 as a result upon graduation. I also agree that colleges today do a poor job of preparing students for life after graduation.

According to Rast, there are far to many colleges and far to many more who graduate them

with degrees that are practically worthless in the real world, especially today when college graduates are fighting for jobs alongside those who have more experience and better skills who have been unemployed because of the recession and changing economy, which I agree with also.

I disagree however with her solution, which is to end college subsidies and government funded student loan programs that cost the federal government billions of dollars a year and contribute to the federal deficit, in order to thin the ranks of those going to school just because it is the "American Dream" that families think they need to provide for there children in order to better themselves.

I believe that more emphasis should be put towards steering kids in the direction of 2 year trade schools or apprenticeships, which would save taxpayers and parents a ton of money.

It is becoming more and more difficult to find skilled trade labor today than at any point in history and many trades are dying because people believe that the only road to the good life starts behind a desk in some office complex.

Once parents and government bureaucrats understand this the better everyone will be. After all, not everyone is cut out for or entitled to a college education. I know just as many people that never made it through college that earn near $100,000 a year as tradesman as I do college graduates that earn less that $100,000 year.

Below is a portion of Rebekah Rast column, it is interesting and thought provoking. Even though I disagree with her reasoning, I think this is an issue that need to be addressed for everyone's sake now and in the future.

It is engrained in the heads of the youth that you must go to college to get a good job.

While overall that is good advice, some graduates are finding their $100,000 educations haven’t provided them with the necessary skills for the modern work world.

College is more expensive than ever forcing students to pay more than 400 percent more for a college education today than 30 years ago. And as a result of increased tuition costs, students are carrying mountains of debt and aren’t finding the high-paying, coveted jobs promised to them upon graduation.

In fact, an article by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) highlighted the trend of useless college degrees and cited a study that showed “60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the (Bureau of Labor Statistics) considers relatively low skilled — occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less.”

The article went on to say, “Of the nearly 50 million U.S. college graduates, 17.4 million are holding jobs for which college training is regarded as unnecessary. The number of waiters and waitresses with college degrees more than doubled in the years 1992-2008, from 119,000 to 338,000, and cashiers with college degrees rose from 132,000 to 365,000.”

What happened to the American Dream for the youth of America?

It’s simple. Because of the push for American youngsters to get college degrees through government subsidies, a four-year degree is becoming less valuable in the working world. Therefore, students graduating with a bachelor’s degree are finding it necessary to get a master’s degree or even a Ph.D to set themselves apart from the masses in order to find a relatively good job that requires their degree.

This new reality, coupled with rising tuition costs, leaves students with a mountain of debt. How are the “5,057 janitors in the U.S. with Ph.D.’s, other doctorates, or professional degrees” ever supposed to pay off all that accrued school debt?

The Project on Student Debt estimates that 206,000 Americans graduated from college with more than $40,000 in student loan debt during 2008. Also shocking is a statistic printed in the Business Insider stating that, “Americans now owe more than $875 billion on student loans, which is more than the total amount that Americans owe on their credit cards.”...

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