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[Page H3699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CALLING ON SENATE REPUBLICANS TO FUND SCHOOLS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Levin) for 5 minutes.
Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the public
schools in Macomb and Oakland Counties.
In between votes earlier this week, I hosted a Zoom call with the
superintendents in my district. I was struck by how much they figured
out in such a short time about operating a school during a pandemic.
Educators are nimble and creative. They are used to doing a lot with
a little. The PPE, the cleaning, the social distancing, the technology
needs, and the social and emotional health, they are up for figuring it
all out on top of already having one of the hardest jobs there is.
The problem is, they don't have a fraction of the resources they need
to put their plans into place. While they have spent their summer days
and probably fitful nights determining how to keep their students,
educators, and other school professionals safe, this administration has
offered no plan other than: Reopen or else.
As a father of four, as a lifetime advocate for and product of public
schools, as a union organizer with worker safety top of mind, and as a
human being with compassion and common sense, I am calling on the
Senate to offer a real plan in this next relief package, one that
acknowledges that we must contain this pandemic and provide schools
with the resources they need to reopen safely.
It has been nearly 10 weeks since the House passed the HEROES Act to
put us on a path required to reengage our schools and the economy as a
whole safely.
Mr. Speaker, 59,679 Americans have perished from COVID-19 since May
15 when the House passed the HEROES Act, yet here we are, still trying
to push public health common sense uphill in the face of denial,
politicization, and the most disastrous vacuum of leadership in modern
times.
The HEROES Act directs more than $100 billion in emergency education
funding to cover unexpected costs and $75 billion for COVID-19 testing
and contact tracing, including key provisions of the coronavirus
containment corps legislation I wrote with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
What has happened in the intervening 10 weeks with their 60,000
deaths? The need has not only grown; it has doubled. Just this week,
national health organizations and child advocates, led by the American
Academy of Pediatrics, wrote to House and Senate leadership, calling on
Congress to pass at least $200 billion in K-12 education funding.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have met this growing need with the
inaction we have come to expect: ignoring this proposal.
What is even more dangerous, Trump and DeVos threaten to strip
funding from public schools, a threat they have no authority to fulfill
unless they put students in the classroom full-time even as daily cases
are higher than they were when schools went online in the first place
during the spring.
Nowhere is this more dangerous than in our communities of color,
where schools are disproportionately underfunded even in normal times.
These are some of the same communities that have been the hardest hit
by the coronavirus and may need more time to reopen safely. If we are
at long last serious about racial justice, we must offer resources and
flexibility, not ultimatums.
Senate Republicans can choose to be redefined by the vanity projects
of a President only concerned with pretending this virus is over and a
Secretary of Education continuing her lifelong crusade to defund public
schools and even spreading outright falsehoods, such that children are
stoppers of COVID-19, or they can do their job: represent the
educators, school professionals, parents, and students in their States
by doing what is in the best interest of the health and safety of our
citizens.
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