This hearing is the eleventh in a series designed to gain a more complete understanding of the challenges facing postsecondary students and institutions. The hearings help to inform the committee of policy changes that should be considered as part of the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Over the last year these hearings have provided a forum to discuss opportunities to encoura... Read more »
America’s families are hurting. More than 11 million workers are searching for a job. Wages are stagnant. Pain is felt every day at the gas pump. Health care costs are rising. And now millions are losing the health care plan they like thanks to the president’s government-run health care scheme. We should be working together to revive our struggling economy. We should be working across the aisle on... Read more »
A few weeks ago the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education convened a hearing to examine the benefits of career and technical education, or CTE. In addition to highlighting innovative CTE programs that are helping students compete for in-demand jobs, the hearing allowed us to identify a number of challenges facing career and technical education. For example, redundant... Read more »
Since former Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously declared we had to pass the president’s health care plan to learn what was in it, we continue to discover disturbing details. We’ve learned health care costs are going up, not down. Politico reports “consumers are suffering from sticker shock” and the Associated Press revealed people are being told to switch to more expensive policies. Sue Klinkhamer is o... Read more »
In preparation for the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the committee has held nearly a dozen hearings to explore the challenges and opportunities facing our nation’s colleges and universities. We’ve discussed the value of transparency and data in helping prospective students choose the postsecondary institution that best meets their unique needs. We have examined factors that... Read more »
The topic of this hearing personally affects many in our audience, men and women who have spent a lifetime in the workplace and hope to enjoy retirement with the financial security they were promised. Unfortunately, that security is now in jeopardy for a number of different reasons. For example, the recent recession and a sluggish economy continue to threaten the multiemployer pension system and t... Read more »
The Perkins Act provides federal funding to states to support career and technical education (or CTE) programs. These programs offer high school and community college students the opportunity to gain the skills and experience necessary to compete for jobs in a broad range of fields, including health care, transportation, construction, and hospitality, just to name a few. A number of states, school... Read more »
This morning we will broadly examine the future of union organizing. It’s no secret the number of workers electing to join a union has declined sharply in recent decades. Since 1983 the share of all workers belonging to a union has dropped from roughly 20 percent to less than 12 percent. Today fewer than seven percent of private-sector workers are union members. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka re... Read more »
Before we begin, I want to take a moment to offer our condolences and prayers to all whose lives were shaken by the tragedy earlier this week in Washington’s Navy Yard. The victims and survivors, as well as their families, will remain in our thoughts. I also want to extend our appreciation to the first responders, metro police officers, and our own Capitol police who worked diligently then, as the... Read more »
Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to remember the thousands of American lives that were lost on this day in 2001, and for the Americans who lost their lives during the terror attack in Benghazi last year. We will never forget them. The men, women, and children who died will ever be in our thoughts, and we will continue to pray for peace for their families. I ask my colleagues to join ... Read more »
