EdLabor Journal

In response to the tragic explosion at the Kleen Energy Systems power plant in Middletown, Connecticut on Sunday, Chairman Miller has agreed to hold a Congressional hearing at the request of Reps. Courtney, DeLauro, and Larson.

The members have surveyed the damage in Middletown and requested that Chairman Miller hold a hearing to “review what went wrong and to make sure that all appropriate measures are put in place to prevent this type of catastrophe from happening again.”

A hearing date has not been scheduled at this time.  The House Education and Labor Committee oversees workplace and employee safety issues.  Congressman Courtney is a member of the committee.

The FY 2011 budget requests $13.9 billion for the Department of Labor.

Training Workers for Better Jobs

• $3.92 billion is requested for Training and Employment Services, an increase of $96 million.

• $261 million to establish two new innovation funds: a Workforce Innovation Fund in the Adult and Dislocated Worker programs and a new Youth Innovation Fund in the Youth program. The Workforce Innovation Fund and the Youth Innovation Fund will foster competition in the creation and evaluation of innovative means of providing improved job training and placement services to a larger population of workers at a low marginal cost;
• $85 million for green jobs training;
• $40 million for transitional jobs programs.
  

Protecting Workers on the Job

• $25 million for a joint effort with the Treasury Department to eliminate incentives in the law for employers to misclassify their employees as independent contractors, and enhances both agencies’ ability to penalize employers who do misclassify.
• $67 million to ensure worker protection agencies have the resources to handle health and safety, wages, and working conditions of the nation’s workforce.
• $50 million to establish a State Paid Leave Fund to provide competitive grants to help states cover the start up costs for paid-leave programs.
  

Improving Access to Retirement Security

• The budget proposes a system to expand access to pensions to those who currently do not have access.
• Includes a proposal to modify the existing Saver’s Credit by providing a 50 percent match up to $1,000 in the form of a fully refundable credit.
  

The New York Times editorial board seems to have been bothered by the story about how the lending industry is fighting an overhaul of student loans because they ran an editorial this morning calling for the passage of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The editorial board noted:

The House version phases out the wasteful part of the federal college lending program that pays private lenders a rich subsidy to make risk-free loans that are guaranteed by the government. The bill also expands another, more reliable and less expensive federal loan program that permits students to borrow directly from the government through their colleges.

The arguments for moving in this direction are irrefutable. The subsidized program, for example, was supposed to keep loans flowing during recessions. But the loans dried up in the last credit crunch, forcing the government to rescue the program. The direct program, by contrast, suffered no such disruption. In addition to being more reliable, the direct program costs less. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that the country could save about $80 billion over the next decade by ending the private system and moving to the direct one.

Outmaneuvered on the merits, the lending industry has resorted to scare tactics and distortions. The claim that the direct system would amount to a government takeover of the system is absurd.

We encourage you to read the entire editorial and to learn more about the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Today's New York Times chronicles how industry lobbyists are fighting tooth and nail against overhaul of student loans, but they missed some key facts about the bill.

• SAFRA will not lead to significant job losses. While this legislation will trim the profits of CEOs and big banks, it will not lead to significant job losses. By maintaining a servicing role for both large and smaller lenders, this bill will preserve jobs and, unlike in the FFELP program, keep them from being shipped overseas.
  

• The current lending system is broken. The Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) now depends on taxpayer dollars not just for subsidies that reimburse lenders when borrowers default on loans, but also for the capital to finance their lending activity altogether. Taxpayers now fund 6 of every 10 dollars in federal student lending activity. They absorb all the risk. There’s simply no reason to keep pumping taxpayer dollars into a broken system when the federal government can provide the same low-cost federal loans more reliably for students and at a lower cost for taxpayers. Under this bill, this federal program will continue to be a federal program, as it always has been, and private industry will continue to have a role, but one that is more effective and cost-efficient for families and taxpayers.
  

• There would actually be fewer student loan defaults under SAFRA. Recent preliminary data released by the U.S. Department of Education shows that in 2007, default rates were lower in the Direct Loan program than in FFELP. By allowing private lenders to service these loans through a competitive process, which will include default prevention strategies, this bill will ensure that more borrowers can receive service from lenders that have been effective in keeping default rates low.

• Sallie Mae's alternative saves less and puts more money in lenders' pockets, instead of helping students.  Sallie Mae's modified student loan proposal would slash more than $8 billion off of student aid to give lenders a bonus. “You can dress this up 100 different ways and put a Santa Hat on it, but this is still the same budget gimmick lenders have been pushing for months to line their own pockets with billions of dollars that should be used to help students,” said Chairman Miller. “The House saw this proposal for what it was and soundly rejected it, instead choosing to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which invests all of its savings in students, families and taxpayers. Americans are sick and tired of CEOs and banks taking them for a ride and are ready for policies that will reduce waste and excess and do what’s best for Main Street – not Wall Street.”
  

• Students themselves are clamoring for SAFRA.  Most recently, Baylor University's college newspaper The Lariat published a story supportive of SAFRA. 
  

• Colleges are finding it easier than anticipated to switch to the Direct Loan program.  A survey conducted by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators shows that colleges that switched from the federally-guaranteed student loan program to the Direct Loan program in the past year generally found it much easier than they expected. In fact, 96% of student loan volume is ready for direct loans, already
  

Read the SAFRA "Myth vs. Fact" page for more information about how the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act will help students.

However, the New York Times article does get it right when it reports on the jaw-dropping amount of money the student lending industry is spending on lobbying to maintain the status quo:

Sallie Mae, a publicly traded company that is the nation’s biggest student lender with $22 billion in loans originated last year, led the field in spending $8 million on lobbying in 2009, more than double the year before, and other lenders spent millions of dollars more, according to an analysis prepared for The New York Times by the Center for Responsive Politics.

...

“We anticipated this,” Arne Duncan, the education secretary, said of the lending industry’s lobbying efforts. “They’ve had a sweet deal. They’ve had this phenomenal deal that taxpayers have subsidized, and that’s a hard thing to give up.”

Private lenders get a cut of the federally backed loans that they originate and service, with little risk of their own.

...

“If people want to lose $80 billion on the taxpayer’s dime for the very narrow interests of Sallie Mae, I guess they can decide that, but it makes no economic sense to me,” [Chairman George Miller] said. “They had a great ride for years.”

President Obama’s 2011 Education Budget continues an impressive funding commitment in education. His budget sends the right message about balancing incentives with resources – spurring major school improvements and providing the resources needed to make them.

The President’s proposed budget includes  a request for $49.7 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Education, a $3.5 billion increase from last year’s request. It streamlines programs through consolidation and program elimination with an eye on program effectiveness. Specifically, the President’s budget will:

Today, the Committee will consider legislation to that will protect schoolchildren from harmful uses of restraint and seclusion in their classrooms.The Hill newspaper explored the story behind the bill:

Curtis Decker, the executive director of the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), remembers when he first heard about children being secluded and restrained in schools. The parents of an American Indian girl with Down syndrome found out their daughter was being tied to her chair at school when they went to pick her up one day.

That was six or seven years ago, Decker recalled, and he and his staff discussed it in a meeting as an isolated case.

Then they started hearing other, similar stories. School employees sat on a girl in Wisconsin as a punishment for blowing bubbles in her milk. A child in Michigan had an epileptic seizure on the first day of school and died after school officials sat on him. A school in Tennessee had metal-door-enclosed seclusion rooms that looked like “prison cells from World War II,” NDRN senior staff attorney Jane Hudson said.

Hudson wrote a report on seclusion and restraint in schools, and a year ago, the organization took its findings to House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.).

“The types of abuse these kids are suffering are so disturbing, you’d think these were stories about torture tactics used at prison camps,” Miller said in an e-mail.

In addition to these horrific stories, the committee heard from other parents whose children had been victims of abuse by incorrect application of these techniques.

In response to these stories and others, Rep. Joe Courtney called on Congress to make schools safe havens for children. This echos the calls of Chairman Miller to make schools safe for students and free from abuse.

The markup of H.R. 4247 - Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act starts at 11:00am ET today and will be live webcast. Please join us.

Due to inclement weather, this hearing has been postponed.

On Wednesday, February 10, at 10:00 am eastern, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will appear before the House Education and Labor Committee to discuss how strong and innovative education reforms can help rebuild the U.S. economy and restore our competitiveness.

Secretary Duncan will discuss President Obama’s education agenda, including his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2011, which called for Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act originated in the Education and Labor Committee and was approved by the House in September.

WHAT:        
Hearing on “Building a Stronger Economy: Spurring Reform and Innovation In American Education”
 
WHO:           
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

WHEN:        
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
10:00 a.m. EST
Please check the Committee schedule for potential updates »

WHERE:      
House Education and Labor Committee Hearing Room
2175 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.
 

(This is a guest blog post by Rep. Joe Courtney, Education and Labor Committee Member.)

In 1998, the Hartford Courant earned a Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories on the use of restraint and seclusion tactics on students with disabilities in treatment facilities.  The tales of children who were injured, or in some cases, died, shocked parents and educators across the country.  As a parent of two, I was among those who were horrified.  While previous Congresses passed legislation to reduce this abuse in treatment facilities, no federal laws were ever created to protect children from dangerous physical restraint in schools.

In 2009, the House Committee on Education and Labor, of which I am a member, held hearings on the use of seclusion and restraint.  The testimony we heard from various experts was disturbing and signaled that Congress must act expeditiously to end once and for all seclusion and restraint. The most powerful testimony came from parents whose children were killed or severely injured as a result of dangerous restraint techniques.  

In response to those stories, and the countless cases in which children have been injured or died, Education and Labor Chairman George Miller introduced the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act.  I am a proud cosponsor of this bipartisan bill, which I believe will accomplish a number of important goals.  

The proposal wisely bans the use of chemical or mechanical restraint and will prohibit the use of physical restraint or seclusion as a disciplinary measure.  As experts throughout the medical and educational field have testified, the use of these harsh methods of controlling a child must never be utilized unless an imminent danger to a child or staff exists.  Furthermore, this legislation ensures accountability and transparency, requiring that parents and school officials be notified immediately when an incident occurs.  The bill requires data collection when restraint techniques are used to ensure that incidents are recorded and later used to establish best practices.  We must continue to promote training for staff, and this valuable information will increase awareness to avoid future tragedies.

Tomorrow, the Committee will consider the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act.  I look forward to working with Chairman Miller and my colleagues on the Committee to pass this legislation and to ensure that our schools are safe havens for children and staff.

The Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act will help make all classrooms safer for students, teachers, staff and the entire school community. To help clear up any confusion or misinformation about this legislation, here is a rundown of how the rumors stack up to reality.

MYTH:  Restraint and seclusion are effective therapeutic interventions that can help students improve behavior.

FACT:  No evidence-based research has demonstrated restraint or seclusion to be therapeutically effective in modifying behavior. To the contrary -- research has shown that restraint and seclusion can be physically and psychologically harmful and can even result in more emotional and behavioral disruptions.

MYTH: This legislation doesn’t outright ban seclusion and restraint and therefore won’t be effective.

FACT:  It would be naïve to ban all restraint and seclusion – there are rare and extreme emergencies when it may be necessary to physically intervene, but only when administered by properly trained staff and only in situations when a student is posing imminent danger of physical injury to himself or to others.

This bill is consistent with the Children’s Health Act of 2000 and federal protections already in place in other settings. The bill allows physical restraint and seclusion in cases where danger is imminent, when there is no other choice, and only when administered by trained staff. Rather than taking an unrealistic approach, this bill makes a balanced effort to make classrooms safer for kids without taking away necessary emergency interventions from trained staff.

On Thursday, February 4th, the House Education and Labor Committee will consider legislation that will protect schoolchildren from harmful uses of restraint and seclusion in their classrooms.

A recent investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found hundreds of allegations that children have been abused, and some even died, as a result of misuses of restraint and seclusion in public and private schools, often at the hands of untrained staff. Unlike in hospitals and other medical and community-based facilities that receive federal health funding, there are currently no federal laws addressing restraint and seclusion in schools.

The Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (H.R. 4247) is the first national effort to address this troubling problem and ensure the safety of everyone involved – both students and school staff. It would establish minimum safety standards in schools and increase transparency, oversight and enforcement to prevent future abuse, among other things.

WHAT:         
Full Committee Mark-Up of H.R. 4247 “The Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act”

WHEN:         
Thursday, February 4, 2009
11:00 a.m. ET

WHERE:      
House Education and Labor Committee Hearing Room
2175 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.