Your voice is being heard—and making a difference! On Friday, the House passed the NEA-opposed Parents Bill of Rights Act (H.R. 5) by a narrow margin of just five votes. Every Democrat, the White House, and five Republicans opposed the bill. The top education priority of GOP leadership, H.R. 5 aims to facilitate censorship and book bans, undermine local control, and stigmatize LGBTQ+ students and educators. We defeated extreme amendments to provide vouchers for private schools, abolish the Department of Education, and reduce funding by replacing education programs with block grants.
Modeled after similar state legislation, H.R. 5 does NOTHING to address what parents worry about most: individualized support, school shootings, mental health care for kids, and educator shortages.
“With all that our students need, it’s outrageous that Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his allies in Congress are ignoring the wishes of the vast majority of parents,” said NEA President Becky Pringle.
H.R. 5 is part of a larger GOP strategy to undermine public education. To get far-right members of the GOP to vote for him, Speaker McCarthy promised to slash spending to FY2022 levels—a reduction of more than $130 billion.
Assuming no cuts to defense, that translates to at least a 22 percent cut in essential programs in FY2024, according to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. Last week, she released letters from agency heads spelling out the consequences.
Title I alone would lose $4 billion, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote, “impacting an estimated 25 million students and reducing program funding to its lowest level in almost a decade—a cut equivalent to removing more than 60,000 teachers and related service providers from classrooms serving low-income students.”
CHEER: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) hit the nail on the head in his floor speech opposing H.R. 5. “This legislation has nothing to do with parental involvement, parental engagement, parental empowerment. It has everything to do with jamming the extreme MAGA Republican ideology down the throats of the children and the parents of the United States of America.”
CHEER: 203 Democrats and RepublicansAndy Biggs (AZ), Ken Buck (NY), Matt Gaetz (FL), Mike Lawler (NY), and Matt Rosendale (MT) voted NO on the Parents Bill of Rights Act, House GOP leadership’s top education priority.
CHEER: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) offered an amendment to H.R. 5 requiring a Government Accountability Office report on how much the bill costs schools, state education agencies, and local education agencies. The amendment passed.
CHEER: Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) offered an amendment to H.R. 5 requiring local education agencies to inform parents of the number of counselors in elementary and secondary schools. The amendment passed.
CHEER: Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) offered an amendment to H.R. 5 stipulating that parents cannot deny children who are not their own access to books or reading materials in the school library. The amendment passed.
CHEER: Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) sent a letter urging Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to negotiate in good faith with unionized Starbucks stores them as the National Labor Relations Act requires.
CHEER: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) led a Dear Colleague letter requesting $100 million for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Air and Radiation/Indoor Environments Division to protect school children and personnel from unhealthy environments, and an additional $10 million for EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection.
CHEER: Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) led Dear Colleague letters urging appropriators to fund education grant programs administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Education Program.
CHEER: Reps. Sean Casten (D-IL) and Susie Lee (D-NV) reintroduced the Pell Grant Sustainability Act (H.R. 1742), which would index Pell grants to inflation.
CHEER: Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) introduced the More Teaching, Less Testing Act (H.R. 1741) to create flexibility within the assessment requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, among other improvements and protections within the assessment space of K-12 education.
CHEER: Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) is leading an appropriations request letter in support of funding for the Full-Service Community Schools grant program.
CHEER: Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM) reintroduced the Loan Forgiveness for Educators Act (S. 963/H.R. 1757) to provide enhanced student loan relief.
