At Hearing, Senator Murray Blasts Trump for Undermining K-12 Outcomes Across America

Senator Murray: "The fact of the matter is: the state of Education under President Trump is in shambles."

***WATCH: Senator Murray discusses how Trump has systemically undermined K-12 education***

Washington, D.C. - Today, at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing to examine the state of K-12 education in America, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)-a former chair and senior member of the HELP Committee-laid out how President Trump and his administration are undermining K-12 education across America and spoke with expert witnesses on the importance of having a federal government committed to strengthening educational outcomes nationwide.

In opening comments, Senator Murray said:

"I'm really glad that we are holding this hearing on the state of education, because I am seeing the state of education in shambles under this Department of Education, where the president vowed to dismantle the Department of Education, he set immediately to work to tear apart programs that support our students and schools, no regard to the law, the consequences, or even what's best for our students.

"So, I see the state of education is delayed, and frozen, cancelling funding, robbing our schools of support for our teachers, and the support and services kids need to succeed.

"We are seeing fired workers. And those are the people who got grants out the doors, and protected civil rights, and elevated student success through evidence-based research, and a lot more.

"We are seeing the state of education [is that] Trump is moving technical and adult education out of the Department and eliminating education research for student success.

"So, in the midst of all of this chaos that we are seeing at the Department of Education, I am really concerned about the latest results of the National Report Card which came out this month.

"Because it does show that while Trump is pushing ahead with tearing apart the Department of Education and ripping resources away from our students, our kids are continuing to fall behind. Reading, math, science scores are falling, achievement gap between students is getting wider.

"And, Mr. Chairman, I fought really hard on this Committee to pass the bipartisan Student Succeeds Act so we could provide guardrails and flexibility to our local school districts, in balance. Guardrails, and flexibility. But now we are seeing this law twisted into pretzels, with broad and-in the case of waivers, broad waivers on the funding requirements-illegal waivers that are going to let states off the hook if they fail to educate our students, and are really in blatant disregard of our intent when I worked with Lamar Alexander and others to pass that really critical piece of work.

"So, I am worried that, instead of working with us to fix the education system, Donald Trump and the Secretary of Education are making it a lot worse. So, the question we need to ask is simple:

"What is going to help our students? What is going to keep them focused, what is going to keep them engaged, how are we going to help them keep them growing and thriving and reversing these trends of the NAEP scores?

"And I think the answer is the opposite of what we have been seeing."

Appearing at the hearing as witnesses were Dr. Eric Hanushek, Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution; Dr. Martin West, Vice Chair of the National Assessment Governing Board; Dr. Katie Jenner, Indiana Secretary of Education; Dr. Scott Muri, Superintendent Emeritus at Ector County Independent School District; and Dr. Rebecca Winthrop, Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution.

[FEDERAL ROLE IN SUPPORTING DISTRICT IMPROVEMENT]

Senator Murray began by questioning Dr. Muri on the importance of not allowing the federal government to turn its back on the lowest-performing students in the United States-and how the Trump administration's waivers do just that: "So, Dr. Muri, let me start with you. You've seen firsthand how consistent support, consistent strategic investments help turn around a struggling district and put students on a path to success. When Senator Lamar Alexander and I wrote the Every Student Succeeds Act, we actually did a few things. We cleaned up that waiver mess the Obama administration had created. We got rid of some of the onerous parts of the No Child Left Behind to provide more flexibility to our states and to our districts. But third and really importantly, we included core accountability and school improvement requirements for states and school districts, including requirements to focus resources on our nation's lowest performing students. Now, these waivers that President Trump is giving out are really unraveling that law and leaving those lowest performing students in the dust."

"So, Dr. Muri, can you speak to the importance of the federal focus on our nation's lowest performing students and how it helps superintendents like you to focus on our students who need the most support?" asked Murray.

"Thank you, Senator Murray. Pressure and support. One of the philosophical beliefs that we have locally, whether it's the classroom, the school level, or the system level, or even the state level, is that balance of pressure, teachers, principals, we all need to feel that, the pressure to perform, the pressure to ensure that our students have the right type of environment on which to learn, but it must be balanced with support, and sometimes that support comes through policy, through regulation, through financial contributions, through a variety of other ways. But that balance is what we need locally. At the end of the day, the decisions that are made in rooms such as this affect every child in every classroom in America, and specifically in Odessa, Texas, I see the decisions that are made in this city affecting our students in positive ways and negative ways, and that has happened over time, but that balance of pressure and support is critical," Dr. Muri answered.

"Which is what we put into the [Every Student Succeeds Act]. So, all the waivers that we're seeing, some of them illegal, I think are going to have a real impact," concluded Senator Murray.

Senator Murray, a former preschool teacher and local school board member, is a longtime congressional leader on strengthening K-12 education and ensuring that every child has access to a quality education in the United States. In May, she joined a group of her Democratic colleagues in a letter urging Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to reject any efforts by states to undermine the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which specifically directs funding to high-poverty schools, English as a Second Language programs, and afterschool and summer learning. Senator Murray hosted a Senate Forum to underscore the devastating consequences of Trump's decimation of the Department of Education earlier this year. In 2015, Senator Murray and former U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) worked together to fix the No Child Left Behind Act by passing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to ensure strong federal guardrails for accountability, shine a light on resource inequities, and reduce reliance on high-stakes testing.

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