Education

On Sunday evening, an important, bipartisan, and influential group of leaders in the Senate introduced their outline suggesting reasonable and balanced solutions for fixing our nation’s outdated and thoroughly broken immigration system. On Tuesday, President Obama will also lean into this issue by introducing his thoughts about immigration reform legislation. Our Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform coalition applauds this leadership, and we are anxious to review and compare these blueprints. We note that the Senate’s plan is very much in line with the principles that our coalition has been advocating for some time now.

As Immigration Taskforce chairman of the Congressional Asian and Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), I am very pleased that the Senate bipartisan working group reached a consensus on a core set of principles for comprehensive immigration reform. This is a big step toward honoring our nation’s legacy as a land of opportunity.

This School Choice Week, you’re bound to see lots of criticism directed at K-12 public education. It’s been common knowledge that America’s public schools are failing ever since 1983’s A Nation at Risk provoked the modern education reform movement with spine-chilling lines like, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” But, thirty years later, politicians and administrators still can’t grasp why exactly our public schools are losing the education battle and why school choice can win the war.

In Washington there is much discussion about how to address the nation’s long-term fiscal situation, but very little about how to grow the economy and ensure we are meeting the needs of the next generation of Americans. To achieve both of these objectives, Congress and the administration should start the new year by making a strong investment in high-quality early childhood education.



With the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act up for reauthorization this year, Congress has the opportunity to do more than just tweak the failed policies of the past -- it can bring meaningful, lasting reform to a broken system. As our leaders examine the best road to take, let’s remind them that there’s more than one option for reform.



National School Choice Week provides an excellent opportunity to explore the multitude of education solutions being employed around the country and invest in approaches with proven results. Students participating in school choice programs graduate at significantly higher rates than those attending public schools, and students and parents are more satisfied with their experience.



The average cost of building a new school in the U.S. is about $18 million. Los Angeles recently spent nearly $600 million for a school designed to teach 4,000 students. These huge sums beg a question: Do expensive schools improve the quality of education?

A hundred years ago, a gifted educator named Booker T. Washington eloquently gave us the answer: It depends on the lessons being taught there.

Heidi and Frank Green used to worry about their daughters while they were at school. The Clarksville, Indiana couple was concerned about bullying, cursing, large class sizes, a revolving teaching staff, and a general lack of attention for students.

Thankfully, the Greens say their lives have changed for the better as daughters Gillian and Emma are now eager to attend school. Today they are getting quality instruction at their new Catholic school thanks to a voucher program adopted in Indiana two years ago.

“School choice should be everywhere,” said Mrs. Green. “Parents should be able to decide what’s best for their kids.

As a member of Congress, I took an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. I did not swear to uphold only the sections I liked. The Bill of Rights contain civil liberties so fundamentally important that no matter how unpopular at times, these rights are guaranteed and no president, no Congress and no person can deprive them from us. The Second Amendment, hated by some, is a fundamental right as well. I, and millions of others, see the wisdom of the Second Amendment even as many do not. But whether you see its wisdom, all public officials were sworn to uphold it.

And this is where I part ways with the president. On Wednesday, President Obama sought to undermine constitutional guarantees when he unveiled 23 measures, in a combination of executive orders and proposed new legislation, to restrict gun ownership.

Over the past few months, bipartisan meetings of Congressional legislators have been taking place behind closed doors on immigration. This is highly unusual when compared to other hot-button issues like taxes and gun control, which are both currently high-profile debates. Despite the productive talks and alliances, Democrats and Republicans are still calling on President Obama to take leadership on immigration. The president certainly has a role but Congress legislates, however; not the president.

The President has a mixed record on immigration reform that has taken far longer than he initially said it would. This situations requires Congress to take action on immigration legislation without the president to modernize the country’s immigration system.  

There’s no one obvious way to measure effective teaching, and it’s a conundrum that has been facing teachers, education leaders, and policy-makers alike. But determining how to collect information and use it to meaningfully measure teachers’ performance is a necessary next step to ensuring that every student has access to excellent teachers. The newest and most comprehensive research on good instruction released Tuesday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides unprecedented insights about effective ways to measure teaching. And as the 113th Congress determines its agenda for education, members should consider these findings as they debate the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).