Education

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).

With “fiscal cliff” drama coming to an close, new issues are set to take center stage in the 113th Congress. At the same time, both parties are still responding to the demographic changes in the country that gave President Obama a resounding victory. Democrats feel comfortable that Latinos, who came out strong for the party down ticket, will once again play a vital role in the 2014 midterm cycle. Republican leadership, likewise, is reexamining messaging and policy to ensure they remain competitive in national elections.

Our gun policies have failed, in part, because our system lacks transparency and accountability. That’s why we’re asking teachers to carry guns before we’ve asked gun owners to tell us who they are. Charles Krauthammer recently argued “increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties.” But here, merely by shedding some light we can better protect society without restricting liberties of law-abiding, responsible gun owners.

In 2008 D.C. v. Heller affirmed our individual right to own guns. Unfortunately, our culture is stuck in a pre-Heller mindset that prioritizes secrecy and obstruction over transparency and accountability. It is time for us to adapt to Heller and redefine what it means to be a “responsible gun owner.”  

On January 1, Time Warner Cable (TWC) rung in the New Year by dropping our network, Ovation, from its channel lineup. Other independent networks may face the same fate. These are not isolated incidents but the disturbing result of years of consolidation in the pay TV industry with a small number of dominant carriers offering the networks of a small number of media conglomerates. The result is the homogenization of cable TV and the betrayal of cable’s promise to deliver diversity. Policymakers, concerned citizens and industry leaders need to understand and seek to arrest this trend before it is too late.

The various hierarchal levels in a corporate business, business mergers, countless statistical formulas for probability, and of course accounting are a few of the topics covered while working on my bachelors in Business Management. Important material you might suggest. Good to know, possibly. My response to that is, “I want a refund”.  What my college overlooked in their curriculum was that little of the previous topics just mentioned held as much weight as the most significant priority in all profit-based industries, that is being able to sell. More specifically, without the ability to be successful as a salesperson in any sector of business, relatively little of the rest proves to be beneficial. Regretfully, this was never a major emphasis in my undergraduate course work, yet something learned outside of this context.

In Washington, legislators continue to hear from executives and investors in the science-based industries including biotech, healthcare, engineering and, particularly, technology, about the need to expand the number of H-1 visas granted to foreign-born STEM workers. Foreign workers are necessary, we are told, for their businesses and the United States to stay competitive. These conversations, and the related congressional hearings, have become a standard part of the STEM conversation in Washington. The result is congressional action (and inaction) on looking at the STEM problem as a shortage that can (or cannot) be fixed through immigration reform. This addresses an immediate need but does little to develop our own national human resource.

I want to start by extending my deepest sympathies to the families of the victims of Friday’s massacre, and to the whole community, and to thank the first responders and all those who are helping in the aftermath of this darkest of tragedies.
 
Three days after the horrors of Newtown, we’re all still reeling from what happened. Any time there’s a shooting like this we’re crushed with sorrow, but there’s no escaping the fact that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary stands out for its awfulness. The murder of so many little children and the adults who tried to save them doesn’t just break our hearts, it shatters them.
 
The last few days have been searing for all of us, and the days ahead will be too.

This afternoon, the families of Newtown, Connecticut are burying two six-year-old boys – Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.
 
Noah turned six last month. Jack was a New York Giants fan.
 
In the days to come, many of their classmates will also be laid to rest – the victims of a tragedy too terrible to comprehend.
 
Twenty little girls and boys. Twenty tiny daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, friends and playmates.
 
Twenty children, who will never grow up and learn to drive, go on a first date or graduate from high school.
 
Twenty six- and seven-year-olds who will never have the chance to fall in love, get married or have children of their own.
 
Noah and Jack, Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Allison and Avielle.