undersecretary of education james kvaal testified before a joint hearing held by two house education subcommittees. topics included broadband access, in-person learning, and challenges for those in higher education. this is three hours. >> joint hearing of the subcommittee on early childhood elementary and secondary education, and the subcommittee on higher education and workforce investment will come to order. welcome, everyone. i note that a forum is present . the subcommittees are meeting today to hear testimony examining the implementation of covid-19 education funds. this is an entirely remote hearing. all microphones will be kept muted as a general rule to avoid unnecessary background noise. members and witnesses will be responsible for unmuting themselves when they are recognized to speak or when they wish to seek recognition. i also ask that members please identify themselves before they speak. members should keith their cameras on well during the proceeding. members shall be considered present in the proceeding when they are visible on camera and they shall be considered not

education. education. as some of you know, each year the chair selects an initiative that can make a difference across all states and territories showing the power to -- of both governors and parties to develop best practices that make a difference in the lives of their constituents. past chair initiatives dealt with infrastructure, workforce development, security, cybersecurity, energy, technology, health care and many more. the current chairman has chosen to focus on k-12 computer science education over the next year. he has achieved great success in preparing young people for the jobs in governor hutchinson is taking on the initiative working to provide for the public health of the economic recovery passing through the pandemic. it's my pleasure to introduce him to introduce isn't issued and how the computer science field can help to provide for good jobs in every state and territory in the future. let's give him a warm welcome. governor asa hutchinson. [applause] >> thank you everybody for j

our educators implemented that. and then the biggest gap is i mentioned the teacher that's trained and certified for teaching computer science, but there are so many in the industry that would help encourage, come into the classroom, would tell real-life stories. there would be such a great tool for the students to hear from the industry side. and that's the hardest part to connect. because people in the technology business, they're busy, they're doing their work, they're doing what their mission is. we got to get them connected more on the education side just to mentor, to help the teacher showcase the opportunities for the young people. but, thank you for the question, and i think it's a balance that we need to continue to strive for. >> good afternoon, governor. thank you for your time and your leadership on this topic. my name is rob. i lead a small business unit at thompson reuters focused on mitigating fraud in public programs. computer science, data analytics is also really important in delivery assistance se

we have an office of computer science education. we have a director and a staff that helps push this out daily to lead this effort. and then he is here, the director of computer science has done an extraordinary job and then you have to have an executive leadership. in my case, it's me. i'm the governor and it's my initiative i'm out there advocating for it every day. i've become a little bit renowned because each year the number of students and the list of all the schools and how many students were in each school and i saw one that had zero students taking computer science and i knew that it was a large school so i called the superintendent and said, i got his voicemail and i said this is the governor and i know the statistics i'm getting have to be wrong because you have such a progressive school. but my information as you have zero students taking computer science. would you give me a call back. the superintendent got busy and had soon 100 students in the classroom and they've marched on. but it takes that kind of leadership. we

like you, i am a former educator. i know how important these emergency funds have been in helping school support students during the pandemic but schools are equipped to meet the whole child. they see better and to health. that is so important. physical health and economic outcomes for students and families in the entire community. this is why i founded a public unity school and i am a huge advocate of expanding the model to as many neighborhoods as possible. the department released this to show how they could adopt the model to better the needs of the whole child. many school models are brand-new. technical assistance is critical . based on the technical assistance provided thus far, what are some of the biggest hurdles for schools trying to adopt the committee school model for the first time during covid? >> thank you for bringing up the communities. some of the impediments, i could not speak to those exactly but what i know is the reason why we decided the technical assistance and collaboration is so that people ca

as a single mom of two, a former educator, and a concerned american, education is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. it is no secret that our nation faces tremendous challenges in education, and during the pandemic this last year, many of us joined our children in the virtual classroom and found ourselves concerned with the curriculum we witnessed. the other side's proposed solutions to nationalize the curriculum and push a one-size-fits-all approach to education has proven to fail time and time again and is clearly not the answer. as republicans, we believe that education is a true partnership between parents and the learning environment that works best for their children. we don't think the relationship between a family and educators needs to bed a very saerl. we want schools to work hand in hand with families, bringing new ideas and innovation to the table that will truly put our students first. the commonwealth of virginia spoke loudly and clearly last night and they agree with us. i think the problems we have with the other side's education's proposals are indicative of ma

as a single mother of two, former educator and a concerned american, education is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. it is no secret that we have faced challenges in education and many of us join children and found ourselves concerned with the curriculum that we witnessed. the proposed solutions to nationalize the curriculum and a one-size-fits-all approach to education has failed time and time again and it's not the answer. as republicans, we believe that education is a true partnership between parents and the learning environment that works best for their children. we don't think that the relationship between the family and educators needs to be adversarial, but we want schools work hand-in-hand with families bringing new ideas and innovations to the table that will truly put the students first. the commonwealth of virginia says loudly and clearly last night and they agree with us and i think the problems that we have at the other side of education are indicative of many of larger issues and the other side wants to shut parents out and have government do the job and not some

and at the lower levels of education? guest: i think the basic answer is some of this comes out of concerns about the black lives matter movement and the reactions to george floyd's murder last year. lawmakers became increasingly concerned about teachers showing a certain political bias in the classroom. i think some of this anxiety or backlash stems from the idea that critical race theory has become a catchall term for different things. not just in classrooms but at the school board and school administrative level where school officials are prioritizing student identities more than student learning. the idea they are pitting students against each other and making some students feel ashamed about past actions they are not responsible for and other students should feel oppressed. they feel as though legislation or laws and regulations to combat that -- are needed to combat that. there is a lot of opposition to that critique. there are a fair number of people in the educational space who feel the backlash is a trojan horse.

news & world report college somewhat our view of higher education? >> the ranking system was intended originally to be an information queue to allow students and their parents to make decisions about which school they want to go too. there are hundreds if not thousands of choices of universities to go to and we need a basis to compareie them. and universities they do things like change some of their course offerings are what they spend money on or the ratio of students to professors that gives them a higher ranking in the u.s. news report. egregious really ones are the more students higher the rejection rate to boost the rankings in u.s. news report. some of the other systems. what does that mean? they go out i and encourage they're never intending to take her not getting into harvard, princeton, yale that adds another rejection more exclusive. this is extremely unethical active basically wasting people's time to gain the ranking systems. what was your college experience and would you do differently today? there a small liberal arts college for under

that is your intro to english, intro to get a well-rounded education.r many, many decades they have accrued in such a way a lot of these classes in the way of content but we look at the book at some survey data where they ask incoming freshman basic questions about knowledge and critical thinking. two years later after the end of their sophomore they asked the same questions there's basically no difference on the amount of materials they learn paid no improvement at critical thinking skills. these are all from the years they spend in college taking the jen and classes. so he asked the question why are remaking students take multiple into tens of thousands of dollars taking mandatory classes for getting a degree and they aren't not learning much in those classes. they have figured a way to lobby the curriculum to make their classes mandatory what is that mean? you can hire more faculty, the english department may be declining in majors over all. as hundreds of students coming to its classroomanas that again. while faculty ask it again, as a tenure import

as well-educated as her sons. and then by her brother horatio who went off to dartmouth and of course sarah couldn't go with him because dartmouth didn't accept women until the 1970s. but horatio would come home and teach her everything he had learned. then when hale got married, she and her husband had a ritual with every evening, they would sit together at the sitting room table after dinner and for two hours they would study not just literature but also science and french. >> botany. >> botany and minerology, subjects that were not usually considered women's subjects. >> right, right. i love what you said about her mother, she was profoundly influenced by her mother who was her first schoolteacher. my mom is in the audience, i can attest to that, she's also a schoolteacher. i felt seen by mrs. hale when she said that. she said there's no influence so powerful as that in her mother but next in rank of efficacy is a school master. it seems that set her on this trajectory, her mother's influence and also her husba

be as well-educated as her sons. and then by her brother horatio who went off to dartmouth and of course sarah couldn't go with him because dartmouth didn't accept women until the 1970s. but horatio would come home and teach her everything he had learned. and then when hale got married she and her husband at a ritual. every evening they would sit together at the sitting room table after dinner and for two hours he would study not just literature but also science and french and botany and mineralogy and subjects that were not usually considered women's subjects. >> i love what you said about her mother. my mom's in the audience, i can attest to that. i felt seen by mrs. hale when she said that but she said there's no influence so powerful as that of her mother . it seems like that set her on this trajectory of just for her mother's influence and also her husband but maybe you could some of these influences in her life that had this impact. i think you write her family influences were enormous. another influence on her

it wasn't just it was female education but she also believe that women need to be educated so they couldr instruct their children with the new republic civic virtue. she called this the doctor in a republican small our republican mother had. do you want to expand on that? >> this is a very important point. as i mentioned earlier, when she started her magazine only half of american women were literate she deeply believed that women have the same intellectual capabilities as men but the difference was men were educated. and women weren't. she believed education was a lifelong process. she considered it a lifelong process and in her magazine she would public reading lists and articles about science and very serious stuff. for 50 years i talked about the importance of educating women. one reason was an essential reason was she read earlier mother is the first teacher of the child she thought women needed to be educated in order to teach their children about everything. particularly religion and particularly civic virtues. she saw it as a way of bringing the country together she was born righ

and so we have got to have education at educational choice and now.s are important, you know we used to -- well, it is just the school board, but now we know it is so important. get out and vote. every vote ison important. and by the way, the school board association, they want parents tooo get involved in their children's education, but teacher union, kept telling us get involved in children's education, the minute we do, they sick the doj on us, is this america? i wonder sometimes, where am i? we'll change it in virginia. and lead the way for the rest of the country come next year. >> you and glenn youngkin have made quality education your top issue. as i told glenn youngkin this is really remarkable that republicans are turning the table on the democrats, it is about time from where i sit. we litigated against these groups, landmark legal foundation to get school choice constitutionalized if you will, i always wondered why the republican party did not take it up as an issue, in particular with mine orbities -- minorities who are stuck in the school

and you brought quality education to the fore. i have cared about my life equality education. you are the candidate, for once, finally, a republican has taken that issue and run with it. the democrats do not believe in school choice or quality education or anything of the sort, they believe in teachers unions they represent them. >> thank you. >> over course of last 10 months we have an amazing group of people around us, this is about virginians, coming together around a fellow virginian, i am optimistic of all change we could bring, we're standing up for america. so virginia has a chance to lead like we have from the founding of this great country, we have to get out and vote tuesday. please come out and vote could make your voice heard, and let's make change happen not just for future of our great commonwealth but the country, and thank you so much for having me on your show. everyone can join us. let's get this done. mark: for my sake and my family sake. i wish you all of the best, sir. god bless you, good luck. >> thank you so

and she believed that education was a lifelong process and she wanted women to be educated, to study subjects of priestley had been considered too taxing for the female mind. she considered it a lifelong process and she talked about reading lists, articles about science, very serious things and for 50 years, it talked about the importance of educating women and one reason was that, as he read earlier, a mother is the worst teacher of a child and she thought women needed to be educated in order to teach their children about everything, including virtues. and this is also why she wanted the national thanksgivingay day. and she sighed as a way of bringing things together. shel was born after the revolutionary war and lived through the civil war. she lived in a time where we were very torn apart today and in our country. and i just wonder if our country now would benefit from reading this book. would they respect the effort that was made. >> you know, i would like to think so. and the virtues are the american political system, very deeply held by her was kept in religion and i don't thin

she also spoke a lot about educating housewives. educating mothers. because she said just as a farmer needs to know something about how to grow good wheat, a farmer's wife needs to learn about how to make good bread. but the whole idea, and this goes back to the whole idea of teaching. she started in 1828, or started her magazine in 1828. women were considered not to be qualified to be teachers. they could teach small children their letters, but they didn't have the moral authority or the learning, education to teach older kids. so her campaign remained for many years was to change the national conversation about women's teachers, and by the 40s, about 1840s, as the country was -- a little villages and towns all around and the frontier were looking for teachers. women entered the teaching profession in large numbers, and by the 50s, the 1850s, there were more women than man as school teachers in america. and the last i looked, which was a think about a month ago, 76% of k-12 teachers today are women. >> yeah, you don't think that that's not how it alw

he's interviewed by and the our education reporter army evidence. afterwards is a weekly interview program with relevant guests so's interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work . >> i'm so excited for this conversation. >> same here. >> definitely. >> so you've written this book the "the debt trap: how student loans became a national catastrophe", it's a comprehensive book you mentioned that you did eight years every of research on it and i want to know what subcu in? >> it's almost 9 years since 2012. i was just an economics reporter at the time and i as part of a story i was doing on deadlines at the cfpb this consumer agency put out this report on the consumer financial erprotection agency but also this report saying student debt exceeded 1 trillion and i just wrote a standard story about that and i got a ton of attention on the story. a lot of readers clicked on it, started to email me. and just from there i just wanted to write more and more about it. about why student debt was rising, what was driving that the more i wrote wabo

using our taxpayer dollars to educate, hopefully educate not indoctrinate our children to think whatitated a lot of parents, myself included is the arrogance dismissiveness from the school board members but also democrats did nothing to help with the independents and suburban moms who said we don't think so and they turned out and voted for youngkin. i would say i was delighted to see comments this morning from democrats including biden but also the left, all about white racism and supremacy biden think we have to polish infrastructure and build back better, that's exactly the message i was hoping because it's even more devastating. the midterms little ways off historical averages. kennedy: and also democrats have a slim majority they are working with an eye think what they didn't realize, not just virginia but across the country, you have sickle voting box they ran away from trump but now they're doing the same thing, disenchanted with the way things are. obviously if they passed infrastructure, it would not only help the president, it would have helped terry mcauliffe. mark warner

and in fact are ideas for female education, she wrote a plan for female education which you presented to the new york state legislature in it and trent 1819, the plan. and that is what galvanized that and eventually led the school she founded in troy, but she had to do the final ever in fact in columbia, they found a seminary called a similar entered seminary school and her model and all of us like she was active in trying to get one published in greece as well. so she was internationally famous as well. and they went there to read all of her papers and all of her letters and the stuff the major great archive of her papers there. and when you walk into the library at the school, this is just single copy of all of the different editions of the books he wrote them all by emma willard entered willard in this cabinet it's a one insert argument for female education and i want to credibly the argument real quick and then show how it relates to that era. the argument was basically a female education would not only make the nation great it would make it last and willard called on countrymen t

at that point, it was an education battlefield. this is where we are going to go forward with in 2022, education as the new issue. and is that going to be for republicans, are they going to take that over like democrats took trade in the unions. is that now going to be a republican strength, with education now turning into a culture war issue. also in august, with afghanistan, virginia was one of the only states where foreign policy would have any impact. but you have so much of the beltway crowd, then down in norfolk, a lot of military in virginia. that coincided with biden dropping in the polls. and then terry losing his strength in the race, too. >> just, -- from a communications perspective, the youngkin campaign, their narrative, you did not hear them nationalizing the trade, there was not about biden, just focusing on local issues. obviously, an effective strategy for them. >> it was. they were not giving the heisman to trump aide -- trump. they didn't have anybody coming in the campaign, this was a virginia -- the term is ov

host: that is one thing about civics education.here are some places where our government has ruled -- rules that are clear-cut. but there are other places where it depends on who you talk to. how do you teach areas where there may be disagreements on what the actual rules are? guest: we take a look at how things were actually written, and we take a look at the various laws that have abided since. there are supreme court cases as well. all we can do is present the various interpretations over the course of history. what we do try to avoid is engaging with explicit misinterpretations outside of the legislation, outside of judicial proceedings. we can only really engage with those moments in which that right, for example, it is actually been interpreted. what you are getting at is that there is something going on in the united states where, for example, i would say, we talk about the importance of freedom in the united states. but we do not actually talk about the fact that all the constitution provides is that congress shall pass no

as a single mom of two, a forme educator, and a concerned american, education is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. it is no secret that our nation faces tremendous challenges in education and during the pandemic this last year, many o us joined our children in the virtual classrooms and found ourselves concerned with the curriculum we witnessed. the other proposed solutions to nationalize the curriculum and puts a one-size-fits-all approach to education has prove to fail time and time again and is clearly not the answer. as a republicans we believe tha education is a true partnership between parents and the learnin environment that works best for their children. we don't think that the relationship between a family and educators needs to be adversarial. we want schools to work hand-in-hand with families bringing new ideas and innovations to the table that will truly put our students first. the commonwealth of virginia spoke loudly and clearly last night, and they agreed with us. i think the problems we have with the other side's education proposals are indicative of man of th

and women worked so she believed education was a lifelong process, she wanted women to bea educatedand write and study projects previously considered taxing for the female she considered her lifelong process and in her magazine she published reading list and articles about science, very serious stuff but for 50 years, every issue of every magazine she added talked about the importance of educating women and one reason, the central reason was as red earlier, a mother is the first teacher of the child she thought women needed to be educated to teach their children about everything, particularly religion and civics virtues. it's also part of the reason she wanted a nationalvi thanksgiving day. she saw it as a way of bringing the country together. >> which after the war -- which is born right after the revolutionary war and lived through the civil war so she lived through this time were we weren't the united states, we were torn apart in many ways in our country but i wonder if our country o now benefit, but what they be receptive to the effort she made to unifybu? >> i like the virtues

i assume the one is education. take that on. >> it one of the problems right now, i talk about in my book is naming things. the idea of critical race theory which has been vilified by the right, we have to get the terminology right in terms of being able to make advances. ... >> the specific structural racism and having 1 foot nailed to the floor and trying to draw the race, it is not possible in terms of this so yes we need to educate an alternative to tracy, he might have some ideas rated. >> you are the educator and abolitionist, going right ahead predict. >> i'm going to echo some of what priscilla said because i think that she is 100 percent right when she said that this is not just about critical race theory, this is about our history and about being able to tell the truth about what we've gone through an amount but we are still going through and it is about being able to look squarely in the face of those things that we need to change. i will save a startling revelation for me when i had to accept the fact t

in financial education. she said people getting jobs half her age and was told she needed more relevant experience. and i have an article and may not be enough that i would like to submit for the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. garcia: another story, diana aged 53, she was forced to take early retirement after her company downsized and wasn't ready to quit working but hasn't found a job. the loaded question in the application is always, quote, when did you graduate from high school. when did you graduate from high school? this question tells her age and because of that, she has gotten no interviews. these folks are not alone. i want to read some comments from other job seekers in their 50's about their experience. quote, no jobs for older people. jobs for seniors 60-plus who want to work are not plentiful in rural communities. age discrimination is alive and well in the job market. another one, no one hires old people. another one, i'm 63 with no job, still trying to find work. with t

now demand education. ., , v , ., education.. your eye, it's very hard to get a first job. _ education. your eye, it's very hard to get a first job, a _ education. your eye, it's very hard to get a first job, a decent - education. your eye, it's very hard to get a first job, a decent first - to get a firstjob, a decent first job without being a graduate. sometimes a job application and think, why on earth does this person need to be a graduate to do this basic leveljob? they need the application and commitment but did they really need to be a graduate? the fact of the matter is that the reason this is the current system is costing the taxpayer a fortune. because were not breaking even on it. all this money goes out loans, not many people are paying the full amount back. it's not break even, this is a way of trying to make it probably lose less money and still not break even. of course university who are cheerleaders for the system in the first place. they would get lot more freedom and actually in reality they've got a note lot

the main reason, i want to build the best education, want every child to have a world-class education november 2nd and election day in virginia where polls are set to open a race that captured the attention of the nation. the path forward will be determined by the people. griff jenkins is live outside richmond. laura: there is this.

it was like we've lost the global lead in having the most educated workforce. we had that and the early '90s, and he said we want to regain this lead by 2020. 2020. because of the countries like south korea had surpassed us in that measure. he was like lbj where he was worried about of the country surpassing us. lbj was worried about the civic union. barack obama was worried about south korea and other emerging countries that were really getting more educated workers and so we said let's expand the number of people who are going to college and grad school. he recognized the were some problems with student loans. my checker in the book on barack obama it's interesting chapter but i try to maintain -- you recognize a lot of problems with lending and had a lot of ideas to fix some of the problems but he did really buy into this notion that college is this is t investment that everyone should take part in. inherently that would require an increase in student loans. so getting back to the great recession which lasted through 2009 but even after 2009 the unemployment

critical race theory in education. you can still find it on the department of education's website, still there. in february 2019 a superintendent memo to the virginia department of education promoting critical race theory and the idea of white fragility. it's part of the curriculum there today, still there,

i've been meeting with our educators, i've visited to over one hundred educators.we know our students are coming in with a lot of needs. we just heard stories of students coming into our schools. we need our parents, substudents, custodians. we've been hearing about that need. there's a lot of concerns out there. educators are quitting on a daily basis. we need stable schools. we see there's a big gap. it's kind of scary that we're only cutting the biggest piece from our educator piece. those saber data has a lot of interesting information. if you actually look at it, there's 14 bay area districts where educators get paid more than educators in san francisco. >> thank you. >> i'm still very confused about the cuts being proposed. when students don't just dress up and play soldier, they learn leadership skills, develop relationships and do all of that while maintaining an amazing inclusive environment for all students. who decided to lift cuts to soar. it make it's looks to cuts to sped are smaller than they actually are. this cannot happen when sites are already ov

their kids education, but how much is the education is a priority in virginia in this election?w much was it about what you are describing, talking about a world class education for kids, versus this hot button critical race theory thing, that republicans were peddling? >> i do think that youngkin, was out there selling a bill of goods, that will seek to divide us rather than bring us together. sitting at a home be in iraq or afghanistan, we worked on the half of a shared set of values, irrespective of her background, and i think that's what people expect in our education system. and our government, and what they're not going to get, with the youngkin in the executive mansion, i think what's really important. is that we as democrats demonstrate our commitment to a world-class education. meeting parents where they are in terms of making sure that they have and put into their children's education and they understand that the education of children they are going to get is going to be world class. that there is a path through advanced math and advanced science, and excellence in eng

>> education. >> education. >> everybody, education? number one issue?> absolutely. >> yes. >> reporter: youngkin relentlessly campaigned on the issue. >> we decide that we in fact are going to be in charge of our children's education! >> reporter: while mcauliffe was perceived by voters like davis to be indifferent, that feeling reinforced by this blunder at a debate in september. >> i don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. >> when he said that sentence, in the debate, what did you think? >> ugh. it was so dismissive. and upsetting. >> we're just moms that wanted our kids to go to school. and wanted them to learn. it's really that basic. >> reporter: virginia has also been ground zero in the roiling debate over teaching about race and racism in public schools. and efforts by some districts to make education more inclusive. >> using diversity and inclusion on your page while propagating division and hate makes you a fraud. >> you should be arrested! >> reporter: school board meetings in places like loudoun county have devol