Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

The issue of Education is important to our district and to my work in Congress.

High-quality education (like health care) must be a right of all Americans, not a privilege.

Chronic underinvestment in education seriously threatens America's future competitiveness and well-being.

The single most important investment we can make is in the literacy, aptitude, productivity, and enlightenment of all Americans, young and old.

We must strive to make college and higher education a possibility for all Americans who are eager to achieve that level of scholarship and post-secondary and training/re-training opportunities available to everyone.

Teaching is among the noblest and most essential callings in society and should be rewarded accordingly.

Massive inequality within our educational system effectively condemns Americans living in poor and under-served communities to economic hardship.

What Hank has done:

Cosponsored the College Student Relief Act of 2007, which cuts from 6.8% to 3.4% the interest rate charged undergraduate student borrowers under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and Direct Loan (DL) programs.

Cosponsored the College Student Relief Act of 2007, which cuts from 6.8% to 3.4% the interest rate charged undergraduate student borrowers under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and Direct Loan (DL) programs.

Voted to override President Bush's veto of the American Competitiveness Scholarship Act, which would provide $10.2 billion in necessary funding for education in America.

Convened a forum of public leaders, education experts, and hundreds of interested constituents -- including Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, Georgia Perimeter College President Dr. Anthony Tricoli, and Clark Atlanta University President Dr. Walter Broadnax -- to discuss the importance of closing the educational achievement gap.

What Hank will do:

Work to drive more funding to struggling public schools.

Work to protect the futures of college students and other post-secondary students who have taken on debt to attend school.

Support significant increases in funding for public education nationwide, including full funding of neglected No Child Left Behind mandates.

Continue to insist that teaching is a vital profession and ought to be rewarded with dramatically higher pay; we must make teaching a career that will lure America's best and brightest.

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