Student Success Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding, and also for your leadership on this important issue.

Earlier this year, at Harper College in Illinois, I held an education roundtable with school district administrators and parents on the importance of averting the sequester and reforming our education system.

Since then, I have heard continuously from educators and parents throughout my district on the importance of English language learner programs for our young men and women. As a child, English was not my first language, and I understand intimately the importance of programs that help children learn the language of our Nation. It makes them more competitive when they become adults and enter the workforce. It also makes our Nation more competitive to have truly bilingual members of the workforce.

That is why I support proper funding of the English Language Learner program, and I'm rising in opposition to this dangerous bill that, simply put, lets students down. H.R. 5 ignores the needs of this growing portion of our student population. It ignores them, along with poor children, migratory children, and neglected children.

This bill guts education funding, rolls back protections for disadvantaged students, and removes accountability provisions that we all know our students deserve. I want the children in my district to receive excellent education, and this partisan, extreme bill will fail to provide that.

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