Education

Education is the key to self-sufficiency and enables our youth to become successful and productive members of society. As your representative in Washington, Christopher works to ensure a quality education for all Americans. He will continue to support federal funding for distressed urban regions, college loans, Early and Head Start programs, student access to technology, literacy initiatives and new SMART grants for math and science.

 

Christopher favors a federal government role that supports state and local efforts to reform and improve public schools with programs such as school choice initiatives, charter schools and merit pay for teachers. The federal government should continue to set national academic standards. It should provide innovative leadership in mathematics, sciences and higher education, and address the specific educational needs of distressed rural and urban regions.

 

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a significant step forward for American public education and it is helping Fourth District cities meet their academic challenges. Christopher supports fully funding NCLB and is working to make improvements to the law by advocating common-sense changes. He supports a measure that will allow students who don’t speak English more time to learn the language before being tested in it, and has proposed that students with special mental and physical challenges be judged in ways that reflect a fair assessment of their individual progress.

 

Christopher is an original cosponsor of the No Child Left Behind Reform Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) aimed at giving states additional flexibility in implementing the law.

 

NCLB was designed to foster and employ high standards, accountability for results, and increased parental involvement in improving the education of every child. If we remain committed to those goals, we will succeed. While Christopher believes that NCLB should be funded at its authorized levels, he is pleased that overall funding for education has dramatically increased since the passage and implementation of NCLB. From Fiscal Year 2001 (FY 01) to FY 08, Congress has increased funding for No Child Left Behind from $17.3 billion to $24.6 billion – a 42 percent increase. Also, funding for the main federal program within NCLB increased 63 percent over the same timeframe, from $8.8 billion to $14.4 billion.

 

Christopher supported increasing funding even further for education programs when he voted to dramatically increase funding in the FY 08 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Act, which the President vetoed. Christopher voted to override the President’s veto, but unfortunately, the veto override failed to secure the necessary two-thirds vote.

 

The No Child Left Behind Act empowers parents by compelling school districts to issue detailed report cards on individual schools. This allows parents to see which schools are succeeding and why. NCLB also helps provide choices for parents and children by providing significant resources for charter schools. Christopher is a proponent of school choice and voucher programs. By promoting a competitive model all schools will be forced to improve academically, provide better quality services, and create an administrative structure that operates more efficiently.

 

Christopher opposes directly spending federal tax dollars on private schools, but just as he supports providing Pell Grants to college students for use at the universities of their choice, he supports school choice programs that provide parents with similar options for their elementary and secondary school children.

 

The federal government also has an obligation to fund education programs for students with disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) provides funding for early intervention and special education for infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities. Christopher cosponsored legislation to bring the federal government’s share of IDEA funding to the full 40 percent by FY 2016.

 

Under IDEA, the federal government set out to assist states and local school districts with 40 percent of the added costs of educating children with disabilities. Unfortunately, annual appropriations have never provided more than 19 percent.

 

States and local school districts are forced to spend billions of extra dollars to meet the unfunded mandate imposed by IDEA. This is money local school districts should be able to spend for new schools, more teachers, new computers, books for students, and other important programs. Our failure to meet our commitment under IDEA is unacceptable. That’s why Christopher voted several times to increase IDEA spending.