[Senate Hearing 117-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



 
  DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND 
          RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
           Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., in room SD-138, Dirksen 
Senate Office Building, Hon. Patty Murray (chairwoman) 
presiding.
    Present: Senators Murray, Durbin, Reed, Shaheen, Manchin, 
Blunt, Moran, Hyde-Smith, and Braun.

                        DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

                        Office of the Secretary

STATEMENT OF HON. MIGUEL CARDONA, SECRETARY


               opening statement of senator patty murray


    Senator Murray. Good morning. The Senate Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and 
Related Agencies will please come to order.
    Today we are having a hearing on the Biden administration's 
fiscal year 2022 budget request for the Department of 
Education. Senator Blunt and I will each have an opening 
statement. And then I will introduce our witness, Secretary 
Cardona. After his testimony, Senators will each have 5 minutes 
for a round of questions. And while we are unable to have the 
hearing fully open yet to the public or media for in-person 
attendance, live video is available on our committee website. 
And if you are in need of accommodations, including closed 
captioning, you can reach out to the committee or the office of 
congressional accessibility services.
    Secretary Cardona, after years of proposed budget cuts and 
school privatization from your predecessor, this budget would 
increase education funding by 40 percent to $103 billion, and 
it is a much-needed breath of fresh air. It proposes bold 
investments to help our schools and students as they respond to 
and recover from this pandemic, and addresses long-standing 
inequities in education, which COVID-19 has made even more 
damaging.


                   lost learning time and disparities


    One of the biggest issues facing our Nation is getting our 
students back on track and addressing the lost learning time 
that they have experienced. We know students of color, students 
with disabilities, students in rural and Tribal communities, 
and students from families with low incomes have borne the 
brunt of this pandemic.
    One study, for example, found the pandemic set students of 
color back 3 to 5 months from where they would be in a typical 
year, and set white students back 1 to 3 months. We need to 
make sure every student, no matter who they are, or where they 
live, or how much money they or their family make, can receive 
the supports they need to thrive despite this pandemic.
    So I am glad this budget takes the task of reckoning with 
these inequities seriously, with investments across a range of 
programs to help ensure all students can get a quality public 
education. It invests $20 billion in a new initiative intended 
to reduce disparities in public, elementary, and secondary 
education in our country, and proposes to use this funding to 
help public schools address a variety of issues, including 
inequities in State and local education funding, expanding high 
quality preschool programs, and improving outcomes for all of 
our students.


              individuals with disabilities education act


    Of course, improving outcomes for students means we must 
also do more to support students with disabilities. This budget 
takes an historic step on that front by proposing a $3 billion 
increase for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. 
Over the years, Congress has fallen short of its promise to use 
40 percent of the funding to support the education of students 
with disabilities through IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act).
    Currently only 13 percent is provided and struggling States 
and districts have been left to fill in the gaps. President 
Biden's proposal will help us better keep this promise and help 
schools across the country, address the shortage of teachers 
for students with disabilities, and provide early intervention 
services so students can get the support they need to succeed 
as soon as possible.
    And when it comes to supporting students' academic, social, 
emotional, and mental health needs, this budget proposes a $413 
million increase for full-service community schools, an 
increase of $120 million for English Language Acquisition 
Grants, and a new $1 billion initiative to ensure students have 
access to school counselors, nurses, and mental health 
professionals.
    This is especially critical, given the mental health 
challenges students, educators, and school staff have faced 
during the pandemic. These challenges will persist well into 
the next school year. We need to make investments to support 
student and staff wellbeing, and we need to bring in more 
counselors, nurses, and psychologists. In Washington State we 
only have one school psychologist for every 1,000 students. 
This budget will help us tackle inequities in higher education 
as well, and significantly expand support for students pursuing 
a postsecondary education, including by increasing the maximum 
Pell Grant by almost a third.


                            higher education


    This is so important. Federal support like Pell Grants 
allowed my six brothers, and sisters, and I, to all go to 
college. But Pell has gone from covering 75 percent of the 
average cost of a 4-year degree at its peak to less than 30 
percent today. We have to strengthen and expand Pell. And this 
budget is a clear step in the right direction. Ultimately, we 
need to do even more to double the maximum Pell award over the 
next 6 years, protect Pell from being cut by budget shortfalls, 
and expand Pell Grants to more students.
    Today, I join colleagues in the House and Senate to 
introduce legislation to accomplish all of that. And I hope to 
work with you, Secretary Cardona, and my colleagues here in 
Congress to get this done. And increased Pell Grants are just 
one of several investments, this budget proposes to make higher 
education more accessible and affordable for all students, 
provides funding to help implement the Bipartisan FAFSA (Free 
Application for Federal Student Aid) Simplification Bill I 
worked to pass last December.
    This will make it easier for all students to apply for 
financial aid, including Pell Grants, expand the number of 
students eligible for support, and increase financial aid to 
students with low incomes. It increases funding for TRIO 
programs, which help first-generation college students, 
students with disabilities, and students from families with low 
incomes to get to and go through college successfully.
    It nearly doubles funding for quality campus-based 
childcare to support student and parents under the CCAMPIS 
(Child Care Access Means Parents in School) Program. And it 
provides increased funding for historically under-resourced 
colleges and universities, including $345 million, which is a 
44 percent increase, in funding for minority serving 
institutions, like Historically Black Colleges, and 
Universities, and other institutions predominantly serving low-
income students, like community colleges. And finally, this 
budget increases funding for the Department's Office for Civil 
Rights.


                                title ix


    Between this budget and the public hearings, the Department 
started last week on the previous administration's inadequate 
Title IX Rule, it is clear we have a President who is focused 
on protecting students, no matter their race, ethnicity, 
religion, sex, including sexual orientation, and gender 
identity, or disability.
    I will be watching your work in this space closely, and 
encourage the Department to continue its efforts, to hear, 
acknowledge and address the stories and concerns of survivors 
of sexual assault.


               education for homeless children and youths


    I will say, one area where I would like to see an increased 
investment, is funding to support education for children and 
youth who are experiencing homelessness. But overall, this 
budget is night-and-day different from the previous 
administration. I always say a budget is a reflection of your 
values. And this budget shows President Biden understands the 
money we spend on schools, students, and public education is an 
investment in our future. What our Nation accomplishes in the 
years ahead will be determined by the opportunities and support 
we are able to give children across the country, now.
    I look forward to working with the administration and with 
my colleagues on this committee to make the investments in 
education we need to make so we have a brighter future for our 
families.
    With that, I will turn it over to Senator Blunt for his 
remarks.


                     statement of senator roy blunt


    Senator Blunt. Well, thank you, Senator Murray. And welcome 
to the hearing, Secretary Cardona. I know this is your first 
time to appear before this committee, and I am sure by the end 
of the hearing, you will be looking forward to next year when 
you get to come back, and the other discussions we will have 
between now and then. I am just glad we had a chance to talk, 
not only during the confirmation process, but again yesterday, 
and look for more opportunities to do that.
    Certainly, the last year has been one of the most 
challenging years for students, for parents, for school 
administrators, for teachers, for everybody in the education 
field, including cafeteria workers, and bus drivers who, in a 
virtual setting, wound up without a job while everybody else's 
jobs became maybe even longer in a day to get ready for the new 
challenges of virtual education, where that occurred, and to 
try to get back to school, as quickly as they could.
    You know, you and I are both first-generation college 
graduates, and we have both been classroom teachers, and so I 
think because of that, hopefully, we have an understanding of 
just how important education is, and what a difference, just a 
slight change it points along the way of your trajectory of 
where you think your life can take you, can make for the people 
we taught, just like we both saw happen with us.
    We also understand the critical role education plays in our 
society. Our ability to compete around the world, the values 
that we transmit from one generation to another, all very 
important. I am a proud supporter of many of the programs we 
are going to be talking about today, career and technical 
education, state grants, IDEA, Title I, the TRIO Programs, 
school-based mental health, that you and I talked about 
yesterday.
    Now I am concerned about the spending level. I just heard 
the Chair mentioned the importance of this huge increase of 
about 41 percent in spending. I think that increase on top of 
the $280 billion in COVID-19 supplemental funding for 
education, last year, is a lot of input into the system in a 
very short period of time. In fact, last year's spending was 
about four times as much as the Department normally receives in 
annual appropriations each year. This year the request is 
$102.8 billion, which is almost $30 billion, or 41 percent 
greater than last year's spending.
    It is a lot of money to try to put into the system all at 
once. I look forward to hearing your plans and, hopefully, some 
of your concerns about how that much new funding going into the 
system would go in, in the best possible way. As a former 
university president, I am particularly concerned about the 
proposal to make community college tuition free for all 
students. As, you know, my view is if you want to make a 
college education really expensive, make it free, but we will 
talk about that.
    We will talk about what we are doing now to make it 
possible for people to go to college and what you are proposing 
in terms of making those first 2 years free at community 
colleges. I would point out that in the average community 
college in America, if you qualify for the full Pell Grant, you 
have more money in that grant than books, fees, and tuition. I 
think the average Pell Grant recipient was $3,946, the average 
tuition and fees at community colleges was $3,700. I think 
there may be other ways to make it possible for more people to 
go to community college, and all other schools without cost. 
But we are going to talk about that today, and as we move 
forward with this budget.
    Many States across the country already have programs that 
make up the difference, and at a community college in Missouri 
the A+ scholarship pays the community college tuition for 
eligible students for up to 2 years. I do think those colleges 
play an incredibly important role in the country. Both as an 
access point for education, but also as a way to get people 
ready for jobs that are available, or could be available, in a 
specific community.
    I am concerned that free community college for everybody 
unfairly subsidizes higher-income students. And if it is 
community college only, it creates an incentive for students to 
attend schools that may not be the best fit for them. Through 
the Pell Grant limited taxpayer dollars have targeted students 
in the most need. It maintains the ability of students to Pell 
Grant, and most of our other programs, to pick institutions 
that best meet their individual needs.
    Since this committee worked to reinstate year-round Pell 
Grants, with Senator Murray and I working hard to lead on that 
effort, students have the flexibility to accelerate their post-
secondary studies and complete their programs more quickly.
    I am pleased to see that the budget does not include 
widespread loan forgiveness. However, the Department has not 
outlined a plan at the same time for borrowers to get back into 
the repayment process. Federal student loan borrowers have gone 
for over a year without being required to make a payment on 
their loans. And I think it is important that the Department 
begins communicating to those borrowers early and often to 
ensure that all borrowers understand their responsibilities, 
and their repayment options when a payment or a loan comes due 
October 1 of this year. I don't see any discussion about that 
in the comments you are making today, and something I would 
like to see more thought given to.
    I am also concerned that the Department has not announced 
how long the student loan servicing will be handled moving 
forward, once the legacy servicing contracts end later this 
year. We have spent a lot of time in this committee looking at 
past proposals on changing that system. As you and I discussed 
yesterday, I look forward to hearing your thoughts as to how 
that system moved forward.
    We both support increased educational opportunities in 
every State, such as Title I and IDEA. It is my goal to find 
ways we can work together. This budget proposes a 10 percent 
increase, or $120 million in discretionary funding for career 
and technical education, teamed with $1 billion in mandatory 
funding for a New Career Pathways Program. I do think it is 
critically important we provide students with meaningful 
information about the jobs that are out there with the work-
based learning opportunities and exposure to different career 
paths early in high school.
    We have been talking about that for some time. There is a 
lost decade for so many people from the time they graduate 
until the time they really settle in, to the career that 
provides the most promise and the most satisfaction for them.
    So I look forward to working together on this. I know we 
are going to have a number of questions and concerns about this 
budget, but it is a critically important part of how people 
move forward in our country, giving them those opportunities 
and the information they need. And I look forward to working 
with you to find the appropriate balance between fiscal 
responsibility and meaningful investment that supports access 
to quality education for all students.
    Thank you, Chair.
    [The statement follows:]
                Prepared Statement of Senator Roy Blunt
    Good morning. Thank you, Chair Murray. And thank you, Secretary 
Cardona, for appearing before the Subcommittee today to discuss the 
Department of Education's FY2022 budget request.
    This has been a long and challenging year for all Americans, but it 
has been particularly difficult for students, parents, teachers, school 
administrators, and all those in the education field. You and I are 
both first generation college graduates and classroom teachers, we know 
how much education can change the trajectory of a person's life, 
because we saw it in our own lives and in the lives of the people we 
taught. We also understand the critical role education plays in our 
society and its impact on our nation's ability to compete in a global 
economy.
    Because of that, I am proud to support key programs that the 
Department of Education administers such as career and technical 
education state grants, IDEA, and Title I, Part A. However, I am 
concerned with the unprecedented level of spending proposed in this 
budget request, particularly at a time when Congress has already 
provided almost $280 billion in COVID-19 supplemental funding for 
education in the last year. For reference, that is about four times as 
much as the Department receives in annual appropriations each year.
    The FY2022 budget request for the Department of Education is $102.8 
billion, which is $29.8 billion, or 41 percent, more than FY2021. 
Future generations can't afford this budget. It also invests the 
majority of new funding in new programs--and the budget provides few 
details on how these programs will work and who will benefit.
    As a former university president, I am particularly concerned about 
the proposal to make community college tuition ``free'' for all 
students. As the saying goes, if you think college is expensive now, 
wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
    First, for most low-income students who receive a Pell Grant, 
community college tuition is already free. Last school year, the 
average Pell Grant recipient at a community college received $3,946, 
while the average tuition and fees at these schools were only $3,700.
    Second, many states across the country already have programs to 
make up the difference between a student's Pell Grant and the cost of 
community college if there is one. In Missouri, the A+ Scholarship pays 
the community college tuition for an eligible student for up to two 
years.
    Finally, while community colleges play a crucial role in our 
diverse higher education system in America, they may not be the best 
choice for every student.
    Rather than subsidizing higher income students and incentivizing 
students to attend schools that may not be the best fit for them, we 
should instead focus our investments in programs that make a student's 
choice in college affordable. And the best way to do so is through the 
Pell Grant program and other programs like the GI bill, work study and 
SEOG.
    Through the Pell Grant program, limited taxpayer dollars are 
targeted toward students most in need. It maintains the ability of 
students to pick the institutions that best meets their individual 
needs. And since this Subcommittee reinstated year-round Pell Grants in 
FY2017, students have the flexibility to accelerate their postsecondary 
studies and complete their programs more quickly. This Subcommittee has 
boosted the maximum Pell Grant award for the past four years, and I 
hope we can do so again this year.
    While I am pleased to see that the budget request does not include 
widespread loan forgiveness, I am concerned that the Administration has 
not outlined a plan to transition borrowers back into repayment when 
the student loan pause ends this fall. Federal student loan borrowers 
have gone over a year without making a payment on their loans.
    It is absolutely imperative that the Department begins 
communicating with borrowers early and often to ensure that all 
borrowers understand their responsibilities and their repayment options 
when a payment or loan come due on October 1, 2021.
    As borrowers begin to repay their loans after such a long pause, 
student loan servicing will be more important than ever. However, I am 
concerned that the Department has not announced how student loan 
servicing will be handled moving forward once legacy servicing 
contracts end later this year and early next year. This Subcommittee 
has worked closely with the Department over the past several years as 
it continues to reform and modernize the Federal student loan servicing 
system, and I hope that will continue.
    Mr. Secretary, while there are issues on which we disagree, we have 
many shared priorities that are reflected in the budget request. I know 
we both share a strong desire to fund programs that are proven and 
benefit all students, and I know we both support increased educational 
opportunities in every state, such as Title I and IDEA. It is my goal 
for us to work together on many of these and other important issues.
    In particular, the budget proposes a 10 percent increase, or $128 
million, in discretionary funding for career and technical education, 
teamed with $1 billion in mandatory funding for a new career pathways 
program. While this Subcommittee will only consider the discretionary 
request, I am interested in your ideas for how this and other efforts 
could improve educational opportunities for students beginning in high 
school, or earlier, to pursue the full-range of post-secondary college 
and career opportunities.
    Providing students meaningful work-based learning opportunities and 
exposure to different career paths early in high school, or even middle 
school, can help them identify interests that lead to well-paying jobs 
and careers. Too often individuals only find opportunities through 
apprenticeships or high-quality credential programs later in life, in 
their late twenties or thirties.
    I call this the Lost Decade and have provided the Department $10 
million each of the past two years to work toward addressing these 
issues. I think giving more students access to these opportunities 
earlier on is an area of interest for us both, and I hope it is 
something we can work on together.
    Mr. Secretary, I look forward to working with you this year to find 
the appropriate balance between fiscal responsibility and meaningful 
investments that support access to quality education for all students.
    Thank you again for being here today.

    Senator Murray. Thank you, Senator Blunt.
    Our witness is today, is Miguel Cardona, Secretary of the 
Department of Education. Secretary Cardona, thank you for 
joining us today. And I am so glad you could be here. I look 
forward to your testimony, and you may begin now.

                SUMMARY STATEMENT OF HON. MIGUEL CARDONA

    Secretary Cardona. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman 
Murray, Ranking Member Blunt, and distinguished members of the 
subcommittee.
    I recently attended an International Thespian Induction 
ceremony at a high school where students were being inducted 
for their commitment to theater after this long year. My 
daughter was one of those students. I can tell you, it was the 
first time we came together as a school community in over a 
year. So the room was filled with a lot of emotion.

          FULFILLING OUR ROLES TO IMPROVE THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

    One thing caught my eye, there was a banner hanging that 
had a quote from the renowned poet, Alexander Pope, and the 
banner read, ``Act well your part, there all the honour lies.'' 
In other words, do your part, and that is where you will find 
the honor.
    I come to you today representing the Department of 
Education, as we boldly do our part to serve the students 
across the country. That is our responsibility and our 
privilege. And that is where our collective honor lies.
    To that end, I am proud to testify today about President 
Biden's fiscal year 2022 budget request for the Department of 
Education, because it makes good on the President's campaign 
commitment to invest in education. It also begins to address 
the significant inequities that students, primarily students of 
color, confront every day in schools, in pursuit of higher 
education, and career technical education. I want to thank 
members of the subcommittee and your staff who have helped 
ensure the passage of the American Rescue Plan, bringing vital 
resources to our schools and colleges across the country. The 
American Rescue Plan funds will ensure that school buildings 
reopen for full-time in-person instruction safely and quickly.

                       EDUCATION AS AN EQUALIZER

    I come to you today with a great sense of urgency about the 
work we have to do. Generations of inequity have left far too 
many students without equitable access to high-quality, 
inclusive learning opportunities, including in our rural 
communities. Education can be the great equalizer like it was 
for me and for many of you, but we have to prioritize, 
replicate, and invest in what works for all students. Not just 
some.
    We must do more to level the playing field, including 
providing a strong foundation from birth, improving diversity 
among the teacher workforce, creating learning pathways that 
work for all students. To that end, the budget proposal calls 
on Congress to invest nearly $103 billion in the Department of 
Education's programs, a 41 percent increase over the fiscal 
year 2021 appropriation to support students' success.

                     OVERVIEW OF THE BUDGET REQUEST

    The fiscal year 2022 request also makes a meaningful down 
payment toward the Biden-Harris administration's goal of 
reversing inequities. That is what is at stake here, reversing 
inequities. The centerpiece is a proposal for a new $20 billion 
Title I equity grants program that would address inequities and 
disparities between under-resourced schools and their wealthier 
counterparts.
    It would support competitive compensation for teachers and 
Title I schools, expand access to pre-kindergarten, and 
increase preparation for, access to, and success in rigorous 
coursework. Our requests would put the Nation on a path to 
double the number of school counselors, nurses, and mental 
health professionals in our schools, and significantly expand 
support for community schools to help increase the availability 
of wraparound service services to students and families in 
underserved schools and communities.
    The pandemic reinforced the need for this. We also think it 
is past time for the Federal Government to make good on its 
commitment to students with disabilities, and their families, 
and the request makes a significant move toward full funding of 
IDEA, proposing a 20 percent increase for IDEA State grants of 
$2.6 billion.
    Turning to higher education, an area that needs immediate 
attention. Our budget proposal begins the Biden-Harris 
administration's critical work to increase access and 
affordability for students. The budget proposal coupled with 
increased proposals--proposed in the American Families Plan 
would be the largest increase to Pell Grant ever, helping 
millions of students and families pursue their goals. 
Importantly, our proposal would ensure that Dreamers may also 
receive Pell Grants if they meet current eligibility 
requirements.
    The fiscal year 2022 request paints a bold picture for the 
future of our institutional and student support programs. The 
budget increases institutional capacity and student supports at 
minority-serving institutions, with additional funding for 
HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), Hispanic-
Serving Institutions, Asian-American, and Native-American 
Pacific Islander-serving Institutions, and Tribally Controlled 
Colleges and Universities, as well as our beloved TRIO and GEAR 
UP programs to help ensure underserved students succeed and 
graduate from college.
    Finally, we would prioritize efforts to enforce civil 
rights laws related to education through a 10 percent increase 
for the Office for Civil Rights, to protect students and 
advance equity and educational opportunity, and delivery in 
preschool through college. This is a fundamental right we are 
committed to for all students.
    Working together with stakeholders, including students and 
educators, we can and will heal, learn, and grow together, 
during this challenging time. I am committed to working 
collaboratively with each of you to strengthen our schools, and 
campuses, and to help improve opportunities, pathways, and 
outcomes for students across the country, including students in 
our rural communities.
    Thank you. And I look forward to answering any questions 
you may have.
    [The statement follows:]
               Prepared Statement of Hon. Miguel Cardona
    Good morning Chairwoman Murray and Ranking Member Blunt.
    I am pleased to join you today, and I am proud to testify on behalf 
of President Biden's fiscal year 2022 Budget Request for the Department 
of Education. The full fiscal year 2022 Budget Request, which was 
released a little over two weeks ago, makes good on President
    Biden's campaign commitment to reverse years of underinvestment in 
Federal education programs and would begin to address the significant 
inequities that millions of students--primarily students of color--and 
teachers confront every day in underserved schools across America. 
These inequities in opportunity and access continue to be experienced 
by students pursuing higher education and career and technical 
education credentials as well.
                        american rescue plan act
    Before I begin, I want to thank the Members of the Subcommittee--
and your staff--who helped carry the American Rescue Plan Act to the 
finish line. I can tell you from immediate experience that the ARP 
funds will make all the difference in ensuring that schools re-open for 
full-time, in-person instruction as safely and soon as possible. In 
addition, ARP funds will enable schools to address the mental health, 
social, and emotional needs of students that the pandemic has laid 
bare, and to fully recover from the massive impact of lost 
instructional time on student achievement during the pandemic.
    The plans to reopen are bold--and will require coordination among 
key stakeholders at the Federal, State, and local levels. But they 
match the urgency the challenges before us demand. It's important to 
remember that once we fully reopen schools, we still have work to do. 
Our job will not be done. Generations of inequity have left far too 
many students without equitable access to high-quality, inclusive 
learning opportunities. Education can be the great equalizer--it was 
for me--if we prioritize, replicate, and invest in what works for all 
students, not just some.
    We must do more to level the playing field, including providing a 
strong foundation from birth, improving diversity among the teacher 
workforce, and creating learning pathways that work for all students. 
To that end, the fiscal year 2022 budget proposal for the Department of 
Education provides strong investments in key areas to ensure students 
of all ages have what they need to succeed.
                 department of education funding levels
    The President's fiscal year 2022 request calls for a significant 
and long-overdue increase in Federal support for education from birth 
through college and career. The proposed discretionary request of $103 
billion for Department of Education programs, an increase of almost $30 
billion over the fiscal year 2021 enacted level, would be complemented 
by additional mandatory investments under the American Jobs Plan and 
the American Families Plan. We understand that some have raised 
questions about the unprecedented increase in Federal education funding 
proposed by President Biden, particularly coming on top of emergency 
appropriations over the past year to address the impact of the COVID-19 
pandemic on our schools. However, it's important to recognize that 
these bold proposals follow a decade of virtually no funding growth in 
real terms for Department programs, a significant under-investment in 
light of the rising needs of students and families.
    The $73.5 billion that Congress appropriated for the Department for 
the current fiscal year, fiscal year 2021, is about 8 percent more than 
the fiscal year 2011 total of $68.3 billion. Title I funding did a 
little better, up 10 percent, or 1 percent a year, over the same period 
of time. The total Federal investment in elementary and secondary 
education grew at the same rate--just 1 percent annually over the past 
10 years--not even keeping up with inflation.
        funding inequities in state and local education systems
    This underinvestment in K-12 education matters because of the 
dramatic and longstanding inequities in State and local education 
funding systems, which despite more than half a century of litigation 
and reform, too often continue to provide significantly less funding 
for high-poverty districts and schools, which are more likely to serve 
students of color, resulting in a disproportionate impact on these 
students. Reversing these funding inequities, as well as immediately 
addressing the negative impact of those inequities in service of 
students, are critical goals of the Biden-Harris Administration's 
racial equity agenda, and the President's fiscal year 2022 request for 
the Department of Education would make a meaningful down payment toward 
these goals. Addressing these inequities are critical to our nation's 
future. Our country and our economy will be stronger when every child 
is prepared to succeed in tomorrow's economy, regardless of race, zip 
code, their family's income, or disability.
       investment in title i grants to local educational agencies
    The centerpiece of that request is $20 billion for a new Title I 
Equity Grants program--part of the President's commitment to 
dramatically increase funding for Title I schools--that would help 
address long-standing funding disparities between under-resourced 
school districts and their wealthier counterparts; ensure teachers in 
Title I schools are paid competitively; support expanded access to 
preschool; and increase preparation for, access to, and success in the 
rigorous coursework needed to prepare for postsecondary education and 
high-paying, in-demand careers. This proposal will further the goals of 
Title I as outlined by President Johnson in partnership with Congress 
back in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, to help ensure that all 
students--especially students from low-income backgrounds and students 
of color in underserved communities--receive the high-quality education 
they need to thrive and achieve their dreams.
      investment in improving students' physical and mental health
    Long before the COVID-19 pandemic there was increasing evidence 
that the conditions of poverty--especially concentrated poverty--take a 
tragic toll on the physical and mental health of students. This 
warrants significant investments in mitigating the impact of this toll 
in order to improve student outcomes. Congress recognized this problem, 
in part, through the creation and rapid increase in funding for the 
Title IV-A Student Support and Academic Enrichment program. Our request 
would build on these efforts through a $1 billion investment for a new 
School-Based Health Professionals program to support the mental health 
needs of our students by increasing the number of counselors, nurses, 
and mental health professionals in our schools, and building the 
pipeline for these critical staff, with an emphasis on underserved 
schools.
                        community-based programs
    In addition, the President's request would help increase the 
availability of a broad range of wrap-around services to students and 
families in underserved schools and communities through a significant 
expansion of the Full-Service Community Schools program, from $30 
million in fiscal year 2021 to $443 million in fiscal year 2022. This 
program recognizes the role of schools as the centers of our 
communities and neighborhoods, and funds efforts to identify and 
integrate the wide range of community-based resources needed to support 
students and their families, expand learning opportunities for students 
and parents alike, support collaborative leadership and practices, and 
promote the family and community engagement that can help ensure 
student success. The request would support implementation of the 
community schools model at roughly 800 additional schools serving up to 
2.4 million students, family members, and community members.
    Our request also would help strengthen communities by fostering 
diverse schools through renewed efforts to improve school racial and 
socioeconomic diversity. We would provide $100 million for a new 
Fostering Diverse Schools program that would help communities develop 
and implement strategies that will build more racially and 
socioeconomically diverse schools. Research suggests that diverse 
learning environments benefit all students and can improve student 
achievement, serve as engines of social and economic mobility, and 
promote school improvement. Our proposal also would build evidence 
around effective practices for addressing the growing concern that our 
Nation's schools are becoming less diverse and more segregated each 
year.
                     support for special education
    We also think it is past time for the Federal Government to make 
good on its commitment to students with disabilities and their 
families, as expressed in the Individuals with Disabilities Education 
Act. The President's request makes a significant move toward full 
funding of the IDEA with a $2.6 billion, or 20 percent, increase for 
IDEA Part B Grants to States above the regular fiscal year 2021 
appropriation, for a total of $15.5 billion. Notably, this increase 
would raise the Federal share of the excess cost of serving students 
with disabilities for the first time in 8 years-demonstrating that IDEA 
has been yet another casualty of the Federal underinvestment in 
education over the past 10 years.
    In addition, we would increase funding for the IDEA Part C Grants 
for the Infants and Families program by more than 50 percent, or $250 
million above the regular fiscal year 2021 appropriation level, for a 
total of $732 million to expand access to early intervention services 
for infants and toddlers with disabilities. We would pair this 
increased funding with reforms to strengthen the Part C program, 
particularly for children who have been historically underrepresented 
in the program, including children of color.
    The President's Request would also boost the Preschool Grants 
program by $105 million over the 2021 appropriation, to aid in the 
provision of special education and related services for children with 
disabilities aged 3 through 5.
                      teacher training and support
    The Title I Equity Grants proposal is just one demonstration of 
President Biden's strong commitment to teachers. Other key investments, 
split between discretionary and mandatory American Families Plan 
funding, include $412 million ($132 million in discretionary funding 
and an additional $280 in mandatory authority for fiscal year 2022) for 
Teacher Quality Partnerships to address teaching shortages, improve 
training and supports for teachers, and boost teacher diversity, 
particularly through investment in teacher residencies and Grow Your 
Own programs; $340 million ($250 million in discretionary funding and 
an additional $90 million in mandatory authority for fiscal year 2022) 
for Special Education Personnel Preparation to ensure that there are 
adequate numbers of personnel with the skills and knowledge necessary 
to help children with disabilities succeed educationally; and $60 
million ($20 million in discretionary funding and an additional $40 in 
mandatory authority for fiscal year 2022) to fund for the first time 
the Hawkins Centers of Excellence program designed to increase the 
quality and number of new teachers of color. In addition, the American 
Families Plan would make a one-time mandatory investment of $1.6 
billion to support additional certifications at no cost for more than 
100,000 educators in high-demand areas like special education, 
bilingual education, career and technical education, and science, 
technology, engineering, and mathematics. We are also requesting, 
through the American Families Plan, $200 million in mandatory authority 
for a new Expanding Opportunities for Teacher Leadership and 
Development program to support opportunities for experienced and 
effective teachers to lead and have a greater impact on their school 
community while remaining in the classroom (and be compensated for 
additional responsibilities) through such activities as high-quality 
teacher mentorship programs and job-embedded coaching. Lastly, the 
American Families Plan would double TEACH Grants from $4,000 to $8,000 
for future teachers while earning their degrees.
                       improving career pathways
    The President's Request also recognizes that a skilled workforce is 
critical for both strong communities and a strong economy by proposing 
to make targeted investments that would help build the capacity of our 
workforce development system. These investments include an increase of 
$108 million in Career and Technical Education National Programs to 
support an innovation grants initiative focused on youth work-based 
learning and industry credential attainment, along with a $25 million 
increase under Adult Education National Leadership Activities to expand 
college bridge programs for low-skilled adults without a high school 
degree. In addition, the American Jobs Plan would provide $1 billion in 
mandatory funding in fiscal year 2022 ($10 billion total over 10 years) 
to expand career pathways for underserved middle and high school 
students that include partnerships with employers, community colleges 
and other partners and allow students to earn credentials or college 
credit while still in high school; and also would invest $100 million 
annually over the next 10 years to help connect job-seeking adults to 
employment opportunities by focusing on foundational skills and 
embedded career services.
                  postsecondary education investments
    Turning to higher education, our budget proposal would make 
postsecondary education more affordable for students from low-income 
households through a $400 increase to the maximum Pell Grant. In 
combination with the $1,475 increase to the maximum Pell Grant proposed 
in the American Families Plan, the increase in 2022 would be the 
largest increase to the Pell Grant ever. This historic increase is just 
a first step in a more comprehensive proposal to double the grant. 
Importantly, our proposal also would ensure that postsecondary students 
who are DACA recipients may receive Pell Grants and other federal aid 
if they meet current eligibility requirements.
    Through the American Families Plan, our budget proposal would 
provide two years of free community college to first-time students and 
those wishing to reskill. It would also make college more affordable 
for low- and middle-income students at four-year Historically Black 
Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities 
(TCUs), and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) such as Hispanic-
Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Asian American and Native American 
Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).
    The fiscal year 2022 request also would increase institutional 
capacity and student supports at HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs, and other 
under-resourced institutions, such as community colleges. The 
discretionary request includes more than $600 million in additional 
funding for institutional supports programs and programs like TRIO and 
GEAR UP, to help ensure underserved students succeed in and graduate 
from college. The American Families Plan also provides historic 
mandatory investments over ten years in college access and success, 
including $46 billion for HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs, and $62 billion for a 
new Completion Grants program that would make formula grants to States 
to support the use of evidence-based strategies to strengthen 
completion and retention rates at institutions that serve students from 
our most disadvantaged communities like community colleges.
                         school infrastructure
    Too many students attend schools and child care centers that are 
run-down, unsafe, and pose health risks. These conditions are dangerous 
for our kids and exist disproportionately in schools with a high 
percentage of low-income students and students of color. We can't close 
the opportunity gap if low-income kids go to schools in buildings that 
undermine health and safety, while wealthier students get access to 
safe buildings with labs and technology that prepare them for the jobs 
of the future. Accordingly, the American Jobs Plan would provide $10 
billion in mandatory funding in 2022, and $50 billion over five years, 
for grants to upgrade existing school facilities and build new public 
elementary and secondary schools. Outside of the Department of 
Education, funding would leverage an additional $50 billion in 
investments in school infrastructure through bonds. The American Jobs 
Plan would also provide $2.4 billion in mandatory funding in 2022, and 
$12 billion over five years, for grants to invest in community college 
facilities and technology in order to help protect the health and 
safety of students and faculty, address education deserts (particularly 
for rural communities), grow local economies, improve energy efficiency 
and resilience, and narrow funding inequities.
                       student aid administration
    In addition to making college more affordable, our budget proposal 
will improve the services we provide students and families to help them 
pay for college. We are requesting $2.1 billion to administer the 
Federal student aid programs in fiscal year 2022, an increase of $200 
million over the fiscal year 2021 appropriation. The requested funds 
are necessary to implement the FAFSA(r) Simplification Act and FUTURE 
Act, which together will greatly ease the process of applying for 
student aid and accessing affordable, income-driven repayment options; 
provide high-quality loan servicing to more than 40 million student 
loan borrowers; and protect the personally identifiable information of 
around 75 million students and parents.
                    enforcement of civil rights laws
    Finally, we would prioritize efforts to enforce the Nation's civil 
rights laws, as they relate to education, through a 10 percent increase 
for the Office for Civil Rights to protect students, providing a total 
of $144 million to advance equity in educational opportunity and 
delivery at Pre-K through 12 schools and at institutions of higher 
education.
                            closing remarks
    Thank you again for this opportunity to share more about the 
President's plan to invest in students of all ages and the institutions 
that serve them. I look forward to hearing your reactions to this 
historic budget request, and to learning more about your individual 
interests and priorities related to Department of Education programs 
and activities. I am committed to working collaboratively with each of 
you, to the greatest extent possible, to help improve educational 
opportunities and outcomes for all students.
    Thank you, and I will do my best to respond to any questions you 
may have.

                          RESOURCE ALLOCATION

    Senator Murray. Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. We will 
now begin around a 5-minute questions of our witness, and I ask 
our colleagues to, please, keep track of your clock. Stay 
within those 5 minutes.
    Mr. Secretary, the President's budget calls for major 
investments in our Nation's public schools, acknowledging the 
significant resource disparities between schools serving more 
students from families with low incomes and their wealthier 
peers. These resource discrepancies contribute to the 
achievement gap between students of color who represent more 
than half of our students served in Title I schools and white 
students. One of the key provisions we included in the 
Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 
is a requirement to review the resource inequities in schools 
which have been identified for support and improvement.
    And we also included a requirement for per pupil 
expenditure reporting for all States and school districts in 
the Nation, a requirement that still has not been fully 
implemented years after we passed the law. I believe that 
combination of additional Federal education investments, 
accurate and timely reporting, and thoughtful review of how all 
education funds are being allocated and used in schools needing 
additional support would improve the quality of education 
services for all of our students and families.
    I know the pandemic has likely impacted the implementation 
of these resource allocation reviews, but can you share your 
plans for supporting and monitoring State and local agencies 
conducting these reviews, as well as your plans for ensuring 
States and school districts do comply with the SEA's (State 
Educational Agencies) fiscal equity reporting requirements?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator Murray. And you start 
with an issue that is critically important that we must address 
together. The opportunity gaps and achievement disparities and 
outcomes are significant, so much so that I have been an 
educator for over 20 years, it has almost become normalized. 
And we have an opportunity here to address it, with the budget 
proposal, and the American Families Plan, there is a 
transformational opportunity for our country, to not only 
recover from the pandemic, but to be better than we ever were 
before in education.
    And I look forward to ensuring that every penny that is 
allocated is used to support our students in a way that is 
equitable. You know, we talk a lot about education being the 
great equalizer, well, this budget proposes strategies to get 
there. And it is important for me to make sure that while the 
resources are there, we have equal amounts of accountability to 
make sure that the funds are being used for what they were 
intended.
    So, absolutely, to me, the work that we do at the agency to 
ensure that the funds are being used for what they were 
intended for is critically as important as providing resources. 
We can't get to equalizing the playing field if the resources 
are not being used where they are supposed to.
    So I, and the team at the Department of Education, will be 
very vigilant, especially with this new American Rescue Plan, 
and the funding that has been provided over the last year. We 
are going to be vigilant to make sure that the funds are being 
used for what they are intended to be used for. And I will add 
that as we rolled out the American Rescue Plan, we required 
States to provide transparent reports on how they were going to 
use the money, and engage stakeholders, so they are a part of 
the process early and ensure that equity is at the heart of the 
plan.
    I envision this being something that is going to help lift 
our students. And I look forward to working with you and others 
to make sure it happens.

                INVESTMENTS TO SUPPORT HIGHER EDUCATION

    Senator Murray. Okay. Thank you. And on higher Ed, the 
pandemic really exacerbated, as we know, the financial 
challenges a lot of our students face pursuing a post-secondary 
education. Congress, as you know, responded by providing 
significant relief to students and borrowers, including 
flexible funding to address students' basic needs during this 
pandemic. But as our country begins to recover from this 
pandemic, many of the financial strains that are facing 
students who are low-income, students of color, student 
parents, and first-generation students are really out there for 
them.
    This is not just the cost of tuition and fees I am talking 
about, but housing, food, childcare, unexpected bills that can 
quickly derail a student's plans. And as we turn this corner on 
COVID, we should redouble our efforts to help all students 
pursuing a post-secondary education. And this budget I think is 
a positive step in that direction. But can you speak for a 
moment about the increases for Pell Grants, and childcare, for 
students, parents, TRIO, why those investments are so critical 
right now?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. We recognize now 
that if we don't act with urgency, we are going to lose many of 
our students who are thinking about higher education as an 
opportunity to continue their growth. The increase in Pell 
Grants, which is significant under the American Families Plan, 
$1,400, and $400 increase here in this budget show the 
commitment that the President has toward ensuring equitable 
access to higher education for our students.
    And we recognize that that, with other supports, are going 
to allow for our students to continue to engage in college, 
free community college for students, talk about giving an 
opportunity to students who might not even think of higher 
education, because it is too far off, or the fear of being in 
debt for the rest of their lives. With that said, the pause on 
loan repayment has provided--saved over $5 billion a month for 
over 41 million borrowers. So we know how critically important 
that is. It has covered 1.1 million borrowers in the process, 
but programs like the Pell increase provide access to college 
for many more students. And we were confident with support of 
programs like that, and programs like TRIO, more and more 
students will look at higher education as an option for 
themselves.
    Senator Murray. Okay. Thank you very much.
    Senator Blunt.
    Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chairman.

                         FREE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

    Secretary, let's talk a little about the first 2 years of 
college education being free, or at least if you choose to go 
to a community college. I am much more inclined to be receptive 
to your arguments about increasing the Pell Grant, increasing 
even the level of maybe whether you qualify for that maximum 
Pell sooner. What are you thinking about in terms of 2 years of 
free community college education?
    I am a big supporter of the community college system, every 
community college in my State, I believe, understands that, but 
I don't quite understand, one, why we want to make community 
college free for everybody regardless of need. And then my 
second question is going to be: Why just community colleges? 
But how do you expect this plan to work? And would all students 
who choose the community college have no cost of going to that 
college?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. I recognize that 
there are many States that are doing amazing work providing 
access to higher education institutions. I was in Michigan 
recently, and I saw amazing efforts there to make college 
affordable and accessible to students in Michigan. But this 
plan would allow 5.5 million students to have access to higher 
education who might not have had it previously.
    And we know that not only is it a benefit for these 
students, but it is a benefit for their families, their 
community, and there is an economic benefit. Graduates of 2-
year colleges, on average, earn 21 percent more than students 
with a high school diploma. We know that the skills that are 
needed in the workforce today are skills that would require 
some level of training.
    So with good coordination, our free community colleges 
connecting with our high schools, connecting with the workforce 
and 4-year colleges, which stand to gain because there is going 
to be a wider net of students seeking higher education. We do 
feel that this is a step forward for the country.
    Senator Blunt. Good. I don't disagree with any of those 
thoughts, except your point that there would be, I think you 
said 5 million students that would not have access to community 
college, otherwise. What about all the students that could go 
to community college, otherwise, that we are--are we now paying 
that tuition as well?
    Secretary Cardona. Many of those students are benefiting 
from supports now. What we are doing is leveling.
    Senator Blunt. No, no. That is not what I am asking. What I 
am asking is if any student at any income level wants to go to 
community college, can they go for free under this program?
    Secretary Cardona. Yes, it would be accessible to all who 
want to study in a community college.

     EXPANDING FREE COLLEGE PROPOSAL TO ALL ACCREDITED INSTITUTIONS

    Senator Blunt. So why would--so let's go to a second 
question. Why would you focus that first 2 years on a community 
college when students might want--that even qualify for, for 
instance, the Pell Grant now, they can take that Pell Grant 
money and go to any college, any accredited institution, public 
or private, they want to, and many of those institutions now 
with fully qualified Pell students, figure out how there is no 
other costs beyond Pell. Why would you not allow them to 
continue to have that same ability to go free to those schools 
as well, if they are students in real economic need?
    Secretary Cardona. Under this proposal, students will still 
have the choice to attend the college that they would like, 
benefiting from Pell Group programs if they are eligible. So it 
does not limit options. If anything it provides more options, 
and provides more opportunity for students who might not have 
considered higher education an option for them due to the 
costs.
    Senator Blunt. What about, generally, to continue this 
discussion, we should have free first 2 years of college, or 
free college for everybody, but that almost always talks about 
a college in a public school setting, as opposed to an 
accredited school setting. I think one of the real strengths of 
the American higher education system since World War II has 
been virtually all of our programs, whether they were the GI 
benefit, or Pell Grants, or any other Federal Government 
program, you had the ability to use that at any accredited, 
post-secondary institution.
    What is your view on that? As we continue to discuss how 
access to various levels of grants and fundings public--versus 
both public and private competing with each other after high 
school?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. You know, I look 
forward to continuing conversations with you and others to find 
the right pathway. What we want to do is provide access to 
higher education for students across the country; we know that 
access to higher education affords students the opportunities 
to better options in life, higher earning potential. And that 
is good, not only for the student, but for the community and 
the economy, as I said earlier. So I am a big proponent of 
providing options for students who want to pursue different 
careers, or different educational institution based on their 
choice. And I would be in support of exploring options to make 
sure that that is accessible under this plan.
    Senator Blunt. Well, the current system, as you know, 
creates lots of options to accredited institutions. I hope that 
continues to be the case, and certainly something you and I 
will continue to talk about. Thank you, Secretary.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
    Senator Blunt. Thank you, Chair.
    Senator Murray. Senator Shaheen.
    Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

                ACCESS TO AND USE OF COVID RELIEF FUNDS

    Mr. Secretary, we are delighted to have you here today. I 
want to start with a challenge that we are having in New 
Hampshire. As you know, Congress has provided nearly $200 
billion for emergency relief for elementary and secondary 
schools as a result of the COVID pandemic. This funding was 
intended to assist schools during this emergency, and Congress 
was very clear when we passed that legislation, that the intent 
of these funds is to be--allow them to be at the school's 
discretion to meet a wide variety of local needs, including for 
construction projects, such as HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and 
Air Conditioning) repairs and improvements.
    I am very concerned about the delays that many New 
Hampshire schools have experienced when trying to access this 
relief funding. And I have been troubled by the Department's 
delay in issuing clear implementation guidance that regards 
regulatory requirements on States and school districts. Now I 
appreciate the guidance that was just provided to--by the 
Department to New Hampshire yesterday.
    I hope it resolves some of this uncertainty, but there are 
still questions that schools have, and in order for them to 
benefit from this money, we have a limited time for 
construction during the summer, and so it would be really 
important to have the Department be very clear on the use of 
these funds. So can you talk a little bit about how the 
Department is working to allow expeditious access to the funds 
that have been approved and appropriated by Congress?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. You are absolutely 
right. The importance of being expedient in the use of funds to 
get them into the schools, to provide the resources that are 
needed, to get the students what they need to be in the 
classroom quickly and as safely as possible. And with the 
distribution of funds, we recognize that different parts of the 
country have different needs. I was in Philadelphia recently, 
and I learned how the ventilation issues in those schools 
prevented students from coming in at the same rate as 
communities that had schools that were a bit newer and had 
better ventilation. So in that particular area, the issue was 
ventilation.
    So what we want to do is balance flexibility around how the 
funds are used with ensuring that the funds are being used to 
safely reopen schools, and address inequities that were 
exacerbated during the pandemic. And by the strategies that we 
are taking is becoming accessible, and making sure we are 
working with States on their individual needs, and their 
individual challenges. We worked closely with various States, 
meeting with them and having conversations with not only their 
educators, but their elected officials, to ensure that 
maintenance of effort is being kept, and that the funds are 
being moved quickly to help the schools, and getting out to the 
LEAs (Local Education Agency) as soon as possible, and we will 
continue to do that.
    Senator Shaheen. Well, I appreciate that, but that hasn't 
happened as expeditiously in New Hampshire, as the school 
districts really need it to happen. The ventilation systems, 
the HVAC systems are clearly an issue in many of our schools, 
and again, when Congress passed these funds, we tried to make 
it very clear that we wanted them to be as flexible as possible 
for use by the schools. So as you point out, the more the 
Department can be accommodating, and working with States on 
their needs as quickly as possible, the better.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Shaheen. So do I have your commitment that the 
Department will continue to work with the State of New 
Hampshire?
    Secretary Cardona. We will be on the phone with New 
Hampshire today, Senator.

                         STUDENT LOAN REPAYMENT

    Senator Shaheen. Thank you. All right. I am going to hold 
you to that. You and Senator Murray talked a little bit about 
the student loan program, and the effort to help address the 
challenge that many students are facing. This moratorium is 
scheduled to end September 30. I just wonder if the Department 
considers the final date of the moratorium, are you looking at 
a further extension? One of the challenges we have heard from 
people is needing certainty, as they are thinking about going 
back to school, and both loan agencies and students themselves.
    Secretary Cardona. Yes. You know, we are aiming to provide 
as much of an on-ramp for these borrowers as possible. And the 
date in September payments are--we are starting in October is 
something that we have, but we are continuing conversations 
about if that is the best time. No announcements today, but we 
continue to have those conversations. We recognize that for 
many families the recovery of this pandemic will come around 
the same time. Students are going to be returning to schools, 
mortgages have to start getting paid, and loans have to start 
getting paid. So we want to make sure we are sensitive to the 
needs of the borrowers and aware of the other challenges that 
they have.
    We are going to continue to do as much as we can with our 
authorities. Just today we are announcing $500 million in new 
discharges for, over 18,000 borrowers who attended ITT 
technical college just to make--technical institutes, excuse 
me, just to make sure that every authority that we have 
currently, we are taking advantage of it to support our 
borrowers who are in need. And we do want to provide timely 
information, as Senator Blunt also mentioned, and make sure we 
have as long an on ramp for these borrowers to start repayment.
    Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I 
know that it is a huge concern for borrowers, but the sooner 
decisions can be made, I think the better people can plan.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
    Senator Shaheen. So thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Senator Murray. Thank you.
    Senator Moran.
    Senator Moran. Thank you, Chairwoman.

                   INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES ACT

    Mr. Secretary, thank you for your presence today. Let me 
just highlight a couple of things that I am pleased with, and 
that would be IDEA. The increased funding support for that is 
valuable, commitments were made a long time ago, and those 
commitments have not been kept for a long time. And a 
significant component of our success in education will be our 
ability to educate those who need the IDEA aspect of our public 
education system.

                               IMPACT AID

    And I look forward to working with you to see that we 
continue to provide additional support for those students. I 
also want to highlight the importance of Impact Aid; Kansas 
with Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, they are hugely important 
to assist our school districts that have a large presence of 
public lands. And I look forward to working with you to see we 
support Impact Aid and its ability to level the playing field 
in the finance of education in my State.

                                  TRIO

    Let me ask a question about TRIO. The Biden Administration 
proposed investing $62 billion in new college retention and 
completion services. This, to me, seems unnecessary spending on 
a duplicative program when we have TRIO programs. And I noticed 
in your comments you bragged about the significance and value 
of TRIO, but what is the circumstance that suggests that this 
is not duplicative or that the resources that you are putting 
into new programs could not be utilized in the TRIO programs to 
achieve the same outcome?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. And I do agree that 
the investment in special education is so needed. I have spoken 
to families of children with disabilities, in particular, 
families with children with autism, who have said, ``you know, 
the laptop alone is not going to cut it.'' So I am hopeful that 
our students with disabilities are going to get the support 
that they need, and that we are on a path to fully funding it.
    With regard to the TRIO programs, you know, one thing we 
have heard is, students who are in our community colleges or in 
our 4-year colleges, due to the pandemic have had to leave. And 
there is a lot of concern whether or not they are going to be 
able to come back. And we also know that this translates into 
high school students who were maybe once thinking about going 
to college, not having that opportunity, or having to work now 
to supplement the income of the home, and have other factors 
that are pulling them in a different direction.
    So the $200 million increase in the TRIO programs, to me, 
addresses what we know to be the case. What we are hearing from 
educators, what we are hearing from families, what we are 
hearing from students is that going to college for some 
students who might have been considering it, it seems a little 
bit further removed. And we want to make sure we are addressing 
that, so that we do continue to have students in colleges 
across the country.
    Senator Moran. Well, my concern is not that you are 
increasing the TRIO program by $200 million; it is if TRIO is a 
valuable program, which I believe it is, why would we create 
new programs with new funding, the $62 billion, without further 
utilizing the TRIO programs that already exist? We have a habit 
I think in Congress, and I can't imagine that is--an 
administration that is immune. We in politics and public policy 
have a habit, when we try to highlight the value or the 
importance we place on something, we create a new program.
    And my suggestion is, my request is an understanding of why 
current programs, such as TRIO, would not be the vehicle by 
which you deliver new assistance. There are lots of schools in 
Kansas and across the country that would love to have a TRIO 
program, would love to expand the number of TRIO programs they 
have. Those are restrained in many instances because of lack of 
funding, and yet we are putting significant new dollars into a 
new program, which I would suggest has a pretty similar 
objective as TRIO.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. Well, we want to 
make sure we have opportunities for all students. And I agree 
with you, the TRIO program is successful when it is able to get 
students into college. And I hear your question. You are 
saying, why are we duplicating services if TRIO does similar? I 
look forward to working with you to discuss this further. And 
we would be happy to have conversations about where you feel we 
should be looking at things, and combining them instead of 
setting a new programs.
    Senator Moran. I look forward to working with you. And I 
was particularly interested in your response to Senator Blunt's 
question, which I--the answer at least to me, was incomplete. 
And I would be welcoming to see why, that the ideas that 
Senator Blunt suggested are ones that don't, in your view, have 
merit. Thank you.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
    Senator Murray. Senator Durbin.
    Senator Durbin. Thanks Madam Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, thanks for being here.
    Secretary Cardona. Glad to be here.

                          FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES

    Senator Durbin. This is not a trick question, but do you 
have any idea what percent of post-secondary students in 
America enroll in for-profit colleges and universities?
    Secretary Cardona. Off the top of my head, sir, I don't, 
but I can get you that information.
    Senator Durbin. I will tell you what it is. I will give you 
the answer, and it is not to trick you. It is 8, 8 percent 
post-secondary students in America enroll in for-profit 
colleges and universities.
    Next question, what percent of student loan defaults in 
America are accounted for by for-profit college students?
    Secretary Cardona. I have a feeling you are going to share 
that answer with me, sir. So, I will, turn it back to you.
    Senator Durbin. As I said, I am not trying to trick you, 
30.
    Secretary Cardona. Thirty.
    Senator Durbin. Eight percent of the students, 30 percent 
of the student loan defaults. What does it tell us? It tells us 
they are enrolling students who cannot finish, won't finish. It 
tells us also they are charging money that students cannot 
repay even if they are employed, 8 percent, 30 percent. As 
often as I meet you here each year, I am going to ask you the 
same question, because the numbers don't change.
    But here is what is interesting, in the COVID-19 situation, 
colleges and universities across America are generally 
struggling for enrollment, except for the for-profit schools. 
They have seen a 3 percent increase in students. How can that 
be? Are they that good? They market and advertise constantly. 
You don't have to turn on television, or look into the news 
except to see the latest ad for them. Now, the reason I raise 
that is because I think that raises a serious policy question 
about a branch of higher education that is failing so many 
students and yet receives such a handsome Federal subsidy.
    Now you have many roles, a Secretary of Education, 
educator, principal, president of the university, all these 
things, all of the above, and you certainly have the background 
for it, but there is one aspect of your responsibility then I 
want to delve into that is not often brought up. You are the 
Nation's--one of the Nation's biggest bill collectors. You are 
a credit agency, you are a banker. And I want to tell you the 
record that was written by your predecessor in this field is 
not one that I think we want to see continue. For example, if I 
might. Public service loan forgiveness. Are you familiar with 
it?
    Secretary Cardona. Sure.

                             STUDENT LOANS

    Senator Durbin. Do you know what the DeVos administration 
did with public service loan forgiveness? I will tell you. 99 
percent of those who applied were denied, that is just 
outrageous. And then Congress tried to extend the program with 
a new version. That was ignored as well. So Secretary DeVos was 
channeling Henry Potter and not George Bailey many, many times. 
When it came to borrower defense of 108,000 students who 
applied, and said that they were the victims of fraud by for-
profit colleges and universities, the DeVos Education 
Department, as they were leaving town, denied 80,000 of them 
after waiting month after month, and year after year. The lives 
of these borrowers have been compromised.
    Now, I don't know how familiar you are with ECMC 
(Educational Credit Management Corporation). Has your staff 
given you a briefing on your collection agency?
    Secretary Cardona. Yes. I have heard it.
    Senator Durbin. They have?
    Secretary Cardona. Yes.
    Senator Durbin. Well, I will tell you, the last point I 
want to make before I turn it over for your response is this. 
They are outrageous. The policies that they use to collect on 
student loans, I don't think any of us want to try to defend in 
public. If someone goes into bankruptcy court and tries with 
the one narrow exception to the bankruptcy code for student 
loans, undue hardship, they don't have a chance. ECMC is going 
to beat them back, whether or not you are dealing with 
veterans, who are so disabled that they can't pay back their 
loans, people subsisting on Social Security Disability, people 
with terminal illness, they are all beaten back and denied by 
your collection agency. So, open question: What would you like 
to do about it?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator Durbin, for bringing 
out the facts, on something, that I will be very frank with you 
is the top priority at the agency. We have done a disservice 
and it is time to act. It is time to have our students at the 
center of the conversations there. It is a high priority for me 
to make sure that we correct that, it is unacceptable to have a 
98-99 percent refusal with public service loan forgiveness.
    I had a conversation with students who had to go through 
that process and were given the run around. I was frustrated 
after that call. They had to hold on and go through different 
hoops to try to get an answer. And then the answers were not 
accurate, and they had to go somewhere else. So, there is a lot 
of work that has to be done.
    I recently hired Richard Cordray. He was recently appointed 
by the President. And we need to have a consumer protection 
mentality, we need to put the students at the center of the 
conversation, and we need to make sure that what we are doing 
at the agency, is a model for what we expect. And we have to 
put our loan providers on notice that we are going to put the 
students first.
    We have not been sitting around waiting either though, we 
have provided a $1.5 billion in relief through borrower 
defense, by delivering a billion in full relief to 72,000 
borrowers, and approving 500 million in discharges, as I 
mentioned with ITT. So, we are taking every opportunity now to 
change the culture there. And the message is very clear to 
Richard. Fix this. Fix this, and move quickly, and be 
transparent, and change the culture that people perceive.
    As you pointed out, we have a culture to change and we have 
better--we have to implement strategies better. Our students 
cannot wait, and we are contributing to the problem, you will 
see a turnaround in that. That is a priority for me.
    Senator Durbin. Thank you. Channel George Bailey. Thank you 
very much.
    Senator Murray. Thank you.
    I will turn to myself, and then Senator Blunt for a second 
round. I would just notify all committee--members and staff to 
please tell your members to be here, because if there is no one 
else to present at after that time we will wrap up this 
hearing. I know Mr. Secretary, you are sad to hear that.
    Secretary Cardona. I know.

                    RATIONALE FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDING

    Senator Murray. Mr. Secretary, the President's budget calls 
for major new investments in our Nation's public, elementary, 
and secondary schools, totaling $66 billion. That is an 
increase of $25 billion more than last year's, LHHS (Labor, 
Health and Human Services) bill, now Republican and Democrats 
were able to work together on COVID relief in our regular 
appropriations bills last year. The $125 billion in K-12 
education investments included in the American Rescue Plan Act 
passed earlier this year did not have bipartisan support. And 
some of our Republican colleagues expressed concern that those 
funds would not be spent quickly or were unnecessary.
    Tell us why you think the additional K-12 investments 
proposed in the President's budget are needed on top of the 
significant COVID supplemental appropriations that are already 
enacted into law?
    Secretary Cardona. The technical support that the 
allocations provide are critical, and I will get into that, but 
let me first talk about how important it is that the President 
signal a transformational change in how we view education as 
the foundation of our country's growth.
    As the First Lady said, any country that out-educates us 
outperforms us. So, this administration understands the 
important investment in education. And I don't have to remind 
you, because you mentioned it in your opening comments, years 
of underinvestment in education. I have seen that. I was a 
principal when we were asked to do more with less. I had class 
sizes that were very high, with teachers who were doing their 
very best to meet the needs of students, and those needs kept 
increasing, but the funds kept decreasing.
    There is a realization here, that if we don't get this 
right, so much else is going to suffer. So, when we talk about 
what this investment can turn into, it can turn into smaller 
class sizes. It can turn into better teacher preparation. 
Students are coming back from a trauma-filled year. I spoke to 
a student at Harvey Milk School 2 days ago, in New York, who 
told me his grandmother and his significant other died in the 
last year.
    This student is going back to school. If we are not 
investing in additional trauma support, training to make sure 
everyone, including our school bus drivers, our cafeteria aides 
who have been heroes this past year, have the support and 
training to help meet the needs of these students when they 
come in, then we don't stand a chance. If we are not providing 
funds to give students access to digital devices and broadband 
so that they can have access to learning wherever they are, 
then we lost an opportunity.
    The pandemic exacerbated the need. You mentioned it in your 
opening comments, the impact that it is having on our poor 
communities, in our rural communities students didn't have 
access to broadband during the entire pandemic. We cannot 
continue under-investing in education and think that we are 
going to continue to produce students that are going to lead 
the world. We have an opportunity here, an obligation, a 
privilege to make sure we are funding our schools, and giving 
our educators the tools that they need to be successful. More 
importantly, giving our students the tools that they need to be 
successful.
    Imagine our country, when students don't have to worry 
about not having a teacher in front of their classroom, enough 
materials, or access to technology so that they could get 
access to basic deliverables in education. That is where we are 
going. And this bill does that. The American Family Plan boldly 
communicates that. And I am excited about supporting it moving 
forward.

       SIMPLIFICATION OF FREE APPLICATION FOR FEDERAL STUDENT AID

    Senator Murray. Thank you. I really appreciate that 
response. Mr. Secretary, too many students miss out on college 
financial aid that they are eligible for, like Pell Grants, in 
part because the application process has been so cumbersome. 
Last December we were able to finally reach a bipartisan 
agreement to significantly simplify the Federal Student Aid 
Application process with the passage of FAFSA Simplification 
Act, and that law, by the way, also expands eligibility for 
Federal financial aid.
    The administration's budget request does include a 
significant increase in funding to implement those and other 
related changes. But unfortunately, the Department announced 
last week, as you know, that some of those changes cannot be 
implemented quite as fast as all of us had really hoped. This 
is not a criticism of the Department. Everyone wants the law 
implemented as quickly as possible, but tell us what the 
Department is doing to implement FAFSA as quickly as possible, 
including moving forward with key benefits for students on 
time?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you. And I recognize it is not a 
criticism, but, but we need to get moving on this. And I thank 
you, and Senator Blunt, and others who have really pushed this, 
and understand the importance of that simplification process. I 
have talked to students who said, you know what, that is too 
much. Or families, I can't do that. And they have missed out on 
opportunity.
    So, the simplification process is critically important, but 
the reality is we walked into a system that doesn't have the 
capacity. As I mentioned in the previous statement, you know, 
under-investment leads to results. Well, we have a 45-year-old 
computer system that can't handle the changes that are needed, 
and that you voted for.
    So, we need to move quickly, swiftly, to make sure we are 
prioritizing that, that is critically important, the FAFSA 
simplification. We are on it. We are going to prioritize that, 
again, another area that Richard is really prioritizing. And we 
are going to keep you updated. You deserve to be updated on 
what progress we are making, what challenges we have, that is a 
priority for the agency, and for me as Secretary.
    Senator Murray. Thank you very much.
    Senator Blunt.

                 TRANSPARENCY OF COVID RELIEF SPENDING

    Senator Blunt. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. On the topic of 
new money to schools, Congress provided in the American Rescue 
Plan and the COVID supplementals, a total of $190 billion to K 
through 12 education. Data provided to us by the Department as 
of June 4, less than $9 billion of that has actually been spent 
by schools. What can we do to ensure that that money gets 
spent, and there is more transparency about how and where it is 
being spent?
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you for that question. And it 
gives me an opportunity to share that as the commissioner of 
education, during the beginning of the pandemic and throughout 
most of the pandemic, we also had to develop systems that did 
not exist before, to distribute money in this unprecedented 
time, to make sure that LEAs had the support they needed. And 
as the Senator mentioned earlier, in some places that process 
is slower than we would like.
    So we are in communication with our districts, our State 
LEAs, and we recognize, however, and I can tell you from 
experience that, you know, a good portion, sometimes 80 percent 
of budget is human resources, right? So that money is drawn 
down as the contract, or the year goes by. And we recognize 
also that this is a 3- to 4-year process where the funds are 
going to be used to provide services for multiple years. Also, 
contracts that are signed off on are not paid for until the 
services are provided. And in many cases that extends years.
    So, we recognize the need. I think the transparency, what 
you brought up is critically important. We asked that any 
planning that is being done for funds with the American Rescue 
Plan have transparency that are posted on websites and that 
engage stakeholders, so that folks know how the money is being 
used. We have a responsibility to ensure every dollar of 
taxpayer money is being used to support what it was intended to 
use.
    Senator Blunt. Right. Now I certainly agree with that. And 
I think we actually assumed that more of that money would be 
spent on technical support and things that wouldn't have been 
part of the normal education system that districts had in 
place, as opposed to long-term contracts with individuals, and 
things that probably were in their normal and regular budget.

                         IN-PERSON INSTRUCTION

    I hope we are looking carefully to see that that money is 
spent, to be more ready for virtual education when we need it, 
and different kinds of communication when we need it. 
Obviously, as Senator Murray has pointed out, and others have, 
the loss of learning in many cases to people who couldn't go to 
school, either they didn't engage in a virtual class, or that 
wasn't the right way for them to learn. Where do you think we 
are going to be in the fall in terms of in-person learning? 
What percentage of American public school students do you think 
we will be back in school in the fall in person?
    Secretary Cardona. Some of the expenditures that take time, 
as you mentioned, are critical, virtual learning access, 
broadband access, and that does take some time. With that said, 
I do expect 100 percent of the students across the country to 
have access to in-person learning. April data shows that 96 
percent of the K-8 students had an opportunity to learn in 
person. But I would argue that hybrid isn't a great option.
    In many cases families can't do the hybrid option because 
parents have to work. It is all or nothing. I am pushing really 
hard to make sure that we are addressing, and we are working 
with States, and local LEAs to address whatever factors might 
be preventing them from offering full in-person learning, full-
time for all students in the fall.
    That is my expectation. And we are having conversations 
regularly with different State leaders, and local education 
leaders to make sure that that is--the message is clear, and 
that the expectation is there. The funds are there. We have to 
make it happen for our students, Senator.

                         STUDENT LOAN SERVICING

    Senator Blunt. Let's talk about loan servicing for just a 
minute. Certainly, as you pointed out, and I was pleased to be 
in involved in trying to simplify those loan forms. Senator 
Murray and Senator Alexander and the Authorizing Committee, 
last year, did a great job of leading there. Now there has been 
a discussion with the Title IV additional servicers, how we 
connect better with students--with individuals who have student 
loans.
    This committee was not supportive of the last plan for the 
next generation of student loans. We are about to run out of 
the current framework of contracts. I think the current not-
for-profit servicers contracts, and between December of this 
year and March of next year, there appears to be no plan to 
replace the current system. What I am asking is: Will you use 
the authority you have in the fiscal year 2021 labor bill to 
extend these legacy of servicing contracts while you work on a 
long-term servicing solution? Or do you expect to have a long-
term service solution in place by December of this year?
    Secretary Cardona. We are working aggressively to make sure 
we have a system that has very high standards for loan 
servicers. We have to put the students at the center, while I 
don't have an announcement to make today, I will tell you that 
we plan on having an update, and we will update you within the 
next month or so to share what the plans are with that.
    Senator Blunt. Well, I will tell you. I have been very 
involved in this discussion. I would like to be updated, and 
would hope to be updated before you absolutely have a plan you 
are ready to announce. And then if, for whatever reason, that 
plan can't be put in place by the time these servicing and 
agreements run out I hope you are thinking about the authority 
that we gave you to extend those agreements if that was the 
best thing to do.
    Thank you, Chair.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. We will be in touch.
    Senator Murray. Thank you.
    Senator Braun.
    Senator Braun. Thank you, Madam Chair. I remember in our 
first or second conversations along the way, we have had a--
kind of a spirited discussion on resources that we put beyond 
education, in general. And in my opinion education, along with 
one's healthcare, we ought to be doing that as well as 
possible, not only through public, but through the private 
arena as well.

            RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

    And post-secondary education now has the dubious 
distinction of being the place where costs are going up more 
per year than any other significant sector of our economy. Just 
eclipsed a few years ago, the rate of increase in healthcare, 
which is a place I have, since I have been here wanted to 
reform and try to fix, because I think it is a broken system 
there in terms of what we do through the private sector, and 
through government, because we have got the entity itself, the 
system that doesn't deliver, it has cost us in healthcare twice 
as much as what it does in other countries.
    So, I think it is silly to pour more resources in anything 
that is not delivering outcomes that look like they are at 
least headed in the right direction. So do you think when it 
comes to the results, and let us look at post-secondary 
education, I will come back to secondary in a moment. Do you 
think we have been getting a good bang for our buck?
    Secretary Cardona. There is always room for improvement, 
Senator. And I can assure you that the team that we are 
assembling recognizes the importance, and the moment that we 
have to make sure we are improving access and affordability. 
Again, I mentioned earlier, the American Families Plan provides 
opportunities for students to access community colleges for 
free. We know how important that is to give them an opportunity 
to join the workforce with skills that they need to be 
successful. And that the earning potential of graduates of 
community colleges can be up to 21 percent higher.
    We have work to do and we are going to be aggressive to 
make sure that students are getting a good return on investment 
in post-secondary education. And we are addressing the issues 
that exist, where students are being taken advantage of, or 
sold a bill of goods and never delivered on. We are on that. 
And that is a priority for me.
    Senator Braun. So my observation before I got here is that 
you generally don't pour resources into something until you 
look at what you have got, that you are trying to rebuild, re-
energize, or make better. And 41 percent increase over fiscal 
2021 levels is embedded in this budget proposal. And my 
observation, from being on a school Board for 10 years, to 
wrestling with education at the State level as a State 
legislator, it is not about spending more money, it is really 
more about finding how we change the system.
    To me it is analogous to healthcare. And as long as we are 
here, since we live with no constraints, now added in the two-
and-a-half years I have been here, nearly $10 trillion in 
national debt. The need to be a little more entrepreneurial, a 
little more concerned about changing the paradigm. And here I 
see most of this just pouring more resources into something 
that doesn't need to tell us any more clearly, that it is not 
delivering the goods.

             SECONDARY EDUCATION ALIGNMENT WITH JOB MARKET

    Before I run out of time, let me pivot back to, the same 
point would be made in secondary education, before you get to 
college. College is runaway with costs that even parents are 
really scratching their heads. Is it worth it to send my kid 
into a system that 50 percent of the kids that go there don't 
pursue it, and many get a misguided degree, and employers don't 
have a market for?
    Why don't we try to get it better at the secondary level 
and match training and skills with the high-demand, high-wage 
jobs that all of us have out there? My State of Indiana, 
checked with my kids, I think we have got 70 to 80 job openings 
in our own company, out of a total employment of 1200. We don't 
need any more 4-year degrees, because the jobs that we have in 
a State like Indiana, where we ship out twice as many 4-year 
degrees as we use in the State, we need better skills that are 
being delivered out of high school.
    I look at a place like Garrett High School, west of Fort 
Wayne that catches kids and, obviously, parents, when they are 
fifth graders, before they go to middle school. That is 
something that would cost no more money, but would change the 
dynamic of where we need to change our emphasis in how we do 
things. And until education does that, until healthcare does 
that, I really think we are just going to be borrowing more 
money and putting it down a dubious hole. I won't refer to the 
word that comes to mind. So, a quick comment on that.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you. I agree with you. If we do 
what we have done, we are going to get what we have gotten. So, 
you know, the plans discussed CTE (Career and Technical 
Education) changes. We really, if you recall, my hearing, one 
of my goals as Secretary of Education is to make sure we evolve 
our secondary schools to meet the demands of the workforce, and 
the careers that are available today, as you mentioned, in your 
own community.
    So, this is something that I am eager to work with. Not 
only in the budget do we see that in there. And it is not just 
resources, it is the change in mindset. We are going to get 
there. And I look forward to working with you on that. I know 
the Jobs Plan has funds for that, the Families Plan. I know the 
President gets it, it is in the budget, and we are going to 
make it happen. And I look forward to working with you on that.
    Senator Braun. Thank you. And I would invite you to take a 
road trip to Indiana and visit some of the places that are 
setting the trend on what we, as employers, need which is a 
better elementary and especially secondary education, before 
you start pushing kids into a broken system after that. Thank 
you.
    Secretary Cardona. Look forward to working with you on 
that.
    Senator Murray. Senator Reed.
    Senator Reed. Thank you very much, madam Chairwoman.

                         SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE

    Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Your experience as a State 
Commissioner of Education is, I think, invaluable because you 
have seen these issues up close and personal, as they used to 
say on television. And one of the issues I hope is not 
debatable is the poor status of school infrastructure, and this 
is not just an urban issue, it is a national issue.
    I have been working very hard to get resources in for 
infrastructure repairs in schools, and also in the context of 
infrastructure repairs, you can do a lot of things like, change 
the heating system to be more efficient. We discovered in the 
pandemic, in Providence they had to teach all winter with the 
windows open, because the HVAC system, and you probably had the 
same situation in Connecticut, the HVAC system would not 
support a safe instruction, and was probably built in 1930, et 
cetera.
    I am pushing very hard to get $100 billion in the Jobs Plan 
for the schools. And I hope you can assist me in doing that, 
with the President and with my colleagues.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you, Senator. Part of the ``Help 
Is Here Tour'' we visited about nine or ten different States, 
and visited about ten different schools. And as I mentioned in 
an earlier response, the needs in different communities, post-
pandemic, were different. And one really stood out to me. I was 
in Philadelphia, and I visited schools that were over 120 years 
old. You know, where the windows are shut with paint.
    Senator Reed. Lead paint?
    Secretary Cardona. Yes. The students, they need better. And 
it really just brought to the surface what educators have known 
for years; that facilities do matter, but what is the first 
thing that goes in local budgets when there is not enough 
funds, the facilities' maintenance. I remember as commissioner 
of education, talking to district leaders who said, our system 
hasn't been touched in years, the maintenance of the system 
hasn't been touched in years, the filters haven't been changed 
out.
    I learned more about MERV 13, MERV 15, more than I ever 
thought I needed to know. But the point is there has been 
negligence on facilities for years. And what we are finding is, 
in order to get students back into school safely and ensure a 
safe learning environment where the community could feel 
confidence in their schools. When we talk about reopening 
schools, we have to take that into account. So, I agree with 
you. Part of the Jobs Plan has the upgrade and building new 
public schools where it is needed, the $50 billion over 5 
years.
    But the community colleges also need the support, and the 
$12 billion over 5 years there, is a commitment to making sure 
that our facilities are safe places for our learners, for our 
educators. So that kids go to school, they attend regularly, 
and they have a learning environment where they can grow. So, I 
agree with you there, wholeheartedly, Senator.
    Senator Reed. Well, thank you. And I must confess part of 
my passion is the fact that my father was a school custodian. 
And so he would get to--in fact supervisor custodian--so he 
would get those calls in the middle of a winter night to go fix 
the boiler that was installed in 1927 or something like that.
    Secretary Cardona. Exactly.

                                LITERACY

    Senator Reed. A further question. I had an interesting 
discussion with adult education providers, and they reported 
that 95 percent of the students that they are serving, come to 
them with virtually no literacy skills. They can't read, they 
might graduate from high school, or at least going the length 
of time they have to, but they can't read. And if they can't 
read, it is very difficult to train someone for a job, 
particularly in the sophisticated, post-industrial economy.
    Secretary Cardona. Right.
    Senator Reed. One issue I think is if making sure we know 
what at least the rates are. And I have just wondered, do you 
have national, local, and States' reliable statistics about 
literacy?
    Secretary Cardona. We do, we have data that we are tracking 
in terms of where the States are. But we have to do more. We 
have to do more to make them transparent, and to ensure that 
the funds that are being used through the American Rescue Plan 
are aimed at addressing those literacy gaps. I will tell you; 
we know in education that if a student is not reading by 3rd 
grade, you are going to be intervening for the rest of that 
student's school career.
    And in the process, probably disengaging that student in 
ways where they can't take the courses that they want to 
select, or think about college as early as they need to, to 
make sure they have the same opportunities as other students. 
But that is where I also believe, sir, that the American Family 
Plan and the commitment on early childhood education.
    Three- four-year-old programs, I saw as a principal, when 
5-year-olds walked into the kindergarten classroom on day one, 
we knew which students had access to high quality programs. We 
could tell which students didn't, and we knew, day one, 
kindergarten, which students were going to need intervention 
and support. So you pay now or pay later, we really need to 
focus on early childhood education, and literacy skills early, 
science-based, research-based practices, to make sure that we 
are allowing our students to have the best opportunity in life 
by reading by 3rd grade.
    Senator Reed. I agree, but we also have to pay attention to 
adults who will miss these prospective reforms but still have 
low literacy skills.
    Secretary Cardona. Right.
    Senator Reed. Thank you. My time has expired.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
    Senator Murray. Senator Hyde-Smith.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And thank 
you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. I absolutely loved the 
background that you have, and it is very obvious that you 
really get it.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. And I appreciate that, because I can 
tell by your passion that you know exactly what these students 
are going through. So that I truly want you to know how much I 
appreciate that.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you.

                  FLEXIBILITY IN USE OF COVID FUNDING

    Senator Hyde-Smith. As we know from COVID, so many kids got 
just really far behind in so many areas, and great concern, not 
just in Mississippi, but everywhere. But Mississippi has 
recently received significant American Rescue Plan funding to 
help reopen our schools. The reality is that most Mississippi 
schools have been open for in-person learning for nearly 10 
months, as many Mississippi schools resumed classroom 
instructions last August. We really got back in quick with good 
results, and made some good decisions there that our leaders 
made. But the school year for most Mississippi schools ended in 
early May, and students are already out for their summer break.
    In your submitted testimony you stated that the plans to 
reopen are bold, and will require coordination among key 
stakeholders at the Federal, State, and local levels. However, 
this statement, and several others from the Department, seem to 
ignore the fact that many other States, like Mississippi, have 
been opened since fall of 2020. So, we have this money, but we 
have already been open, but how much flexibility are schools 
being given to use the American Rescue Plan funding? Because 
that is the calls that I get, and that is the questions that I 
get, from my schools and my educators.
    Secretary Cardona. Yes. Thank you, for first of all, for 
your comments, and for the thoughts that you are bringing up on 
behalf of the constituents you serve. And like you, my own 
children have attended since August, and I have been fortunate 
that some of the students in Mississippi that were able to 
attend in person, early, safely. That is critical.
    So, we know, as I mentioned in a previous response that the 
impact of COVID effected some regions differently than other 
regions. And we have to be aware of that and provide the 
flexibilities where needed. We recognize that in some places, 
while students have been in school, it might have been in a 
hybrid model, or some students have had access more than other 
students, due to, whether it is confidence, or trauma with the 
pandemic, some students will still need support even if they 
are going into school, maybe half-time, or full-time even.
    We also know that summer learning will help bridge those 
gaps of learning that we experienced through the disruption of 
COVID-19. So, flexibility is important. And what we are trying 
to do is balance flexibility while making sure that the impacts 
of COVID-19 are being addressed with the American Rescue Plan, 
as was the expectation from Congress.
    So, we are working closely with States to communicate 
flexibilities, and we are available, if there are questions in 
Mississippi, to discuss how their plans are being rolled out, 
and questions that they might have around flexibilities, or 
adherences to specific requirements that might have come out of 
the agency.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. So, all we have to do is really contact 
your Department and for these individual questions, because I 
know they have some really good ideas, but we want to make sure 
we are following the guidelines the way that we are supposed to 
be doing that.
    Secretary Cardona. Sure. Senator, you know, we do encourage 
innovation also. So, we look forward to hearing it. As matter 
of fact, we will reach out, just to make sure that we are 
partnering with Mississippi to make sure that their questions 
are answered, and that we can promote as much flexibility to 
meet the needs of the students as needed.

                            CHARTER SCHOOLS

    Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you. And I have a little time 
left. We have seven charter schools operating in Mississippi 
and, you know, charter schools have given parents the 
flexibility to decide which schools best fits their child's 
needs, individually, and not the government. In some instances, 
charter schools also have the freedom to adapt their classrooms 
as they see fit. And over the years, charter schools have seen 
increases in academic gains. We have had a lot of success 
there, which allow children more opportunities as they continue 
in their academic career.
    And with your commitment to ensuring all students have 
access to a quality education, how will you support school 
choice in order to expand access to higher quality charter 
schools?
    Secretary Cardona. I am a big proponent of high-quality 
schools for all students across the country. And I recognize 
that students have options and, public charter schools are 
options for students. And I feel that all schools should be 
held to similar standards of accountability. And I think that 
is where I stand with that. I have seen examples of schools 
that needed a lot of intervention, but I have also seen 
examples of schools that really met the needs of the student 
and the families in a charter school.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Because we really had some good luck. 
We had a Senator Michael Watson, State Senator at the time, 
really worked on this a long time. He is Secretary of State 
right now. But it really proved that we made a lot of ground 
there that were good decisions and beneficial. So, you will 
continue to support funding for the charter school program? Is 
that what you are saying?
    Secretary Cardona. Yes. The President made it very clear. 
You know, we don't--we are not going to be promoting a private 
charter school growth, but we are endorsing the programs that 
exist now where students are taking advantage of public charter 
schools.
    Senator Hyde-Smith. Great. Thank you very much.
    Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Senator Murray. Thank you. My understanding is Senator 
Manchin is going to walk in the door behind me at any moment. 
He will be our last questioner.

                     STATE PLANS FOR ESSER FUNDING

    While we are waiting for him. Mr. Secretary, I just wanted 
to thank you and your staff for all the hard work implementing 
the American Rescue Plan Act and other COVID-19 Relief 
Legislation, and the fiscal year 2021 Appropriations Bill. I 
know you got a lot on your plate. And I know the processes--the 
Department is really in the process of reviewing the State 
plans that are being submitted for each State's final one-third 
share of ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency 
Relief Fund) allocations under the American Rescue Plan.
    But one of my priorities really is, is that the 
legislation--in the legislation is the required State and 
school district set asides for evidence-based interventions 
that address the academic, and social, and emotional needs of 
students of color, students experiencing homelessness, 
underserved students.
    Secretary Cardona. Yes, right.
    Senator Murray. And I really appreciate the Department's 
template for State plans that include descriptions of state 
strategies, for carrying out these required activities, and 
strategies for States to support these district plans. Can you 
just assure us that the Department will only approve high-
quality plans that effectively address the requirements of the 
law?
    Secretary Cardona. Yes. As I said at the beginning, that is 
where the honor lies, making sure that we are serving our 
students. And on behalf of the 50 million students, when we 
review those plans, we want to ensure that we are building back 
better, and that the plans are addressing the inequities that 
were exacerbated by the pandemic, that the plans engage our 
stakeholders in different ways, because that is critically 
important. Many folks who were already struggling in school 
prior to the pandemic are now further away. So, we need to 
engage them to make sure that the schools that we are reopening 
are welcoming places that are able to meet their needs as well.
    Senator Murray. Well, thank you. I really appreciate that 
commitment. And I just ask that you keep my staff updated on 
the review of those plans. As you know, high quality plans are 
only successful if they are effectively implemented. And I know 
your Department has hosted webinars, and established a 
clearinghouse, and taken some other actions, which I really 
appreciate.
    And while we are waiting for Senator Manchin, share some 
thoughts on how the Department will support and monitor those 
plans.
    Secretary Cardona. Senator, I appreciate you mentioning the 
actions that we have taken. We have--take your time. This is 
something I want to talk about. So, we do have a best practices 
clearinghouse, innovation doesn't come from Washington, D.C., 
alone. In fact, across the country, we have over 1,100 
submissions of innovative practices to reopen schools, and 
engage those students that were hardest to engage during the 
pandemic.
    So, we are lifting our best practices from across the 
country. And, you know, I always say, we are going to heal 
together, we are going to learn together, we are going to grow 
together. And the tools that we have are at the disposal of the 
districts now are tools that were developed with them, not for 
them, with them. And I have to say that, you know, we are 
continuing that conversation. We are having an equity summit 
next week, where we are inviting everyone to come take a look 
at what it means to rethink addressing inequities, and be bold. 
Our students deserve it. Looking forward to that.
    Senator Murray. Thank you. Thank you.
    Senator Manchin.
    Secretary Cardona. Senator.
    Senator Manchin. Did I interrupt you?
    Secretary Cardona. No. Not at all.

                           HOMELESS EDUCATION

    Senator Manchin. Thank you so much. Let me, a few things. 
And I appreciate so much, Secretary, on the difficult job you 
have. And I want to go through a few things because a lot of it 
either makes sense or doesn't make sense. But the main thing 
is, I have really a problem with homelessness with children. 
And I noticed that the budget hadn't been increased for that. 
But I know that we put, myself and Murkowski, and all of our 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle supported $800 million 
going into that. But if the base doesn't move because, if it 
hasn't moved, it has been flat.
    Secretary Cardona. Right, right.
    Senator Manchin. It is growing. I hope you would show 
attention to that. I know we were able to meet it this year, 
but we won't be able to meet a year after that.
    Secretary Cardona. Right.
    Senator Manchin. Okay? So, if you can.
    Secretary Cardona. Sure. And I appreciate that. I recall 
experiences with students in the district where I worked 
before, who were experiencing homelessness. And I was always 
amazed at how they were able to engage in learning, and be a 
part of extracurriculars with housing instability, not knowing 
where they were going to go.
    And that reduces the bandwidth for learning when you are 
thinking about where am I going to sleep tonight? So, the 
money, the $800 million for homeless education through ARP 
(American Rescue Plan) is critically important. But I also want 
to share that the focus on community schools--the focus on 
community schools, and the vast proposal in the American 
Families Plan, is also intended to address some of these issues 
that lead to homelessness, right?
    Senator Manchin. And I think homelessness, and I was just 
asking, we need to describe it make sure we are all on the same 
page.
    Secretary Cardona. Right.
    Senator Manchin. McKinney-Vento describes homelessness one 
way, and the Department describes it another way. So, they 
might show in West Virginia we don't have that many. We know we 
have because we are basically talking to the schools. We know 
kids have been disrupted, things like that.
    Secretary Cardona. Right.
    Senator Manchin. We need to get that definition on the same 
wavelength. And let me go through a few more.
    Secretary Cardona. Sure.
    Senator Manchin. So, on that one there, and the second 
tranche of money is going to supposed to come out for them, the 
McKinney-Vento. These are very, very important. The other thing 
I wanted to talk about is community college. Okay. First of 
all, I will talk about pre-K 3 and 4, which I agree one million 
percent.
    Secretary Cardona. Yes.
    Senator Manchin. We have been doing it when it wasn't even 
popular.
    Secretary Cardona. Right.
    Senator Manchin. Let me tell you why we did it. Just on 
nutrition, just giving kids some stability in life. And we had 
a challenge in Appalachia. So, we had to. And I did it when I 
was governor, we have done it, and it has worked out great. So, 
I am glad the whole Nation, because you cannot get ahead of the 
curve if you don't start at 3 and 4 years of age.
    Secretary Cardona. Right.

                     FREE COMMUNITY COLLEGE PROGRAM

    Senator Manchin. God bless you on that. Where I disagree a 
little bit on community and technical colleges, and I disagree 
on free.
    Secretary Cardona. Mm-hmm.
    Senator Manchin. And I said, let me earn it. I have told 
people this and, you know, someone said free college. I said, I 
have a child, who is up 30-40 years of age. If they had had 
free college, they would still be in college. They never left, 
they loved it so much. That is just a little tidbit on that.
    But on community, here is the thing. Community technical 
colleges usually trained to skills, skill sets. It is not the 
same as a 4-year baccalaureate, or it gives them a segue, 
because their grades might not have been good enough. Okay. I 
understand all that. But most of it is skill sets.
    If we could determine the skill sets we need in different 
categories, in different parts of our country. So, if our 
community colleges are training for one thing in West Virginia, 
you are training for another thing in California, another thing 
in different parts of the country. If those skill sets are met 
by someone who is going, and we have a Stafford loan that we 
basically guarantee federally, you take the loan out. You, you 
accomplish that within a 2-year period of a community college, 
and you have that associate degree, then it should be forgiven.
    Let them earn it. Don't give it on the front end, earn it 
on the back end. You be surprised how much more they respect 
and appreciate something they have earned, than something you 
have given them. That is the only thing I have said about that, 
because I can tell you, as a parent, it works and works very 
well. And it is very efficient. You know, that would be like 
the same as a kid getting it: Where is my allowance, dad? And 
he is 35 years old. Do you understand where I am coming from?
    Secretary Cardona. Yes. Thank you, Senator. And I look 
forward to hearing more, and working with you, too. We need to 
make sure that all students have access.
    Senator Manchin. Right.
    Secretary Cardona. We need to make sure that all students 
have either access to the skilled development that you 
mentioned. And you are absolutely right, the workforce needs--
--
    Senator Manchin. And for a time, either way.
    Secretary Cardona. But also, it might be an opportunity for 
students who don't think that they have the potential to go to 
college, to get access to a 2-year college and then continue on 
to a 4-year school.
    Senator Manchin. No problem.
    Secretary Cardona. So, we are widening the net, and we know 
the earning potential is greater when you graduate college. And 
I can tell you, 21 percent for community college graduates, I 
believe this is good for the economy in the long term. It is 
really creating a workforce with higher earning potential, 
better discretionary income, and I do think it is----

                           FINANCIAL LITERACY

    Senator Manchin. What is the dropout rate? You ever look at 
the dropout rate? Do you know why student loans are so high? 
Because we cannot even demand that they have financial 
literacy. They come in, we cannot even have a registrar say, 
no, you are not getting that much, Miguel, you don't, you only 
need $4,000. I know you qualify because your family is for 
$11,004, but $4,000 is going to be fine. They cannot say that. 
So, end up stacking up debt, 2 years they flunk out or they 
quit because they haven't had to pay any payments out. And all 
of a sudden it comes tumbling down.
    Secretary Cardona. Yes.
    Senator Manchin. We do a horrible job of managing student 
debt, but we are talking about, eliminated before you have 
people responsible for it.
    Secretary Cardona. We are going to be aggressive on the 
student debt, and making sure that we are communicating, that 
we are advocating for students, working with students, putting 
the students at the center. I am eager to get going on that and 
get started.
    Senator Manchin. I cannot wait to work--I cannot wait to 
work with you.
    Secretary Cardona. Same here.
    Senator Manchin. There are so many good things--and I would 
love to----
    Secretary Cardona. Same here. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Murray. Thank you.
    Senator Manchin. Thank you.
    Senator Murray. That will end our hearing today. I want to 
thank all of our fellow committee members for their 
participation. Secretary Cardona, thank you for your very 
thoughtful answers today, and to talk about the President's 
budget. I do look forward to continuing to work with you, to 
support students and families in our country.

                     ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

    For any senators who wish to ask additional questions, 
questions for the record will be due Friday, June 25, at 5 p.m. 
The hearing record will also remain open until then for any 
member who wishes to submit additional materials for the 
record.
    Secretary Cardona. Thank you.
    [The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but 
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the 
hearing:]
               Questions Submitted to Hon. Miguel Cardona
              Questions Submitted by Senator Patty Murray
    Question. I'd like to follow-up on our discussion during the 
hearing about implementation of fiscal equity requirements under 
current law. These requirements include resource allocation reviews by 
states, school districts and schools identified for support and 
improvement. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office 
(GAO) reported most states (43 of 51) indicated helping districts 
identify resource inequities as somewhat or very challenging based on 
survey results prior to the pandemic.
    Please share the Department's plans in fiscal year 2021 and fiscal 
year 2022 for supporting, enhancing and monitoring resource allocation 
reviews by state and local education agencies and schools?
    Answer. Section 1111(d)(3)(A)(ii) of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) requires a State educational agency (SEA) 
to periodically review resource allocation to support school 
improvement in each local educational agency (LEA) in the State serving 
a significant number of schools identified for support and improvement. 
This requirement is part of the Department's monitoring protocol for 
Title I, Part A (available at: https://oese.ed.gov/files/2020/08/SEA-
Protocol-Title-I.docx, under ``Support for LEA and School 
Improvement''). Specifically, the protocol asks each SEA to describe 
how it periodically reviews resource allocation to support school 
improvement in each LEA serving a significant number or percentage of 
schools identified for comprehensive or targeted support and 
improvement.
    In addition, the Department has been providing on-going technical 
assistance to States regarding this requirement. For example, the State 
Support Network, created by the Department in 2016 to provide technical 
assistance to support the transition to the Every Student Succeeds Act 
(ESSA), hosted a community of practice (CoP) with 13 States in 2019 
that focused on planning for school resource allocation reviews. Please 
find more information and several resources here: https://oese.ed.gov/
resources/oese-technical-assistance-centers/state-support-network/
resources/resource-allocation-reviews-community-practice-summary/. The 
State Support Network also created a number of tools to assist with 
school improvement planning, including Tools for School Improvement 
Planning, a CoP for ``Implementing Needs Assessments'' and other 
resources for developing needs assessments. It also published several 
blogs about using school financial data in decisionmaking, including 
``Going Beyond Finances in Resource Allocation Decisions''.
    Further, the Department's Comprehensive Centers have provided 
individualized technical assistance to several States on this topic. In 
the past 2 years (since the 2019 competition established new TA 
providers), the Comprehensive Centers have been supporting States in 
their implementation of ESEA requirements. Two centers specifically 
have provided assistance to States on resource allocation reviews. The 
Region 15 Comprehensive Center is supporting Utah in the State's work. 
WestEd and the Region 15 Comprehensive Center have worked on an equity 
driven resource allocation framework during another State collaborative 
session. The Region 13 Comprehensive Center has worked with the 
Oklahoma State Department of Education to design a Resource Allocation 
Review toolkit. The Region 2 Comprehensive Center is supporting efforts 
in Connecticut and Rhode Island to develop a process to conduct 
resource allocation reviews.
    The fiscal year 2022 request would build on these efforts to 
strengthen fisal equity through the Title I Equity Grants proposal, 
which would require each State to collect and make publicly available 
detailed data on the allocation of State and local education funding to 
school districts and schools. The proposal also would require the use 
of a consistent definition of per-pupil expenditures to support 
identification and mitigation of disparities in funding for high-
poverty districts and schools, along with goals, interim targets, and 
timelines for closing identified gaps.
    In addition, our proposal would encourage States to undertake a 
comprehensive review of their school finance systems through a $50 
million reservation for voluntary State School Funding Equity 
Commissions that would (1) identify funding and educational opportunity 
gaps based on measures of equity and adequacy; (2) through extensive 
community engagement, develop detailed action plans for addressing 
existing gaps that include goals, interim targets, and timelines for 
closing identified gaps; and (3) report on progress toward these goals 
and targets.
    Question. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) established a 
policy requiring the reporting of actual personnel and nonpersonnel 
expenditures, disaggregated by Federal, state and local source of funds 
for each school and school district in each State. Transparently 
providing this information would allow a range of uses from parents 
seeing easily how their school's spending compares to other schools in 
the district to other stakeholders using the information to participate 
in equity conversations on differences within and between states.
    What is the Department's plan for ensuring states and school 
districts comply with ESSA's policy requiring the reporting of actual 
personnel and nonpersonnel expenditures, disaggregated by Federal, 
state and local source of funds for each school and school district and 
such information is made available to the public in an accessible and 
understandable manner?
    Answer. The Department will ensure that SEAs and LEAS meet the 
report card requirements in ESEA section 1111(h), including the 
requirement to report per-pupil expenditure data. As you are aware, to 
help facilitate compliance with these requirements, the Department 
released non-regulatory guidance on State and local report cards in 
September 2019 (available at: https://oese.ed.gov/files/2020/03/report-
card-guidance-final.pdf). This document includes detailed guidance for 
SEAs and LEAs regarding how to calculate per-pupil expenditures. The 
guidance encourages SEAs to establish uniform statewide procedures for 
calculating per-pupil expenditures so that that data are uniform, 
understandable, and comparable across each LEA and school in a State.
    To help ensure SEAs and LEAs comply with applicable requirements, 
including reporting per-pupil expenditures, a complete review of State 
and local report cards is included in the Department's Title I, Part A 
monitoring protocols, which are found at: https://oese.ed.gov/offices/
office-of-formula-grants/school-support-and-accountability/performance-
review/). An important aspect of our consolidated monitoring is a 
thorough review, for each State monitored in a particular year, of the 
State's report card to ensure that it includes all required elements. 
In addition, each January, the Department reviews each State website to 
determine if States and districts were in compliance with certain 
report card requirements, including reporting per-pupil expenditure 
data. The Department shares the results of its review with each State.
    Over the past few years, the Department has initiated several 
technical assistance activities through the State Support Network, a 
four-year technical assistance contract begun in 2016 to support States 
and districts as they transitioned to the new ESSA requirements. Some 
of the technical assistance initiatives focused on State and local 
report cards, several of which have had a particular focus on per-pupil 
expenditure data. For example, in 2018 a community of practice 
involving Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada, and 
Oklahoma focused on improving financial transparency. Other relevant 
communities of practice have focused on data quality, State and local 
report cards, and resource allocations. Information about these 
communities of practice can be found at: https://oese.ed.gov/resources/
oese-technical-assistance-centers/state-support-network/resources/. The 
Network also created the ``Financial Transparency and Reporting 
Readiness Assessment Tool.'' This tool can help States and districts 
meet the ESSA reporting requirements by identifying and analyzing 
school level expenditure data. This tool contains two components--a 
self-diagnostic framework and an analysis tool--that are designed to 
help districts and States understand the dynamics of school-level per-
pupil reporting in their own district financial data. The tool can be 
found at: https://oese.ed.gov/resources/oese-technical-assistance-
centers/state-support-network/resources/financial-transparency-
reporting-readiness-assessment-tool/.
    The Department is also funding the National Comprehensive Center's 
work with Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab to improve the quality 
and utility of school-level per-pupil expenditure data that is reported 
on State and local report cards as required under ESSA. Edunomics' 
initial work through this project involved analyzing the utility and 
usefulness of the school-level per-pupil expenditure data reported by 
each State (https://edunomicslab.org/state-data-tracker/). The current 
phase of the National Comprehensive Center's project with Edunomics is 
focused on working with a little under 20 school districts across 
different States to analyze each district's school-level expenditure 
data and build staff capacity to use data to drive decisionmaking for 
school improvement and equitable allocation of resources. After 
piloting tools and communication materials with these school districts, 
Edunomics will create a data visualization tool that all districts will 
be able to access to analyze their school-level per-pupil expenditure 
data and use it for finance decisionmaking.
    Additionally, the Department's National Center for Education 
Statistics (NCES) has been working with over 20 States to improve the 
quality of expenditure data reported through a voluntary data 
collection. Recently, NCES issued a report on highlights of school-
level finance data that were previously reported (https://nces.ed.gov/
pubs2021/2021305.pdf).
    The Department looks forward to expanding and building upon these 
efforts.
    Question. I appreciate the Secretary's commitment to properly 
implementing the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, including required 
state and school district set-asides for evidence-based interventions 
that address the academic, social, and emotional needs of students of 
color, students experiencing homelessness and other underserved student 
groups disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
    Please describe in detail how the Department will support, monitor 
and enforce requirements of the Elementary and Secondary School 
Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) related to these set-asides and 
implementation of State and district ESSER plans related to these state 
and district learning loss requirements.
    Answer. We support these requirements through the State plan 
process that the Department established, technical assistance efforts, 
non-regulatory guidance documents, and ongoing communication with 
States through our program officers.
    The ARP ESSER State plan template requires grantees to describe how 
they will use each required set-aside under the ARP Act. We will 
monitor grantees against their approved ARP ESSER State plans as well 
as statutory requirements. As needed, the Department will issue any 
findings and develop corrective action plans to address those findings. 
We are committed to working with grantees to resolve any findings.
    In July, the Department issued a notice inviting comment related to 
data submission requirements for the ESSER (including ESSER I, ESSER 
II, and ARP ESSER) annual performance report (APR). The public is asked 
to comment on data quality and burden-related concerns related to 
collecting data on evidence-based summer learning or summer enrichment 
programs, evidence-based afterschool programs, and extended 
instructional time, among other items. After the data collection 
instrument is finalized and APR data is submitted, the Department will 
review grantee submissions to identify technical assistance needs and 
inform future monitoring of grantees.
    Question. Department regulations state the Secretary may make a 
continuation award for a direct grant for a budget period after the 
first budget period of an approved multi-year project if Congress has 
appropriated sufficient funds for that purpose and the grantee is 
making substantial progress toward meeting the goals of the project, 
among other factors. The regulations further state ``In deciding 
whether a grantee has made substantial progress, the Secretary may 
consider any information relevant to the authorizing statute, a 
criterion, a priority, or a performance measure, or to a financial or 
other requirement that applies to the selection of applications for new 
grants.''
    For fiscal year 2018 and 2019, how many direct grantees did not 
receive a continuation award for any reason? How many of such denials 
were related to the lack of substantial progress on performance? How 
much total funding was associated with such denial of a continuation 
award due to lack of substantial progress on performance?
    Answer. In fiscal years 2018 and 2019, 11 grantees received a 
continuation award of $1, which is equivalent to a denial of a 
continuation award but is the amount required to keep the grant award 
active so grantees can complete work already funded. Of those, 10 were 
at least in part because of issues related to substantial progress. The 
total amount impacted grantees requested in their initial grant 
applications for the budget period not funded is approximately $38 
million. In addition, the Department reduced continuation awards for 
other grantees if appropriate based on lack of substantial progress or 
other considerations. Further, some grantees asked for their 
continuation award to be reduced or for the grants to end early due to 
their concerns about not being able to implement their projects
    Question. What policies or criteria have the Department adopted for 
considering information in making a determination of substantial 
progress? If none, how does the Department consistently evaluate 
substantial progress?
    Answer. The Department follows the procedures for non-competing 
continuation awards as set forth in 34 CFR 75.253 and has internal 
policy about how to determine substantial progress, including what 
should be included in documentation for non-competing continuation 
award documents. The policy includes considerations to support 
decisionmaking, including program- and grantee-specific context, 
monitoring grantee performance, and discussing performance concerns 
with grantees. There are also internal discussions across offices to 
share about office practices and lessons learned, particularly in light 
of the COVID-19 pandemic and how best to consider associated 
disruptions to the project activities in making substantial progress 
determinations.
    Question. Earlier this year, the Department withdrew a notice 
inviting applications for equity assistance centers (EACs) issued by 
the previous administration and extended existing contracts for 1 year. 
Equity Assistance Centers can play an important role in addressing 
racial and other equity concerns and designing and implementing school 
desegregation plans.
    What are the Department's plans for the new notice inviting 
applications?
    Answer. The Department plans to publish a notice inviting 
applications for new awards in the Federal Register in early 2022.
    Question. How does the Department evaluate the resources needed for 
EACs to carry out this important work? Please share any analysis 
completed that supports the sufficiency of the $6.5 million requested 
for EACs to delivery timely and effective services across the entire 
United States.
    Answer. We have not carried out any detailed analysis of EAC 
resource needs, but we do ask the EAC grantees to tell us in their 
annual performance reports the percentage of technical assistance 
requests received from organizations that they accepted during the 
performance period. Annually across 2017 to 2020, the EACs were able to 
accept between 95 percent and 98 percent of the technical assistance 
requests they received from the field.
    Question. As of June 11, more than sixty percent of the CARES 
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds ($8 
billion of $13.2 billion) have been recorded as spent and outlaid from 
the Federal Treasury, while $2.1 billion of $54.3 billion provided 
through ESSER in the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental 
Appropriations (CRRSSA) Act, 2021 and $25 million of $81 billion 
obligated from ESSER funds in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 
2021 have been so reported. The Department also is in the process of 
reviewing state plans for the obligation of the remaining one-third of 
the ARP ESSER funds. However, earlier this year the Government 
Accountability Office reported ``Federal spending data alone provide an 
incomplete picture of states' and school districts' spending'' noting 
``there is often a significant gap between when a district uses the 
funds and when those funds are reported as spent in state and Federal 
reporting systems''.
    Please describe actions taken and planned by the Department to 
provide a more complete reporting of the use and status of ESSER funds.
    Answer. Section 15011 of the CARES Act specifies the reporting 
requirements for covered programs. Existing reporting requirements, 
established under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency 
Act of 2006 (FFATA), Public Law No. 109--282, as amended by the Digital 
Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act), Public Law No. 113--
101, were deemed sufficient to meet many of the reporting requirements 
for ESSER fund program. Specifically, States were required to report to 
the General Services Administration's FFATA Subaward Reporting System 
(FSRS), the amount of ESSER funds granted to school districts. These 
data are required to be reported directly from States and are made 
available to the Department and the public through USAspending.gov.
    To further meet the Section 15011 reporting requirements and 
additional reporting requirements described within the ESSER 
Certification and Agreements, the Department created an annual 
reporting process for ESSER grantees (States). The annual report 
captures the following information (1) award and outlay information 
from the Department to ESSER grantees (States); (2) award and outlay 
information from ESSER grantees to their subgrantees (school districts/
LEAs); and (3) subgrantee expenditure data. States were required to 
provide these data for district awards/expenditures made March 13, 
2020--September 30, 2020 to the Department in early 2021. States will 
be required to provide additional reports on ESSER funds annually 
thereafter. The current ESSER reporting form is available for review 
through: https://api.covid-relief-data.ed.gov/collection/api/v1/public/
docs/ESSER_Data_Collection_Final.pdf.
    The Department acknowledges the importance of collecting and 
publicly reporting information on school districts' financial 
commitments (obligations), as well as outlays in order to more 
completely reflect the status of their use of Federal COVID-19 relief 
funds. Earlier this year, the Department proposed modifications to its 
ESSER annual report on State and school district spending data to 
include obligations data in subsequent reporting cycles. The proposed 
modifications, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, are 
currently available for public comment on the Federal Register: 
(https://www.Federalregister.gov/documents/2021/07/02/2021-14200/
agency-information-collection-activities-comment-request-education-
stabilization-fund-elementary-and).
    Question. The Department's fiscal year 2022 Annual Performance Plan 
includes plans to identify opportunities to further build and use 
evidence in both formula and competitive grant programs.
    How many competitive grant programs will include an evidence 
priority in fiscal year 2021?
    Answer. In fiscal year 2021, 19 competitions required the use of 
evidence through a requirement or an absolute priority and 6 
competitions included a competitive priority for evidence, and 18 
encouraged applicants to rely on evidence by including it in selection 
criteria. An additional 2 competitions encouraged the use of evidence, 
such as through an invitational priority. Note that two competitions 
included evidence in more than one way and are thus counted in multiple 
categories. An unduplicated total of 43 competitions, or almost 60 
percent of all competitions in fiscal year 2021, included evidence in 
at least one of these ways.
    Question. How many competitive grant programs does the Department 
plan to include an evidence priority in fiscal year 2022?
    Answer. The Department is discussing how best to use and build 
evidence in fiscal year 2022 competitions in alignment with statutory 
requirements, the body of available evidence, and lessons learned from 
previous competitions.
    Question. Please identify the formula programs in which evidence 
building and use will be promoted and supported and the specific 
strategies to accomplish these goals.
    Answer. The Department is supporting evidence building and use in 
the ESEA formula grant programs under Titles I, II, and IV. Evidence is 
also important within the context of IDEA formula grant programs. The 
Department works with the Comprehensive Centers, the Regional 
Educational Laboratories, and the technical assistance centers funded 
by the Office of Special Education programs to identify and share 
resources related to evidence building and use. To further support the 
identification of evidence-based practices, The Institute of Education 
Sciences' What Works Clearinghouse has recently added a new feature to 
its website--evidence tier ``badges''--making it easier for users to 
know whether a given approach meets regulatory definitions of strong, 
moderate, or promising evidence. The WWC has also produced a series of 
technical assistance materials supporting the use of this feature and 
of the site overall. In addition, the Department is providing resources 
related to the evidence-based strategies required under the Elementary 
and Secondary School Education Relief Fund (ESSER Fund) under the 
American Rescue Plan. Within the context of safely reopening all 
schools, the Department has created the Safer Schools and Campuses Best 
Practices Clearinghouse. The Clearinghouse provides resources for 
practices that can be leading examples of how best to provide support 
to students and educators.
    Question. Please describe efforts the Department has undertaken to 
build the internal capacity of staff in the use and implementation of 
evidence in activities funded through formula and competitive grant 
programs.
    Answer. Measuring Skills. In 2020, ED developed and fielded the 
inaugural Data and Evidence Use Survey to measure staff skills. In Q3, 
the Office of the Chief Data Officer and the National Center for 
Educational Evaluation finalized the survey to respond to requirements 
of the Evidence Act and the Federal Data Strategy. CDOs in other 
agencies, including DHS, Commerce, Labor, and the Air Force have 
requested and received ED's survey to support their efforts. The 
results of the ED Survey are used to target staff training to improve 
data literacy and the capacity to use evidence.
    The Evidence Act requires ED to assess its evaluation activities 
and agency capacity to support the development and use of evaluation. 
Congress explicitly made this requirement an agency-wide focus by 
instructing the Evaluation Officer to coordinate activities with agency 
officials in carrying out the functions of the Evaluation Officer in 
section 313(d) of title 5. Additionally, the Open Government Data Act 
requires the Chief Data Officer to support the Evaluation Officer in 
identifying and using data to carry out their statutory functions 
(Sec. 3520(c)(9)). The Evaluation Officer and the Chief Data Officer 
share common interest and authority in carrying out these functions and 
collaborate to field the annual Data and Evidence Use Survey.
    Enhancing Skills. In 2021 ED launched its new Data Literacy 
Program, an intentional commitment to upskilling and continual 
learning. The program's goal is to develop a data culture at ED which 
enables all staff to speak a shared language around data and evidence. 
An expert-based approach was designed with support from The Data Lodge 
to provide a comprehensive corpus of flexible training to reach 3,500 
staff. A partnership among ED's data office, research office, and human 
resources office resulted in a committee of 5 SES and GS15 leaders 
(including ED's Evaluation Officer) who developed the program 
blueprint. The blueprint mapped out a programmatic approach over 3 
years, engaging ED offices in waves of customized, highly interactive 
sessions. Learning pathways were developed using Skillsoft. ED also 
developed plans for its own developed content and OCDO-led introductory 
workshops. Current training consists of four major components: (1) a 
hallmark initial, interactive 2-hour session ``Exploring Data 
Literacy,'' (2) a one-hour ED-specific session, ``Data Literacy 101'' 
(3) four self-paced Learning Pathways of SkillSoft and external courses 
around evidence, decisionmaking, visualization, and analytics and (4) 
Learning Bytes, 15 min interactive topics recorded for easy use.
    As ED staff begin to build data literacy, we continue our efforts 
to ensure that all staff are increasingly well-versed in the role of 
evidence in the work of schools, States, districts, and institutions of 
higher education. This past year, the Institute of Education Sciences 
and the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development's Grants 
Policy Office (GPO) began offering ``Evidence 101: Evidence Use at the 
Department of Education'' to all new hires each quarter. As part of 
that training, new staff are introduced to statutory and regulatory 
requirements related to evidence use, the history of evidence use at 
the Department, and Department resources that can support their work. 
IES and GPO have also worked to build a virtual ``community of 
practice'' focused on evidence use based on a monthly newsletter to 
staff and associated website, the Evidence Connection. Approximately 
250 staff across the Department are currently members and receive 
regular updates about resources that can support their efforts to use 
evidence in their own work and support the work of Department grantees.
    Question. What is the Department's plan for continuing to build 
this capacity in the coming year?
    Answer. In 2022, the ED Data Literacy Program will advance general 
staff ability to use, understand, and apply data and evidence to 
support decisionmaking around programs, policy, and operations. In 
2022, the program will mature current engagement, curriculum, and 
resources. First, our engagement will broaden and deepen. Current Data 
Literacy Ambassadors for the first wave of ED offices participating in 
the program will customize and deliver existing program resources for 
relevant and actionable professional development. We will onboard 
additional offices to reach all 3,500 staff. Second, we will expand our 
current curriculum and add new courses, both interactive and virtual, 
asynchronous training. In 2022, we would like to add 4 major ED-
specific courses featuring ED leaders, data processes, core data 
collections, and projects and tools. Lastly, we plan to augment and 
enhance resources around data language (e.g., Glossary), expertise 
(e.g., Directory) best practices and technology. To address the 
specific capacity-building needs of ED data professionals who support 
the production of evidence for grant programs, ED launched its new Data 
Professionals Community of Practice (DPCoP) in August 2021. In 
alignment with ED Data Strategy Objective 2.3 ``Establish clear career 
paths and training curriculums for data professionals'', the DPCoP will 
be a member-driven collaborative forum open to all ED data 
professionals. It will provide opportunities to share resources, tools, 
and successful practices in ED, inform leadership of data-related 
issues or concerns, and establish workgroups to address specific topics 
and challenges.
    Question. How will the Department measure the growth of this 
capacity and expected improved targeting of resources to activities 
authorized by current law and aligned with evidence of effectiveness?
    Answer. Evidence Use. As noted above, the Department is currently 
fielding the second iteration of its Data and Evidence Use Survey. The 
survey provides repeated cross-sectional estimates of ED staff capacity 
to use evidence in their work in areas including: (1) designing 
performance measures, (2) providing technical assistance on evidence 
definitions and requirements, and (3) monitoring grantees for effective 
evidence use. These data can be used to inform professional development 
opportunities for ED staff and the production of new resources for both 
staff and stakeholder use.
    Resource Targeting. The Department will continue to work with SEAs, 
LEAs, institutions of higher education and other entities to support 
and increase the use of evidence to inform decisionmaking.
    Question. How does the Department support and monitor SEA and LEA 
decisionmaking related to reasonably available determinations for 
evidence use under provisions of ESEA? What are the Department's plan 
to monitor and further support such determinations?
    Answer. To support States, local educational agencies (LEAs), and 
schools in understanding the levels of evidence and interventions that 
meet them, the Department continues to disseminate information and 
provide technical assistance that highlights the evidence levels 
associated with a wide range of interventions, strategies, and 
approaches. Specifically, the Institute of Education Sciences What 
Works Clearinghouse (WWC) provides information on the evidence levels 
of interventions, strategies, and approaches on a wide range of topics 
through both Intervention Reports and Practices Guides, as well as 
individual studies. These user-friendly resources describe the level of 
evidence demonstrated, the characteristics of students, and the setting 
(urban, rural, suburban) of the research studies included. When 
evaluations produced through discretionary grant programs are submitted 
to the WWC for review to determine if they meet the evidence levels as 
defined in the ESSA, they can be highlighted in the WWC for use in 
supporting formula grantees. In addition, the Department's technical 
assistance network also produces resources to support their respective 
target audiences in understanding and using evidence. For example, this 
resource from the Regional Education Laboratory West provides important 
considerations for using evidence-based interventions.
    With respect to monitoring use of evidence consistent with 
statutory and regulatory requirements, the Department includes 
questions regarding State and local compliance with evidence 
requirements as relevant in its monitoring protocols. In addition to 
understanding compliance with these requirements, these monitoring 
protocol questions allow program officers to identify areas for future 
technical assistance to support States, LEAs, and schools in their 
efforts to support student achievement.
    Question. Last year, Congress removed a limitation on Federal 
education funds that prevented the use of such funds for transportation 
costs associated with school integration efforts.
    How will the Department and its technical assistance providers work 
with state educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies 
(LEAs) and schools to inform and support them in this use of funds?
    Answer. While Congress has removed certain limitations on the use 
of Federal education funds for transportation costs related to school 
integration plans, section 8526(2) of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act of 1965 (ESEA; 20 U.S.C. 7906(2)) prohibits ESEA funds 
from being used for transportation unless otherwise authorized by the 
ESEA. Most ESEA programs, including Title I Grants to LEAs and Title 
IV-A Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, do not authorize 
the use of funds to transport students to or from the regular school 
day.
    In addition, section 802 of the Education Amendments of 1972 (20 
U.S.C. 1652), titled ``Prohibition against busing'' includes a 
restriction for the use of funds under ED programs for the 
transportation of students or teachers to carry out a plan of racial 
desegregation of any school system, subject to certain contingencies.
    Question. The previous administration failed to hire sufficient 
staff at the Office for Civil Rights, despite increases in 
appropriations and direction to do so.
    Please describe the impact of each staff member having such a large 
caseload on their ability to thoroughly investigate complaints for 
associated evidence of systemic discrimination, timely process 
complaints, conduct compliance reviews, and monitor corrective actions.
    Answer. A critical component of OCR's mission is the prompt 
investigation and resolution of complaints. A large per-staff caseload 
hinders OCR's ability to discharge this responsibility in a timely 
manner, which is also unacceptable to both complainants and recipients. 
OCR enforcement staff are required to conduct investigations and make 
determinations that are factually accurate and legally sound. Ensuring 
that these standards are met is a process that requires careful 
consideration of evidence provided by complainants and recipients. 
There are no ``short cuts'' to fulfilling OCR's mission. Current 
caseload numbers may impact OCR's ability to pursue proactive 
enforcement activities--compliance reviews and directed 
investigations--as well as effectively address an anticipated increase 
in complaints. In short, large caseloads can slow the delivery of 
justice for complainants and disserve school districts and 
postsecondary institutions that need guidance from the Department to 
ensure that they provide all students with an environment that is free 
from discrimination.
    Question. How would the additional staff requested in the budget be 
utilized to enable OCR to more effectively fulfill its mission?
    Answer. The majority of the additional staff will be utilized to 
resolve complaints and proactive activities (compliance reviews and 
directed investigations). OCR also requested additional legal staff 
that will develop policy guidance and regulatory materials for civil 
rights enforcement. Additional administrative staff will respond to 
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and help reduce the FOIA 
backlog and support Civil Rights Data Collection. Requested 
administrative staff are also needed to provide oversight of OCR's IT 
security, systems operations, website and records management.
    Question. With respect to the Charter School Grants program, the 
fiscal year 2022 Congressional Justification indicates: ``The 
Department will work to ensure that Charter Schools Grants funds 
support schools that are opened and operated with demonstrated family 
and community support, serve students from diverse racial and 
socioeconomic backgrounds, provide meaningful access to instruction for 
students with disabilities and English learners, maintain diverse 
educator workforces, and are subject to strong accountability, 
transparency, and oversight.'' The document also indicates that 14 
state entity grantees provide or plan to provide technical assistance 
to charter school subgrantees in meeting the needs of students with 
disabilities, while 13 provide or plan to provide technical assistance 
to subgrantees in meeting the needs of English learners.
    Please describe how the Department will accomplish each of the 
objectives outlined above.
    Answer. The Department looks forward to working with you and with 
other stakeholders to address these important priorities.
    Question. What does the Department know about the evidence base 
supporting the state entity technical assistance strategies for 
students with disabilities and English learners? With which tier, if 
any, of the definition in section 8101(21)(A) of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act (ESEA) do they align?
    Answer. The program statue does not require applicants to propose 
evidence-based technical assistance strategies, as such, information 
regarding the evidence base for specific state entity (SE) technical 
assistance strategies implemented by SE grantees to support students 
with disabilities and English learners was not examined as part of the 
review referenced in the program's Congressional Justification.
    Question. Please describe how the Department would use national 
activities funds available in fiscal year 2022 or supported by fiscal 
year 2022 appropriations for each of the national activities 
authorities available under the ESEA.
    How would these plans be informed by evidence of effectiveness and 
the needs of those served by each of the authorities?
    Answer. The Department does not yet have detailed plans for 
national activities in fiscal year 2022, since most planning for 
discretionary grant programs, including national activities 
authorities, takes place in the summer and fall prior to the beginning 
of the fiscal year. In addition, such plans depend in part on 
completion of final appropriations action, which includes both final 
funding levels and any applicable Congressional priorities for the use 
of national activities funds. Consideration of the needs of those 
served by our programs, as well as maximizing the use of evidence-based 
practices in meeting those needs, is the starting point for the 
Department's planning process.
    Question. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, SEAs and LEAs were 
required to develop plans for how they will identify and address the 
disparities of low-income and minority children being 
disproportionately taught by ineffective or inexperienced teachers.
    How does the Department plan to support the timely implementation 
of such plans, including through the use of funds appropriated and 
requested for Title II-A of ESEA and other current law authorities?
    Answer. ESEA section 1111(g)(1)(B) requires each SEA to describe 
how low-income and minority children enrolled in Title I, Part A 
schools are not served at disproportionate rates by ineffective, out-
of-field, or inexperienced teachers, and the measures the SEA will use 
to evaluate and publicly report the progress of the SEA with respect to 
such description. Consistent with ESEA section 8302, the Department 
determined that this description was required as part of the 
consolidated State plan. Thus, each SEA was required to provide a 
description and how it will publicly report its progress in addressing 
any identified disparities. This provision does not require each SEA to 
submit a plan to the Department regarding how it will address those 
disparities. Information about the ESSA Consolidated State Plan, 
including each State's plan, can be found at: https://oese.ed.gov/
offices/office-of-formula-grants/school-support-and-accountability/
essa-consolidated-state-plans/.
    The Department includes a review of this requirement in our 
monitoring protocols for Title I, Part A (available at: https://
oese.ed.gov/files/2020/08/SEA-Protocol-Title-I.docx). The Department 
requires each SEA monitored to describe how it evaluated its progress 
toward ensuring that low-income and minority children in Title I 
schools are not served at disproportionate rates by ineffective, out-
of-field, and inexperienced teachers and requests updated educator 
equity data. The Department also requires each SEA to describe how it 
publicly reported its progress toward meeting this requirement and asks 
for documentation of public reporting. Finally, the Department asks 
each SEA to describe how it supports LEAs in meeting this requirement. 
The SEA must describe how it ensures each LEA receiving a Title I, Part 
A subgrant identifies and addresses disparities resulting in low-income 
and minority students having disproportionate access to ineffective, 
out-of-field, and inexperienced teachers and requests that the SEA 
provide the following documentation, if applicable: LEA plan template 
reflecting this requirement; SEA guidance for LEAs related to equitable 
access to educators; and/or SEA monitoring protocol that demonstrates 
the SEA is verifying compliance with this requirement.
    In our review of States over the past several years, the Department 
has issued two monitoring findings related to these requirements. In 
2020, the Department cited Kentucky for two issues: 1) the State 
publicly reported inaccurate educator equity data; and 2) the State did 
not adequately document how it ensures that each LEA receiving a Title 
I subgrant identifies and addresses disparities resulting in low-income 
and minority students having disproportionate access to ineffective, 
out-of-field, and inexperienced teachers. In 2019, the Department 
issued a finding for New Jersey because although the State provides 
LEAs with multiple sources of related data, NJDOE is not currently 
evaluating or publicly reporting its progress in ensuring that low-
income and minority children in Title I, Part A schools are not served 
at disproportionate rates by ineffective, inexperienced, and out-of-
field teachers. The Department also issued a recommendation that New 
Jersey incorporate the requirement in ESEA section 1112(b)(2) in the 
State's subrecipient monitoring protocol to ensure that LEAs are 
meeting the statutory requirements to ensure that low-income and 
minority children in Title I, Part A schools are not served at 
disproportionate rates by ineffective, inexperienced, and out-of-field 
teachers. The reports for Kentucky and New Jersey (and all information 
related to the Department's consolidated monitoring, can be found at: 
https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-formula-grants/school-support-
and-accountability/performance-review/).
    Regarding the use of Title II, Part A funds, the ESEA consolidated 
State plan asks each State to describe how it will use Title II, Part A 
funds to address this requirement, if it chooses to do so. In addition, 
the Department conducts an annual use-of-funds survey that asks SEAs to 
account for how State-level Title II, Part A funds are used. In school 
year (SY) 2019-2020, the most recent year for which survey data are 
available, 20 States indicated that they had spent at least some of 
their State-level Title II, Part A funds on activities to improve 
equitable access to effective teachers. The Department also conducts an 
annual survey on how LEA-level Title II, Part A funds are used; this 
survey is distributed to a nationally- and State-level-representative 
sample of LEAs in the country. In the survey covering expenditures in 
SY 2029-2020, 34 percent of responding LEAs indicated that they had 
spent at least some of their Title II, Part A funds on strategies to 
recruit, hire, and retain effective educators, although it is not clear 
if these expenditures specifically focused on ensuring equitable access 
effective educators in the districts. Additional detail on the results 
of the 2019-2020 surveys on how Title II, Part A funds were used is 
available at https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/2021011/index.asp.
    The Department looks forward to expanding and building upon these 
efforts.
    Question. Analysis of CDC data and other reports indicate a 
reduction in routinely recommended vaccination of children and youth 
last year resulting from the disruption to routine healthcare caused by 
the COVID-19 pandemic. Lack of proper vaccinations could provide an 
additional challenge to the return to in-person learning in the fall.
    How is the Department working with HHS to support the vaccination 
of children and youth needed for school enrollment for in-person 
learning?
    Answer. The Department is working to support HHS/CDC in the 
dissemination of guidance on vaccination of children and youth in the 
following manner:
  --Collaborated and hosted a number of webinars to share mitigation 
        strategies and guidance with the educators, school personnel, 
        families, education stakeholders, and public
  --Participated in bi-weekly ED/CDC planning calls to coordinate and 
        organize scheduled webinars with HHS/CDC and the Department
  --Posted resource materials on the Department of Education website, 
        federally supported National Technical Assistance websites, as 
        well the newly launched Safer Schools and Campuses Best 
        Practices Clearinghouse (https://
        Bestpracticesclearinghouse.ed.gov)
  --Participated in weekly established ED/CDC K-12 Touchbase calls to 
        share information/research/guidance/upcoming agency planned 
        activities
  --Released Guidance Handbooks for the education community and 
        included information on the topic
    Question. The Department is developing supplemental priorities that 
may be applied to fiscal year 2022 and future grant competitions. The 
fiscal year 2022 Congressional Justification cites building and 
enhancing the instructional skills of a more diverse educator workforce 
as one possible supplemental priority.
    What other supplemental priorities may be applied in fiscal year 
2022 competitions?
    Answer. The Department published a Notice of Proposed Priorities on 
June 30, 2021. There are six draft priorities: (1) Addressing the 
Impact of COVID-19 on Students, Educators, and Faculty; (2) Promoting 
Equity in Student Access to Educational Resources, Opportunities, and 
Welcoming Environments; (3) Supporting a Diverse Educator Workforce and 
Professional Growth to Strengthen Student Learning; (4) Meeting Student 
Social, Emotional, and Academic Needs; (5) Increasing Postsecondary 
Education Access, Affordability, Completion, and Post-Enrollment 
Success; and (6) Strengthening Cross-Agency Coordination and Community 
Engagement to Advance Systemic Change.
    Question. Please identify the programs in which supplemental 
priorities will be applied.
    Answer. The public comment period on the Notice of Proposed 
Priorities closed on July 30. The Department is reviewing the comments 
received and is considering how best to incorporate the Secretary's 
priorities in fiscal year 2022 competitions once the priorities are 
finalized.
    Question. The budget includes $180 million, an increase of $15 
million more than the fiscal year 2021 LHHS bill, for the National 
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The requested funds would 
maintain the current assessment schedule and provide funding for 
initial research and development investments intended to improve 
assessment quality and reduce future program costs. Over the past year, 
staff of the Department, National Center for Education Sciences and 
National Assessment Governing Board have provided informative updates 
on COVID-19-induced changes to the NAEP schedule and cost increases. 
Please provide:
    A description of the policies and procedures implemented to ensure 
sufficient oversight and monitoring of contracts, including cost 
controls.
    Answer. All Institute of Education Sciences (IES) acquisition 
activities, including NAEP, adhere to the Department's internal control 
strategies, policies, and procedures, with support from the 
Department's Contracts and Acquisition Management (CAM) team and Budget 
Service:
  --Budget Service reviews every planned and on-going contract over 
        $100k. The Budget Service team reviews, approves, and allots 
        funds in the Department's payment management system before 
        funds can be obligated to support payments to vendors (by CAM).
  --CAM ensures that new and current contracts are legal and consistent 
        with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). Contracting 
        Officers (who possess warrants to sign off on new acquisitions 
        and day-to-day commitments) independently review every invoice 
        submitted by vendors before payment to ensure that costs are 
        allowable. CAM also partners with IES to validate that FAR 
        requirements are maintained across the lifecycle of every 
        individual Assessment contract.
    In the Department's most recent A-123 internal control entity level 
review of IES, completed in Fall 2020, IES (including the Assessment 
Division) provided evidence that IES meets and effectively implements 
all 17 GAO Green Book principal areas across all five GAO Internal 
Control component areas. IES recognizes that we need to do more to 
better anticipate the challenges of increased cost and uncertainties 
related to our assessment activities and unforeseeable events such as 
COVID-19.
    IES recently established an Acquisition Program Management Office 
(PMO) that is focused on modernizing IES acquisition practices to 
better align with our business model and improve outcomes for 
customers. IES also recently awarded a small contract to conduct an 
independent validation and review of our current controls and funds 
management practices for the Assessment program. We initiated this 
contract in part due to the rising costs of assessments, reflected in 
the 2019 NAEP Alliance contracts, and in part due to the recent volume 
of unplanned and unforeseen task revisions and cost adjustments within 
the NAEP Alliance contracts resulting directly from COVID-19. We expect 
the results of this quick-turnaround review at some point early in the 
2022 calendar year.
    Question. The amount and descriptions of additional funding needed 
in each of fiscal year 2022, fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2024 for 
research and development investments;
    Answer. The requested $15 million increase would support NAEP 
operations to fiscal year 24 and beyond for the current assessment 
schedule and would begin to support necessary R&D investments. However, 
we anticipate that additional investments would be needed in future 
years both to maintain NAEP as the gold standard of large-scale 
assessments and to produce cost savings and efficiencies in program 
administration costs over time (see responses to 1d and e below).
    We also note that while this response is based on the most accurate 
budgetary estimates currently available, there may be adjustments to 
these estimates based on additional modifications to NAEP alliance 
contracts in response to the impact of COVID-19 on NAEP activities.
    Estimated Allocations to Operations and R&D based on increase of 
$15 million per year (as of 8.4.21)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                                                                 Total
                         Funding stream                              FY22       FY23       FY24       FY25       FY26       FY27       FY28      approp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Operational.....................................................       $14M       $10M       $12M       $12M       $12M       $12M       $12M       $84M
Current R&D\*\..................................................        $1M        $5M        $3M        $3M        $3M        $3M        $3M       $21M
    Total.......................................................       $15M       $15M       $15M       $15M       $15M       $15M       $15M      $105M
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\*\See response to question 1d below for current R&D activities.

    Question. The amount of additional funding needed in each of fiscal 
year 2022, fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2024 for operating costs;
    Answer. Please see the response to 1b. above. Based on the best 
estimates available at this time, the requested $15 million increase 
would support operational funding needs through fiscal year 2024; 
however, as noted above, it may not fully support currently planned R&D 
efforts.
    Question. Studies planned and other actions necessary for 
maintaining the continuity and integrity of NAEP in any changes 
implemented to reduce future program costs;
    Answer. We have a number of actions planned to achieve 
efficiencies, starting in 2022. These include (i) transitioning to 
online assessments, (ii) transitioning from Surface Pro tablets to more 
cost-efficient devices in the short term and to school-owned devices in 
the longer term, (iii) introducing automated scoring, (iv) reducing the 
number of field staff needed to conduct the assessments, and (v) 
implementing design changes, including adaptive testing and two-subject 
design. Each change will be carefully studied in multiple rounds of 
reviews to first explore feasibility and examine effect(s), if any, on 
student performance. If any effect on student performance is detected, 
IES will need to implement a bridge study to account for the effect and 
maintain trends.
    Question. Expected savings and supporting information by fiscal 
year associated with research and development investments for reducing 
future program costs; and
    Answer. We expect to realize savings beginning in fiscal year 2024 
as currently funded R&D efforts in automated scoring and the eNAEP test 
platform take effect. These savings, which are measured against 
estimated costs on the current NAEP platform in the absence of proposed 
R&D-based modernization efforts, will grow through fiscal year 2030 
assuming IES is able to implement fully its planned R&D investments on 
eNAEP, which would enable NAEP to be administered on less costly 
devices, including school equipment (device agnostic), and with reduced 
NAEP field staff. We also note that the capacity to test individual 
students in multiple subjects using such devices should dramatically 
reduce student and school sample sizes, yielding further savings. 
Estimated savings by two-year NAEP cycle are in the table below. Total 
expected savings associated with current (and planned future R&D) 
investments over the period are approximately $98 million. Note that 
these estimated savings assume increased R&D funding in future years.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                Expected
                        Two-year cycle                          Savings
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY23--24.....................................................        $4M
FY25--26.....................................................       $20M
FY27--28.....................................................       $42M
FY29--30.....................................................       $32M
    Total....................................................       $98M
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Question. Potential additional reductions to future program costs 
or program enhancements resulting from recommendations made under 
current contract with National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and 
Medicine.
    Answer. An independent expert panel convened by the National 
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) is currently 
underway. This 17-month study focuses on how NAEP might modernize its 
operations and reduce costs through innovations such as those mentioned 
in (d) above. We expect that NASEM's recommendations, once released in 
February 2022, will help further refine current plans for 
modernization. Some of the innovations under consideration by NASEM are 
not expected to result in cost savings (e.g., adaptive testing), but 
could improve measurement quality, especially for students scoring at 
below NAEP Basic level.
    Question. The current NAEP assessment schedule outlines plans to 
conduct the Long-Term Trend (LTT) assessment for 17 year-olds in 2022 
as a result of the delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, also 
repeating the LTT for 9-year-olds in 2022 would provide nationally 
representative information on the impact of COVID-19 on reading and 
math learning, including for students of color. This kind of 
information would be one type of information and research on learning 
loss intended to be funded by the $100 million provided to the 
Institute of Education Science by the ARP.
    Will the assessment schedule be changed to collect this important 
information?
    Answer. Yes. NCES and NAGB agreed that the NAEP schedule should be 
changed to collect this important information for age 9-year-olds in 
2022, while canceling the LTT for 17-year-olds. NAGB will take an 
official vote on the change to the schedule at the August meeting. 
Additionally, preparation for both LTT age 9 and age 17 would be 
unsustainably expensive given available funding and the expected $8m 
cost for each of these age groups. That is, preparation for paper 
booklets, quality control reviews, printing, and distribution could not 
be done for both cohorts given anticipated budget shortfalls in 2024. 
Accordingly, we put preparations for LTT age 17 on hold in June based 
largely on cost considerations. NCES has also confirmed that it is too 
late to restart preparation work for age 17, even if funds were made 
available.
    Question. If the LTT for nine year olds was not paid for with funds 
available to IES in the ARP, how would such a change impact the NAEP 
2021 operating plan? How would such an additional cost for LTT impact 
the rest of the currently approved assessment schedule? Please provide 
a revised operating plan.
    Answer. The Department considered using ARP funds for LTT but 
decided against doing so because of legal concerns with using ARP funds 
for research. Regarding the impact on the NAEP budget, since the data 
collection costs for the two cohorts are comparable, changing from an 
assessment of 17-year-olds to 9-year-olds would have no real effect on 
anticipated outlays. The anticipated shortfall in 2024 would remain the 
same if the requested $15 million increase in fiscal year 2022 is not 
enacted.
    We note that in 2025 the schedule calls for all three ages, 9, 13, 
and 17 to be collected again as part of a bridge study to transition 
the assessments from paper to digital formats.
    Question. ESEA contains provisions on parent and family engagement 
under ESEA programs and authorizes support for Statewide Family 
Engagement Centers. These ESEA provisions include a 1 percent set-aside 
of LEA Title I-A allocations for effective parent and family engagement 
activities, along with requirements for parent, family and community 
engagement activities using English Language Acquisition funds.
    What are the Department's plans for supporting SEAs and LEAs in 
implementing parent and family engagement requirements under section 
1116 of ESEA, including in identifying and overcoming barriers to 
greater participation by parents who have limited English proficiency 
or are of any racial or ethnic minority background?
    Answer. The Department administers the Statewide Family Engagement 
Centers program which is authorized under Title IV, Part E of the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended. The purpose 
of the SFEC program is to provide financial support to organizations 
that provide technical assistance and training to SEAs and local 
educational agencies LEAs in the implementation and enhancement of 
systemic and effective family engagement policies, programs, and 
activities that lead to improvements in student development and 
academic achievement. For those families from diverse background and 
who have limited English proficiency, there are 12 statewide family 
engagement centers across the country that (1) carry out parent 
education and family engagement in education, programs and (2) provide 
comprehensive training and technical assistance to SEAs, LEAs, schools 
identified by SEAs and LEAs, organizations that support family-school 
partnerships and other such programs.
    In addition, the Department administers the Comprehensive Centers 
program, which is authorized under Title II, Sec. 203, of the 
Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002. The Comprehensive Centers 
address needs identified by SEAs in meeting ESEA student achievement 
goals, as well as priorities established by states. As part of this 
work, Comprehensive Centers have developed resources on various topics 
(e.g., literacy instruction) to support SEAs, LEAs, and educators. 
Building SEA and LEA capacity to engage parents and families is a key 
element of this support (e.g., Evidence Based Literacy Instruction: 
Families as Partners). Comprehensive Centers have also developed 
resources that specifically focus on establishing and nurturing 
successful school-family relationships. Finally, parent and family 
engagement has played an important role in the Summer Learning and 
Enrichment Collaborative (SLEC). Several SLEC sessions have provided 
SEAs, LEAs, and other participants with support on developing 
partnerships for family engagement in high-needs communities, creating 
authentic partnerships with marginalized families and communities, and 
meeting whole student and family needs through collaborative 
partnerships at school.
    The Department looks forward to expanding and building upon these 
efforts.
    Question. How does the Department monitor and support the 
coordination and integration of parent and family engagement strategies 
under Title I-A with other relevant Federal programs?
    Answer. Under ESEA section 1116, an LEA receiving Title I, Part A 
funds must develop a written parent and family engagement policy in 
collaboration with parents and family members of participating 
students. Among other things, the policy must describe how, to the 
extent feasible, the agency will coordinate and integrate Title I 
parent and family engagement strategies with strategies under other 
relevant Federal, State, and local laws and programs. An LEA's policy 
also must describe how it will annually evaluate of the content and 
effectiveness of the parent and family engagement policy, including 
identifying barriers to participation, with particular attention to 
parents who are economically disadvantaged, disabled, have limited 
English proficiency, have limited literacy, or are of any racial or 
ethnic minority background. The Department monitors ESEA section 1116, 
Parent and Family Engagement, as part of the Title I, Part A monitoring 
protocol (available at: https://oese.ed.gov/files/2020/08/SEA-Protocol-
Title-I.docx). Within the protocols, the Department specifically asks 
each SEA it monitors to describe how it reviews LEA parent and family 
engagement policies and practices to ensure the LEA meets the 
requirements of section 1116, including those referenced above. In 
addition, the Department asks each SEA to describe how, in its review 
of the LEA's parent and family engagement policies and practices, it 
ensures that the LEA's parent and family engagement policies provides 
opportunities for the participation of all parents and family members 
(including parents and family members who have limited English 
proficiency, parents and family members with disabilities, and parents 
and family members of migratory children) and provides information and 
school reports, in a format and, to the extent practicable, in a 
language that parents understand. The Department asks that each SEA 
submit its process to review LEA policies and procedures for family 
engagement as evidence during the monitoring review.
    Additionally, the Department of Education has an Office of 
Communications and Outreach that has a Family and Community Engagement 
Team. The goal of the Team is to expand efforts to help schools, 
districts, and states better engage families in education. This team 
works to monitor and support the coordination and integration of parent 
and family engagements strategies under Title I, Part A (and other 
Titles) with other relevant Federal programs.
    Question. The fiscal year 2022 Annual Performance Plan identifies a 
goal of improving access to quality educational programs in 
correctional settings.
    Please identify the programs and strategies involved in improving 
access to quality educational programs in correctional settings.
    Answer. The Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education's 
Integrated Education and Training (IET) in Corrections Project will 
identify, develop, and document IET in corrections models to 
demonstrate how to extend existing secondary-postsecondary pathway 
models to include the corrections system. The project is intended to 
provide strategies that can be disseminated and replicated.
    Second Chance Pell (an Experimental Site Initiative) launched in 
2016 and allowed 67 colleges and universities enroll incarcerated 
students using Pell Grants on an experimental basis. In 2020, the 
program was expanded to allow an additional 67 colleges and 
universities to serve even more students. On July 30, 2021, the 
Department announced a further expansion of Second Chance Pell to gain 
critical insights about how to reinstate Pell Grant eligibility within 
correctional facilities, consistent with the implementation of the 
provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 that will 
expand Pell Grant eligibility for all eligible incarcerated students on 
July 1, 2023. The Department has announced plans to publish regulations 
on the program prior to its implementation and held public hearings in 
June of 2021 to that end.
    The Department has already taken steps to implement changes to the 
Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which incarcerated 
students and education institutions alike have reported as a major 
stumbling block in implementing college-in-prison programming. For 
example, for the 2021-2022 award year FAFSA, the Department has removed 
the impact of responses to questions about Selective Service 
registration and requirements around drug convictions. These questions 
will be removed entirely from future FAFSAs.
    Question. How will the Department work with relevant Federal 
agencies on this goal?
    Answer. The Department currently staffs interagency working groups 
including the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice, the Legal 
Aid Interagency Roundtable, and the Interagency Working Group for Youth 
Programs. The Department liaises on a regular basis with other Federal 
agencies including the Departments of Justice, Labor, Health and Human 
Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to update these 
agencies on Departmental initiatives, such as Pell reinstatement, that 
are focused on quality educational program in correctional settings. 
The Department also works collaboratively with these agencies as they 
implement programming for incarcerated.
    Question. CRDC data from the 2017-18 school year survey show that 
Black students represented 15 percent of student enrollment but 38 
percent of students who received one or more out-of-school suspensions. 
Such discipline contributes to lost instructional time and negative 
life outcomes.
    Please describe planned activities for how the Department will 
support a reduction in racial disparities in school discipline.
    Answer. The Department is aware of these and other disparities in 
the administration of school discipline nationwide--and the adverse 
impacts that these disparities have on students--and is actively 
planning to address these issues. The Department anticipates issuing 
new guidance following its 2018 rescission of the Dear Colleague letter 
on Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline and related 
materials, which provided guidance to schools on how to identify, 
avoid, and remedy discrimination based on race, color, or national 
origin in the design and administration of school discipline and create 
a positive school climate. As part of that process, on May 11, 2021, 
the Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Civil Rights 
Division of the U.S. Department of Justice organized a virtual 
convening session, Brown 67 Years Later: Examining Disparities in 
School Discipline and the Pursuit of Safe and Inclusive Schools, where 
students, educators, school administrators, civil rights lawyers, and 
researchers considered the impact of exclusionary school discipline 
policies and practices on our nation's students, particularly students 
of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ students. As a follow 
up to the convening, on June 8, 2021, OCR published a Request for 
Information (RFI), seeking public comments on what guidance schools and 
school districts need to ensure all students attend welcoming, 
supportive, and safe schools. As stated in the RFI, OCR recognizes that 
students may experience multiple forms of discrimination at once and 
encourages commenters to identify and address individual and 
intersectional discrimination as appropriate. OCR expects that the 
public comments in response to the RFI will inform future decisions 
about what policy guidance, technical assistance, or other resources 
would assist schools that serve students in pre-K through grade 12 with 
designing and administering school discipline in a nondiscriminatory 
manner and improving school climate and safety. The comment period for 
the RFI closed on July 23, 2021, and OCR is in the process of reviewing 
the comments received.
    Question. The fiscal year 2022 President's budget proposes to 
continue authority for performance partnership pilot and proposes a 
priority for such pilots to include communities disproportionately 
impacted by COVID-19.
    What are the Department's plans for inviting new applications for 
performance partnership pilots?
    How will these pilots be informed by the national evaluation 
released earlier this year, including the recommendations for more 
planning time, additional guidance and technical assistance, and 
support of systems change through developing and implementing related 
metrics?
    Answer. The Department, as part of the ongoing Administration 
transition, is continuing to evaluate the lessons learned from previous 
Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3), including 
recommendations from the national evaluation, and how best to position 
the program for maximum impact in the context of State and local needs 
arising from the COVID-19 pandemic (including any flexibilities that 
could facilitate more effective use of ARP funds), as well as other 
Administration priorities.
    Question. The ``Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 
2018'' includes key provisions related to developing a multi-year 
learning agenda, evaluation plan, improving coordination of data 
government at the Department, and improving accessibility of education 
data.
    What is the Department's timeline for release of its multi-year 
learning agenda? Please describe stakeholder consultations that have 
occurred or will occur during its development.
    Answer. Per OMB guidance, the Department will publish its multi-
year Learning Agenda for fiscal year 22-26 in February 2022, concurrent 
with the release of the President's fiscal year 2023 Budget. 
Consultation with stakeholders will include a broad Request for 
Information published in the Federal Register, along with targeted 
outreach to specific communities based on their role (e.g., chief state 
school officers) or area of emphasis (e.g., researchers focused on, or 
advocacy organizations related to, Federal student aid).
    Question. When will the Department release its evaluation plan?
    Answer. Per OMB guidance, the Department will publish its fiscal 
year 2023 Annual Evaluation Plan in February 2022, concurrent with the 
release of the Presidents' fiscal year 2023 Budget. The Department's 
fiscal year 22 Annual Evaluation Plan, which was delayed so that 
elements of the document could be better aligned to the Secretary's 
priorities and the Department's strategic planning efforts, will be 
posted in August 2021 to https://ed.gov/data.
    Question. What is the Department's timeline for implementing other 
provisions of the Act?
    Answer. ED's implementation of the Evidence Act is informed by the 
recommendations of the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, the 
Federal Data Strategy's Principles and Practices, and the Office of 
Management and Budget's Phase 1 guidance on Evidence Act implementation 
(M-19-23). Our implementation also is informed by discovery and 
assessment activities in our own agency that led to a coherent ED Data 
Strategy that now serves as ED's roadmap to data maturity.
    The ED Data Strategy--the first of its kind for the U.S. Department 
of Education--was released in December of 2020. The four ED Data 
Strategy goals are highly interdependent with cross-cutting objectives 
requiring a highly collaborative effort across ED's offices.
  --The strategy calls for strengthening data governance to administer 
        the data it uses for operations, answer important questions, 
        and meet legal requirements. To that end, we are developing a 
        holistic agency-wide framework with established data governance 
        structures, functions, roles, policies, and procedures and 
        developing a comprehensive data quality framework for the 
        agency.
  --To accelerate evidence-building and enhance operational 
        performance, it requires that ED make data more interoperable 
        and accessible for tasks ranging from routine reporting to 
        advanced analytics. To inform decisionmaking processes, we are 
        working to connect fragmented data from disparate sources, so 
        we can answer critical questions, and strengthen grant 
        programs' performance and accountability measures.
  --The high volume and evolving nature of ED's data tasks necessitates 
        a focus on developing a workforce with skills commensurate with 
        a modern data culture in a digital age. We are developing an ED 
        data workforce plan to support long-term planning for our data-
        related human capital needs; we are also building the capacity 
        of our data workforce while we increase data literacy among all 
        staff.
  --At the same time, safely and securely providing access for 
        researchers and policymakers helps foster innovation and 
        evidence-based decisionmaking at the Federal, state, and local 
        levels. Aligned with these efforts, we are developing an Open 
        Data Plan, while awaiting OMB guidance on final requirements 
        for that plan; we are also building toward a comprehensive data 
        inventory to catalog data assets for both external open data 
        and internal sources and will incrementally expand the number 
        of Department data assets listed in the Federal Data Catalog.
    Achieving the four ED Data Strategy goals requires a concerted 
effort to address short-term challenges and thoughtfully set a course 
for long-term data maturity. Each Goal includes a set of objectives--
designed to be completed in the next 12 to 18 months--that form an 
action plan for tackling short-term challenges to continue building the 
foundation of a data-driven culture. Future objectives under the four 
goals will iteratively represent the next set of implementation 
challenges to raise ED offices and the agency as a whole to an even 
higher level of data maturity.
                                 ______
                                 
            Questions Submitted by Senator Richard J. Durbin
    Question. The Department notified me and other Members of Congress 
on February 13, that Secretary DeVos had decided not to extend the 
closed school discharge look-back period for students who attended 
schools owned by Education Corporation of America (ECA). As the 
Department has previously stated, ``during the months of March, April, 
and May 2018, ACICS placed many locations of ECA on either campus-level 
show-cause or campus-level compliance warning due to student 
achievement rates'' and on ``May 8, 2018, ACICS placed ECA on show-
cause due to adverse action by another agency.''
    Actions toward the removal of accreditation are a clear example of 
exceptional circumstances as provided under 34 CFR Sec. 685.214. Will 
you reconsider this decision?
    Answer. Question answered elsewhere in this document.
    Question. In that same February notification, the Department noted 
that Secretary DeVos had not yet made a decision on the request from me 
and other Members of Congress made on December 21, 2018, to extend the 
look back period for Vatterott students--which also met the exceptional 
circumstances bar in the law.
    Will you look into this matter and render a decision?
    Answer. The Department is cognizant of the significant harm to 
students that occurs when a college suddenly closes. We are reviewing a 
number of school closures to determine whether an extension of the 
look-back window is appropriate, and hope to be able to share more on 
the results of that review soon.
    Question. On June 23, 2021, the Department provided a response to a 
letter I sent on October 29, 2020, with several colleagues to then-
Secretary DeVos. Secretary DeVos failed to respond. Your Department's 
response mentioned the announced rulemaking in several of the areas 
mentioned in the letter--including closed school discharge.
    While I'm pleased the Department is taking up many of these issues 
in rulemaking, when can we expect a decision from you to the specific 
requests in the letter--related to extending closed school look-back 
dates?
    Answer. We are reviewing a number of school closures to determine 
whether an extension of the look-back window is appropriate, and hope 
to be able to share more on the results of that review soon.
    Question. Since June 2018, the Department has released borrower 
defense data on a quarterly basis:
    Please provide a breakdown of ``total denied'' borrower defense 
claims to date by institution.
    Answer. Beginning in December 2019, the term ``total denied'' was 
no longer used in the quarterly borrower defense reports. The term 
``total ineligible'' is used to refer to applications in which the 
borrower has been notified that their claim does not meet the 
requirements for a borrower defense to repayment discharge.
    Question. Please provide a breakdown of ``total ineligible'' 
borrower defense claims to date by institution.
    Answer. An Excel file providing the requested data as of June 30, 
2021, is enclosed.






























    Question. Please provide a breakdown of ``total closed'' borrower 
defense claims to date by institution.
    Answer. An Excel file providing the requested data as of June 30, 
2021, is enclosed.




    Question. How many schools are being investigated for misconduct 
due to borrower defense claims filed by their students?
    Answer. The Department does not comment on deliberative, 
preliminary, or ongoing investigative work, including disclosing a 
number or list of institutions that may be subject to such work until 
the outcomes of any investigations have been issued to the institutions 
or entities. Nevertheless, the Department notes that it has opened 
numerous investigations in 2021 and will be holding schools accountable 
where appropriate. For schools with findings of misrepresentation or 
misconduct, the Department will use evidence in connection with our 
borrower defense fact-finding process.
    Question. Please provide a list of for-profit colleges for which 
the Department is aware of pending state or Federal investigations or 
lawsuits--and the corresponding state or Federal entities.
    Answer. The Department does not maintain a formal list of for-
profit colleges with pending state or Federal investigations or 
lawsuits. However, the Department collaborates closely with law 
enforcement partners where appropriate and requests evidence and input 
when their investigations of for-profit colleges result in evidence 
that the Department may consider in connection with its efforts to hold 
schools accountable.
    Question. For how many borrowers whose borrower defense 
applications have been approved has the Department or its agents made 
corrected reports to credit reporting agencies? What percentage?
    Answer. FSA requires our vendors to remove the credit tradeline for 
any loans that are approved for 100 percent borrower defense relief.
    Question. How many and which institutions is the Department 
currently investigating for purposes of making findings related to 
borrower defense?
    Answer. The Department does not comment on deliberative, 
preliminary, or ongoing investigative work, including disclosing a 
number or list of institutions that may be subject to such work until 
the outcomes of any investigations have been issued to the institutions 
or entities. To the extent that a Department investigation results in 
obtaining evidence that may be relevant to borrower defense claims, the 
evidence will be given to FSA's Borrower Defense Group for use in its 
fact-finding process. Additionally, the Department is in the process of 
increasing staffing within FSA's Investigations Group to advance these 
efforts.
    Question. Since the 2014 collapse and 2015 bankruptcy of Corinthian 
Colleges, Inc., many for-profit colleges have followed suit--closing 
their doors as part of a planned teach-out or shuttering precipitously. 
In these cases, students are eligible for Federal closed school 
discharges. Many are also eligible for Federal student loan discharges 
through the Higher Education Act's borrower defense provision as a 
result of their institution's fraud and misconduct. We cannot let 
students be left holding the bag. At the same time, the Department's 
enforcement failures, failures to hold accreditors accountable, 
attempts to roll back the Gainful Employment and Borrower Defense 
rules--including provisions allowing students to hold institutions 
directly accountable in court for misconduct--mean that taxpayers are 
ultimately on the hook.
    Please provide the cumulative cost of approved closed school and 
borrower defense discharges (including automatic closed school 
discharges under the 2016 Borrower Defense rule) associated with for-
profit colleges since 2014.
    Answer. As of June 30, 2021, the cumulative effectuated closed 
school and borrower defense discharges amount is approximately $2.2 
billion. This includes almost $1.1 billion in borrower defense 
discharges and more than $1.1 billion in closed school discharges, 
including automatic closed school discharges. The Department is 
continuing to process the discharges of the roughly 91,800 borrower 
defense approvals that have been announced in press releases in recent 
months.
    Question. Please provide the cumulative amount that the Department 
has recouped from institutions for closed school discharge costs 
associated with for-profit colleges since 2014.
    Answer. The Department's recoupment of loan discharge liabilities 
is a trailing process which follows the Department's quantification of 
actual discharged loan amounts and assertion of liabilities. In 
general, when an institution closes, it is required to submit a 
``Close-Out Audit'' report to the Department. When FSA resolves a 
close-out audit, it quantifies closed school loan discharges and 
asserts liabilities in the final audit determination for the close-out 
audit report. FSA may also pursue additional recovery of liabilities 
arising after the close-out audit is resolved. In all cases, the 
Department must provide institutions with appeal rights to challenge 
asserted liabilities and the Department does not pursue collections 
while an appeal is pending. In addition, the circumstances of some 
school closures may require the Department to pursue recoveries through 
protracted bankruptcy proceedings. To that end, the Department has 
recouped more than $10.4 million from institutions for closed school 
discharge costs associated with for-profit colleges since 2014.
    Question. Please provide the cumulative amount that the Department 
has recouped from institutions for borrower defense discharge costs 
associated with for-profit colleges since 2014.
    Answer. The Department has not recouped any costs associated with 
borrower defense discharges from institutions. All approved claims to 
date relate to closed schools.
    Question. According to the April 2021 borrower defense report, the 
Department currently has nearly 108,000 pending borrower defense 
claims. Please provide:
    The average length of time the 108,000 claims have been pending;
    Answer. The average length of time that all applications have been 
pending as of June 30, 2021, is 748 days. This is not specific to the 
108,000 claims referenced, but rather the total number of pending 
applications, which includes those in the Awaiting Adjudication and 
Pending Notification categories, as of June 30, 2021.
    Question. The percentage of pending claims related to for-profit 
institutions (including institutions that have been for-profit 
institutions within the past 10 years), public institutions, and 
private not-for-profit institutions respectively;
    Answer. As of June 30, 2021, 88 percent of total pending 
applications were related to for-profit institutions; 4 percent were 
related to public institutions; and 8 percent were related to private 
not-for-profit institutions. A small number of applications (less than 
1 percent) include those without a school assigned and those involving 
foreign institutions.
    Question. A breakdown of the 108,000 pending claims by institution; 
and
    Answer. An Excel file providing the requested data as of June 30, 
2021, is enclosed. Please note that institutions may appear on the list 
several times because the data was pulled based on the institutions' 8-
digit OPEID.






















    Question. A list of all group discharge applications the Department 
has received from State attorneys general including the date submitted, 
by whom, the school/programs, and the number of covered borrowers and 
the status of each application.
    Answer. Information regarding the group discharge requests from 
attorneys general is provided in the enclosed file.




    Question. How many of the applications referenced in (d) are 
pending? How many have been granted? How many have been denied? Please 
provide a list of each.
    Answer. All of the AG submissions referenced in (d) are currently 
under review.
    Question. For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 
2021 how many borrowers covered by a group discharge application are in 
default on their Federal student loans?
    Answer. At this time, the Department cannot narrow its reporting to 
individual applications submitted by attorneys general. Most of the 
attorney general submissions did not specifically identify the 
borrowers covered by their group requests, and the Department is 
currently working to identify the borrowers at issue.
    Question. For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 
2021 how many loans of the borrowers covered by a group discharge 
application have been certified by the Department of Education for 
Treasury offset?
    Answer. Please see answer to question 10(f), above.
    Question. For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 
2021 how many borrowers covered by a group discharge application have 
been subject to an administrative wage garnishment order put in place 
by the Department?
    Answer. Please see answer to question 10(f), above.
    Question. For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 
2021 what are the total dollar amounts of Federal student loans 
(interest and principal) covered by each group discharge application 
from a State attorney general?
    Answer. Please see answer to question 10(f), above.
    Question. For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 
what are the total dollar amounts collected through the Treasury Offset 
Program on defaulted student loans covered by each group discharge 
application from a State attorney general?
    Answer. Please see answer to question 10(f), above.
    Question. In January 2017, State attorneys general--led by 
Illinois--provided the Department with program-level enrollment data 
for borrowers in their states that were covered by the Department's 
Corinthian job placement misrepresentation findings. How many of these 
borrowers have still not received relief despite being eligible?
    Answer. Due to data limitations, FSA is unable to respond to this 
question at this time. While the Illinois Attorney General did provide 
a borrower list in December 2016, the list did not contain the unique 
identifiers (Social Security Number and/or date of birth) necessary to 
confidently match to borrowers in FSA's systems. The Department is now 
working to identify any borrowers submitted by the Illinois Attorney 
General and any other attorneys general who may be covered by the job 
placement rate findings, as that work was not done previously.
    Question. 34 CFR 685.300 governs Program Participation Agreements--
the contracts between schools and the Department of Education. CFR 
685.300(e) prohibited schools from making or enforcing class action 
bans and mandatory pre-dispute arbitration agreements.
    Answer. As a preliminary observation, the Program Participation 
Agreement (PPA) is primarily governed by 34 C.F.R. Sec. 668.14. 34 
C.F.R. Sec. 685.300 provides additional participation requirements when 
a school participates in the Direct Loan program. The provisions of 34 
C.F.R. Sec. 685.300 are inapplicable if an institution elects not to 
participate in the Direct Loan program. The provisions were removed 
effective July 1, 2020. Therefore, the response to question a. extends 
only to June 30, 2020.
    Question. In how many schools' Program Participation Agreements did 
the Department include this prohibition?
    Answer. From July 21, 2019 and through June 30, 2020, the 
Department created and executed Program Participation Agreements (PPAs) 
that have included specific language referencing class action bans and 
pre-dispute arbitration agreements for 1,155 schools. As of July 29, 
2021, 1,070 of these schools were approved to participate in the Direct 
Loan program, and 85 schools were not approved to participate in the 
Direct Loan program. PPAs created before July 21, 2019, contained 
overarching language indicating that schools were required to comply 
with all Title IV, Higher Education Act and Direct Loan program 
participation requirements, which would extend to the restrictions 
relating to class action suits and pre-dispute arbitration agreements.
    Question. In how many instances did the Department seek to enforce 
this prohibition? What actions did it take?
    Answer. The Department does not comment on deliberative, 
preliminary, or ongoing investigative work, including the enforcement 
of the Title IV regulations. Generally speaking, through our program 
review authority, we will monitor compliance with the requirements that 
schools end enforcement of any existing mandatory pre-dispute 
arbitration clauses and class action restrictions in enrollment 
agreements.
    Question. Are you aware of any class actions that schools 
participating in Title IV forced into arbitration while the prohibition 
was in effect?
    Answer. The Department is aware of two competing cases that relate 
to the prior regulation, which is no longer in effect. The regulation 
itself was subject to multiple implementation delays and litigation. In 
Kourembanas v. InterCoast Colleges, a class action in the District of 
Maine, 17-cv-00331, the court granted a motion to compel arbitration. 
And in Young v. Grand Canyon University, the appellate court reversed 
the Northern District of Georgia's initial decision to compel 
arbitration in Carr et al. v. Grand Canyon University, 19-cv-01707.
    Question. Please provide a list of all institutions for which the 
Department currently holds a letter of credit or other surety and the 
amount of such letter of credit or other surety.
    Answer. Enclosed is an Excel file containing data on the Letters of 
Credit (LOC) and other surety that the Department held as of July 14, 
2021. As of July 14, 2021, the Department held 403 LOCs and other 
surety from institutions, totaling more than $607.3 million in 
financial protection. The first tab of the Excel file contains 
institutional and other data regarding the LOCs held by the Department 
as of July 14, 2021. The second tab provides the field definitions and 
descriptions of the reasons why a LOC was requested from a listed 
institution. Please note that this report differs from reports posted 
to FSA's Data Center identifying LOCs requested by the Department 
during an Award Year period. It is a ``snapshot'' of LOCs held by the 
Department as of July 14, 2021 and it provides the most recent 
information recorded in FSA's data sources regarding these LOCs. The 
report does not provide historical context for the LOCs held as of July 
14, 2021 in cases where FSA may have required an institution to renew 
or amend a previously provided LOC. In a limited number of cases, the 
report also identifies and includes funds held on deposit by the 
Department in lieu of a LOC.














    Question. Regarding institutional compliance with the incentive 
compensation rules to date, please provide:
    The number of program reviews, investigations, audits, or other 
reviews that have examined institutional compliance with the 
requirements of incentive compensation;
    Answer. The Department has issued determinations for 60 program 
reviews that were initiated during fiscal years 2017--20 and fiscal 
year 2021 through June 30, 2021 that examined institutional compliance 
with incentive compensation requirements.
    The Department received and finalized its review and audit 
resolution process for more than 15,900 compliance audit reports whose 
audit period included any portion of fiscal years 2017, 2018, 2019, 
2020, or 2021 through July 28, 2021. The compliance audit reports were 
prepared either in accordance with the OIG's Guide for Audits of 
Proprietary Institutions and For Compliance Attestation Engagements of 
Third Party Servicers Administering Title IV Programs, or in accordance 
with the OMB Compliance Supplements (2 CFR Part 200, Appendix XI--
Compliance Supplement) for audits reports prepared under the Single 
Audit Act. The scope of these audits included audit objectives for an 
independent auditor to determine whether the auditees did or did not 
comply with the incentive compensation prohibitions.
    Additionally, the Department conducted close to 300 ``New School 
Visits'' during fiscal years 2017--20 and fiscal year 2021 through July 
28, 2021 that reviewed incentive compensation requirements. A New 
School Visit is a process focused on the start-up issues and needs of 
schools that are new Title IV participants or that might not have 
recent Title IV experience. A New School Visit is not a program review, 
but rather a tool used to identify and eliminate any weaknesses that, 
if left unaddressed, could result in improper use of Federal funds and 
possible liabilities for the school. A standard component of a New 
School Visit includes a discussion of incentive compensation 
requirements, which may lead to the identification of a compliance 
deficiency.
    Question. how many program reviews, investigations, audits, or 
other reviews found;
    Answer. The Department has identified 10 instances of incentive 
compensation noncompliance in the population of finalized program 
reviews, investigations, and other reviews conducted in fiscal years 
2017--20 and fiscal year 2021 through July 28, 2020, and finalized 
compliance audit resolutions whose audit period included any part of 
fiscal years 2017-20 and fiscal year 2021 through July 28, 2021.
    Question. Noncompliance with the requirements of incentive 
compensation; and the actions the Department has taken to ensure that 
institutions correct deficiencies in compliance with the requirements 
of incentive compensation
    Answer. The Department has issued fine actions totaling $3,411,002 
for four institutions in fiscal years 2017--20 and fiscal year 2021 
through July 28, 2021.
    Question. In recent years, several for-profit colleges have 
attempted to convert to not-for-profit status in an effort to avoid the 
stigma associated with the predatory for-profit college industry and to 
avoid regulations meant to protect students and taxpayers. Dream Center 
Education Holdings, which collapsed leaving thousands of students 
stranded and whose conversion received preliminary Department approval, 
is just one example. Please provide a list of all for-profit 
conversions in the last 10 years including those pending (with current 
status), previously approved, and denied or withdrawn.
    Answer. An Excel file providing the requested information is 
enclosed. Within the last 10 years, the Department has received 78 
applications for a for-profit to nonprofit conversion. Of those 78 
applications, the Department has made final decisions on 40 conversion 
requests as of August 1, 2021. Of those 40 decisions, 37 were 
approved.\*\ The Department denied Argosy University's request for 
nonprofit recognition. The Department also denied Grand Canyon 
University's and the American Academy of Art College's requests for 
nonprofit recognition when it approved their respective Change in 
Ownership applications. Additionally, 18 applications, including pre-
acquisition review applications, were closed due to a voluntary 
withdrawal or school closure. There are 19 outstanding conversion 
requests, and one pending pre-acquisition application where the Change 
in Ownership date is imminent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \*\ In August 2016, the four main locations operated by the Center 
for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE) were originally denied their 
conversion request. Following the receipt of additional information and 
an updated valuation in October 2018, the Department determined that it 
would be appropriate to grant those institutions conditional approval 
to convert to nonprofit institutions and issued Provisional Program 
Participation Agreements in December 2018. The Department's December 
2018 determination of CEHE's nonprofit status--based on the new 
information CEHE provided--also provided a basis to dismiss a 
longstanding lawsuit filed against the Department, because that was the 
relief sought in the lawsuit. Just recently, under pressure from 
further reviews of its conduct by FSA, CEHE made the decision to close 
its remaining campuses effective Aug. 1, 2021. Additionally, one 
approved Change in Ownership transaction involving Kaplan University 
and Purdue University resulted in Kaplan University's conversion to 
public institution status (rather than to nonprofit institution 
status).




























    Question. Please provide, disaggregated for Corinthian Colleges, 
Inc., ITT Educational Services, Inc., Charlotte School of Law, 
Education Corporation of America, Vatterott Colleges, and Dream Center 
Education Holdings, respectively:
    The number of borrowers and the total loan amount of such borrowers 
for whom the Department estimates are eligible for the applicable 
closed school discharge window (either 120 days or as extended due to 
``exceptional circumstances'');
    The number of borrowers and the total loan amount of borrowers who 
applied for a non-automatic, traditional closed school discharge;
    The number of borrowers and the total loan amount that has been 
discharged through non-automatic, traditional closed school discharge;
    The number of borrowers and the total loan amount that has been 
discharged through automatic closed school discharge; and
    The number of borrowers and the total loan amount of such borrowers 
in some form of debt collection (Treasury offset, wage garnishment, 
assigned to PCAs).
    Answer. Please find an Excel file with the requested data enclosed.
    
    
    Question. Your predecessor allowed borrower defense claims to 
balloon at the Department without processing any claim for more than a 
year. At one time, the backlog had grown to several hundred thousand 
claims. As pressure mounted to clear the backlog--of her own creation--
Secretary DeVos issued blanket and cursory denials of tens of thousands 
of claims. Many of these are potentially meritorious claims that were 
simply cast aside by the previous administration that always looked at 
borrower defense as more of a problem to ignore than a mechanism for 
justice and fairness. What steps will you take to review the DeVos 
Department's borrower defense denials?
    Answer. The Department agrees that all borrowers who have filed 
borrower defense to repayment applications deserve a thorough and fair 
review that is done as expediently as possible. While the Department 
continues to approve new categories of borrower defense claims, I have 
asked Federal Student Aid to conduct extensive outreach to state 
attorneys general, other government agencies, and any other parties 
that might be in possession of evidence showing institutional 
misconduct. I have also asked FSA to reopen any borrower defense 
denials when new evidence, or any other evidence in FSA's possession, 
indicates misconduct or other concerns that were not considered during 
the initial adjudication. In addition, FSA is conducting a review of 
our policies related to borrower defense and will reopen any denied 
claims based upon any of those policy changes.
    The Department is working diligently to process borrower defense 
claims in a timely manner. We are aware of the significant number of 
borrowers with a denied claim and are reviewing potential options for 
these borrowers.
    Question. You recently announced an ambitious higher education 
regulatory agenda which will include topics like gainful employment, 
for-profit conversions, borrower defense, financial responsibility, 
administrative capability. While I'm pleased the Department is 
undertaking this process, it is lengthy and the Department's rules 
subject to litigation. As it goes through the negotiated rulemaking 
process, how will the Department--under your leadership--use its 
extensive existing authorities to engage in aggressive oversight and 
enforcement activities related to predatory for-profit colleges?
    Answer. The Department of Education is working to ensure stronger 
oversight of predatory institutions through multiple venues. I expect 
that the rulemaking process will help the Department to design far 
stronger protections against predatory practices by institutions. 
Additionally, the Office of Federal Student Aid is working to ensure 
careful oversight of institutions, investigating reports of problematic 
practices and increasing monitoring of institutions that receive 
Federal aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. The new Chief 
Operating Officer of FSA, Richard Cordray, is committed to ensuring 
consumer protection is embedded in how FSA serves students and 
borrowers.
    Question. During the Obama Administration, then-Secretary Arne 
Duncan created a Federal interagency taskforce to coordinate oversight 
and enforcement efforts related to for-profit colleges. The task force 
was based on a bill that the late Rep. Elijah Cummings and I wrote 
called the Proprietary Education Oversight Coordination Improvement 
Act. The task force was successful in coordinating Federal action in 
response to misconduct by several for-profit colleges--including a $100 
million DeVry settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. Would you 
be open to recreating this task force that was disbanded by Secretary 
DeVos?
    Answer. The Department is deeply interested in strengthening 
oversight of misconduct across higher education. The interagency task-
force created by the Obama Administration provided a critical 
opportunity for collaboration to identify potential illegal practices 
and misrepresentations. The Department is already working to 
reestablish those relationships with other Federal agencies through 
MOUs and data-sharing agreements, as well as opening the lines of 
communication with state Attorneys General, to improve accountability 
in higher education.
    Question. As part of the American Rescue Plan (Public Law 117-2), 
Congress closed the 90/10 loophole which incentivized for-profit 
colleges to prey on student veterans and servicemembers. I understand 
that the bill prohibited the Department from promulgating regulations 
to implement the statutory change before October 2021. In the meantime, 
will the Department release Federal 90/10 data which counts accurately 
as Federal revenue all revenue received by for-profit colleges from 
Federal taxpayer-funded educational assistance programs? This would 
include Department of Veterans Affairs GI Bill and Department of 
Defense Tuition Assistance funding. While this data could not be used 
for enforcement purposes yet, it would be very helpful to the public's 
understanding of the problem. In fact, the Department released this 
data, upon my request, in December 2016. On December 10, 2018, Chairman 
Takano, Senator Carper, Representative Cohen, Ranking Member Murray, 
Chairwoman DeLauro, Ranking Member Reed, Chairman Adam Smith, Senator 
Blumenthal, Representative Susan Davis, and I wrote to then-Secretary 
DeVos asking her to continue this data release. She refused during her 
tenure.
    Answer. As referenced in your question, section 2013 the American 
Rescue Plan Act modifies section 487(a)(24) of the Higher Education Act 
of 1965 (HEA) to require a proprietary institution to derive not less 
than 10 percent of such institution's revenues from sources other than 
``Federal funds that are disbursed or delivered to or on behalf of a 
student to be used to attend such institution.'' The Department 
unfortunately does not have an updated report covering Federal 90/10 
data that counts accurately as Federal revenue all revenue received by 
for-profit colleges from Federal taxpayer-funded educational assistance 
programs report to release to you. Additionally, the Department does 
not maintain the requisite VA, DoD, and other Federal education 
benefits program funding data to prepare an updated 90/10 impact 
analysis.
    The Department wishes to clarify that although it released a 90/10 
data report in 2016 covering VA and DoD funds, the Department did not 
prepare that report. The Department's 2016 press release indicates DoD 
and VA prepared that 90/10 estimate. The Department's December 21, 
2016, transmittal letter identifies significant data limitations and 
includes a cautionary note against using the data to draw inferences 
about individual institutions or trends. The Department's subsequent 
March 28, 2019, response to your December 2018 letter reiterated these 
themes.
    Due to the complexity and individualized nature of the 90/10 
evaluation including, but not limited to, a requirement for an 
institution to use the cash basis of accounting under section 
487(d)(1)(A) of the HEA, an institution's 90/10 compliance is disclosed 
in an institution's audited financial statement notes. To perform an 
accurate analysis of the impact of the statutory change, an evaluation 
must be conducted at the individual student account receivable level 
for every recipient of any type of Federal taxpayer-funded educational 
assistance program who attended every proprietary school. This type of 
analysis is necessary in view of the requirements. The Department has 
no confidence that any other analytical approach would yield the 
accurate assessment requested.
    The Department appreciates your longstanding concern with 
institutions receiving Federal education benefits from multiple funding 
sources. However, the knowing release of a report that uses 
questionable data and depends on unsound assumptions could have harmful 
effects in advance of the upcoming rulemaking, including possibly 
misinforming and misleading members of the public who may seek to 
forecast the anticipated impact of new rules, which may undermine 
public trust. The Department is also concerned that the release of an 
inaccurate report would violate the Government Accountability Office's 
(GAO's) Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government (GAO-
14-704G), especially Principle 13, ``Use Quality Data.''
    Question. Over the last four fiscal years, this Subcommittee--with 
the support of Chairman Blunt and Ranking Member Murray--has provided 
$24 million to an Open Textbooks Pilot to expand the use of open 
textbooks on college campuses to achieve savings for students. While 
this program may be small, it has energized students and faculty across 
the country who see open textbooks--free, high-quality alternatives to 
costly traditional textbooks--as key to reducing student debt and 
improving learning outcomes. Many students don't purchase required 
course materials because they are too costly. It puts them at an 
academic disadvantage and hits low-income, first-generation, and 
students of color hardest. So, on a bipartisan basis, Congress created 
this program. In early June, the Department made nine new awards with 
its fiscal year 2021 appropriation--funding down the slate of fiscal 
year 2020 applications. I am pleased that the Department took 
Congressional directive and made a great number of awards. In order to 
do so though, the Department only funded 1 year of the applicants' 
projects. It was my understanding that if the Department took that 
step, it would fully fund those nine projects pending the appropriation 
of additional funds in fiscal year 2022.
    Please confirm that remains the Department's intention.
    How is that intention being relayed, with the appropriate caveats, 
to the 9 grantees?
    Answer. The Department worked extensively with Congress to identify 
and implement a funding strategy that would maximize the number of new 
awards in fiscal year 2021 that could be awarded with the $7 million in 
available funding, ultimately making nine new awards from the fiscal 
year 2020 slate. This strategy required a shift from the previous 
strategy of frontloading OTP grantees, an approach that fully paid all 
multi-year project costs with a single year's appropriation, but which 
consequently required making a much smaller number of awards. The 
larger number of awards enabled by the shift to incremental funding 
allowed roughly twice as many highly rated applicants to launch their 
projects in fiscal year 2021 as would have been possible with 
frontloading. The Department used approximately $5.9 million to pay 
first-year costs and approximately $1.1 million to partially pay down 
the second-year costs for the 2021 OTP cohort. We plan to use an 
estimated $8.3 million in fiscal year 2022 funds to pay remaining 
second- and third-year costs for this cohort, as shown in the fiscal 
year 2022 Congressional budget justification for this program.
    While the project period for these grantees does not begin until 
September 1, 2021, program staff have held post-award calls with the 
nine grantees to explain the impact of the change in funding strategies 
for the 2021 OTP cohort.
    Question. When you came before us, I asked you about the high 
percentage of denials under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) 
program. You voiced your support for PSLF and your determination that 
borrowers receive the forgiveness that they expected and to which they 
are entitled. PSLF reform is part of the higher education regulatory 
agenda that you have announced. What steps will you take 
administratively, outside of formal rulemaking, to help fix the 
problems with PSLF?
    Answer. As we continue investigating the challenges of PSLF, the 
Department is committed to undertaking a serious review of the PSLF 
program and to making improvements that will result in better access to 
relief for eligible borrowers. In addition to including PSLF on the 
regulatory agenda, we recently issued a Request for Information (RFI), 
inviting feedback on borrower experiences and possible policy solutions 
with the PSLF program, to identify broader areas for improvement. The 
Department has already begun to make improvements, including by 
launching and updating the PSLF Help Tool, by allowing lump sum and 
prepayments to count as qualifying payments, and by creating a single 
application for PSLF, Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF), and Employment 
Certification Forms (ECFs). We look forward to making additional 
administrative and operational improvements that help eligible 
borrowers access the benefits they have earned.
    Further, on October 6, 2021, the Department of Education announced 
an overhaul of the PSLF Program that it will implement over the next 
year to make the program live up to its promise. This policy will 
result in 22,000 borrowers who have consolidated loans--including 
previously ineligible loans--being immediately eligible for $1.74 
billion in forgiveness without the need for further action on their 
part. Another 27,000 borrowers could potentially qualify for an 
additional $2.82 billion in forgiveness if they certify additional 
periods of employment. All told, the Department estimates that over 
550,000 borrowers who have previously consolidated will see an increase 
in qualifying payments with the average borrower receiving another 2 
years of progress toward forgiveness. Many more will also see progress 
as borrowers consolidate into the Direct Loan program and apply for 
PSLF, and as the Department rolls out other changes in the weeks and 
months ahead.
    The first major change will result in a limited PSLF waiver that 
allows all payments by student borrowers to count toward PSLF, 
regardless of loan program or payment plan. This waiver will allow 
student borrowers to count all payments made on loans from the Federal 
Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program or Perkins Loan Program. It will 
also waive restrictions on the type of repayment plan and the 
requirement that payments be made in the full amount and on-time for 
all borrowers.
    Given this new policy, borrowers who currently have FFEL, Perkins, 
or other non-Direct Loans, will receive the benefit of this limited 
waiver if they apply to consolidate into the Direct Loan program and 
submit a PSLF form by October 31, 2022. The waiver applies to loans 
taken out by students.
    Also, these changes will allow active duty service members to count 
deferments and forbearances toward PSLF. This solves a problem for 
service members who have paused payments while on active duty but were 
not getting credit toward PSLF.
    The Department is automatically providing credit toward PSLF for 
military service members and Federal employees using Federal data 
matches. The Department will implement data matches next year to give 
these borrowers credit toward PSLF without an application.
    Finally, the Department is reviewing denied PSLF applications for 
errors and giving borrowers the ability to have their PSLF 
determinations reconsidered. These actions will help identify and 
address servicing errors or other issues that have prevented borrowers 
from getting the PSLF credit they deserve.
    Question. Students' Federal financial aid for higher education is 
dependent on their expected family contribution. For many students from 
low-income families, their expected family contribution qualifies them 
for Federal assistance in the form of a Pell Grant. To confirm accurate 
family contributions, some financial aid applications are flagged for 
additional verification. Past data from the Department shows that over 
half of Pell-eligible applicants were selected for verification in 
2015-2016. It is estimated that more than 1 in 5 low-income students 
selected for verification never complete the process, thus never end up 
receiving Federal financial aid. Students who receive Pell grants have 
much higher college retention rates than their peers who are Pell 
eligible but do not receive the aid. This data implies it is possible 
that the verification process is disproportionately harming the 
educational success of low-income students, which is the opposite 
intention of the Pell Grant program. The 2017/2018 Award Year ushered 
in a new verification model. The Quality Assurance Program ended, which 
had given institutions of higher education discretion on application 
verification, leaving the Department to select which students needed to 
be verified. The risk-model developed by the Department to identify 
which FASFA applications needed verification led to a drastically 
higher percentage of applications flagged. In fact, some schools 
reported that nearly 50 percent of Pell eligible students were selected 
for verification multiple times over their course of study even though 
their financial information hadn't changed.
    Please provide the metrics by which the Department selects which 
applications are to be verified.
    Answer. Prior to 2018, FSA relied solely on a Classification and 
Regression Tree (CART) model to choose FAFSA filers for financial 
verification. The CART model used combinations of Targeted Selection 
Criteria (TSC) to choose FAFSA filers for verification. In September 
2017, FSA funded the creation of an advanced Python-coded machine 
learning model (MLM) to improve FSA's verification selection model by 
better identifying applicants for whom an error on the FAFSA was more 
likely to impact their Expected Family Contribution and, ultimately, 
their Federal aid award. FSA has used this model since October 1, 2018. 
The MLM updates the criteria used for selection of FAFSA filers for 
verification to a gradient boosting classification and regression 
model. The metrics the model employs to choose FAFSA filers for 
verification include data from the FAFSA, as well as demographic data, 
in several complex algorithms. In certain cases, TSC are used to 
supplement MLM selection, and a small percentage of applicants are 
randomly selected to provide necessary data for model building and 
evaluation. As part of this single, overall selection process, a 
separate TSC model is used to select applicants for identity/fraud 
verification.
    Finally, for your awareness, in July we announced some 
modifications to our verification approach to the 2021-2022 FAFSA 
processing cycle in response to the challenges and barriers resulting 
from the ongoing national emergency by focusing solely on identity and 
fraud. We continue to evaluate potential approaches for upcoming cycles 
to ensure that they are balanced and equitable.
    Question. What percentage of students chosen for verification, did 
not complete, and failed their verification during the last award year 
under model?
    Answer. FSA uses the receipt of either a Pell Grant or Subsidized 
Direct Loan as a measure of whether an applicant successfully completes 
verification once selected. Of those selected for verification during 
the 2020-21 FAFSA cycle, 64.5 percent received either a Pell Grant or a 
Subsidized Direct Loan. Some students that submit a FAFSA do not enroll 
in an institution of higher education for a variety of reasons, so we 
would not expect this percentage to equal 100. Therefore, to understand 
the impact of the verification process on student enrollment, the 
Department compares this rate to the population not chosen for any type 
of verification. The rate for those not selected for verification 
receiving either a Pell Grant or a Subsidized Direct Loan is 56.8 
percent. Please note this data is as of July 28, 2021 and may change 
slightly as Award Year 2021 aid is finalized.
    Question. We have a student debt crisis that isn't going to resolve 
itself. Currently 45 million Americans hold more than $1.7 trillion in 
student loan debt. Student debt is larger than credit card debt in our 
nation. It is second only to mortgages when it comes to consumer debt. 
The average debt per student borrower is more than $37,000. Most of 
this is in Federal student loans. The student debt crisis is limiting 
young people's life and career choices. Americans are putting off 
starting a family and buying a home because of student debt. And it's 
not just young people. More than 8 million Americans over age 50 have 
student loan debt. For years, I have introduced legislation to fix the 
absurd way that the bankruptcy code treats student debt. If a person 
overextends himself on his credit card or goes into debt buying a car 
or a boat or a luxury watch, he can address those debts in bankruptcy. 
But the bankruptcy code provides no meaningful relief for student loan 
debt. In 1998, Congress put Federal student loans in the category of 
nondischargeable debts, along with alimony, child support, overdue 
taxes, and criminal fines. Right now, the only way a student borrower 
can get bankruptcy relief for student loans is if she can demonstrate 
``undue hardship.'' This standard is not defined in law, and courts 
have interpreted it to make it nearly impossible to meet. But, 
Secretary Cardona, you have the ability to help this situation. The 
Department of Education can set internal standards for when it views an 
undue hardship as being met, and can direct its contractors and 
servicers not to challenge those undue hardship claims in bankruptcy 
court. For years, I have urged previous Secretaries of Education to use 
this authority and to issue undue hardship guidance for its guaranty 
agencies and contractors. There are categories of debtors where undue 
hardship can be presumed--for example, debtors who suffer from certain 
disabilities, or who have had a low income for a number of consecutive 
years. If the Department would use this authority, it would create an 
option of last resort for student debtors who truly have nowhere else 
to turn. Will you commit to issue guidance on the Department's views of 
when an undue hardship claim can be met?
    Answer. The Administration is committed to ensuring that student 
loan borrowers have options to make the burden of student loans more 
manageable . The consequences of delinquency and default on Federal 
student loans can be substantial, particularly for borrowers who are 
suffering from other economic hardships, including many who ultimately 
file for bankruptcy relief on their debts. We have already taken 
initial actions to support borrowers; but we recognize that more work 
remains to be done.
    To that end, the Department is committed to reviewing its 2015 
guidance on undue hardship student loan discharges in bankruptcy 
proceedings, as well as other policies related to such proceedings to 
assess the types of changes that might better protect borrowers. We 
hope to have more to share on this soon.
    Question. A recent report by the National Student Loan Defense 
Network, entitled ``The Missing Billion,'' highlights the aggressive 
tactics the Department uses to collect from struggling borrowers--
including challenging claims of undue hardship in bankruptcy. At the 
same time, the report finds that the Department has failed to collect 
on more than $1 billion owed to taxpayers by for-profit institutions 
and executives. Please comment on the findings of this new report.
    Answer. The National Student Loan Defense Network's (NSLDN's) 
report, ``The Missing Billion,'' compares the differences in the 
Department's collection of liabilities owed by institutions and its 
collection of student loans owed by individual borrowers in default. 
This difference primarily comes from statutory provisions that make it 
difficult to hold individual owners liable for the corporate debts of 
the institutions, in contrast to provisions that substantially limit 
any bankruptcy relief under an ``undue hardship'' standard. See 11 
U.S.C. Sec. 523(a)(8). The ``undue hardship'' standard applies to 
educational debts when individuals seek bankruptcy protection. In 
seeking to enforce that standard uniformly, the Department considers as 
a factor the availability of several student loan repayment plans that 
can take a borrower's circumstances into account to reduce a borrower's 
scheduled loan installments to a more affordable monthly payment.
    The Department uses oversight measures as provided in the 
Department's regulations to identify institutions that are financially 
weak and institutions with impaired administrative capability. These 
measures include monitoring the numeric composite score of financial 
responsibility, requiring institutions with failing financial scores to 
provide letters of credit (LOCs), using Heightened Cash Monitoring 
(HCM) methods of payment, and provisional certification to monitor 
schools' compliance with the Department's requirements to mitigate 
risk.
    Frequently, LOC amounts, HCM requirements, and provisional 
certification are linked to an institution's performance under the 
Department's financial responsibility requirements and an institution's 
numeric composite score determined by financial analysis of the 
institution's annual financial statements in accordance with the 
Department's regulations. Consistent with the Department's regulations, 
LOC amounts are indexed to an institution's annual Title IV, HEA 
funding. The proceeds of LOC collections can be applied towards an 
institution's unpaid debts after any related appeals are fully 
resolved. When the Department perceives increased financial or 
administrative risk, the Department may require institutions to comply 
with more stringent requirements, such as raising the amount of 
financial protection an institution must provide and increasing the 
level of scrutiny applied to payment requests through the HCM2 method 
of payment. The Department also considers risks associated with 
increased compliance requirements. One outcome of stringent enforcement 
and oversight can be that an IHE may close if it is unable to fully 
comply with more rigorous requirements, such as a posting a larger LOC.
    The Department's Office of Finance and Operations collects debts 
owed to the Department and follows applicable Federal debt collections 
laws, including the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, when 
collecting debts and when referring delinquent debts for collections. 
If an institution files for bankruptcy, it immediately loses 
eligibility to participate in the Title IV, HEA programs. The 
Department is bound to follow applicable bankruptcy law and pursues 
debt recovery from the institution's estate through the bankruptcy 
court. Institutions that close often do so with a lot of debt and 
limited assets to be distributed among the creditors. Collection of 
liabilities against an institution is generally limited to the direct 
owner corporate entity unless there is litigation to ``pierce the 
corporate veil,'' which often proves difficult. Litigation to recover 
liabilities against individuals can only be brought by the U.S. 
Department of Justice and requires piercing the corporate veil in order 
to hold individuals personally accountable. The Department has taken 
steps to prevent individuals with unpaid school debts or bad track 
records running schools from operating other schools. The Department's 
past performance regulations can bar school owners who owe unpaid debts 
from owning or exercising substantial control over other schools until 
their outstanding debts are paid.
    We are reviewing the report to determine if there are any 
outstanding actions that need to be resolved for currently 
participating schools. While the report is critical of the Department's 
administration of debts owed by institutions, an initial reading also 
indicates the report contains unfounded conclusions and inaccurate 
claims because it fails to take into account the requirements to 
establish liabilities against institutions. The report also appears to 
misinterpret the data provided to NSLDN via the Freedom of Information 
Act (FOIA).
    As an example, the report is critical of the Department's 
administration of debts owed by institutions owned by Zovio, Inc, and 
claims the Department failed to collect a $883,613 liability amount 
assessed against the University of the Rockies (owned by Zovio, Inc.). 
In actuality, the Department's efforts to collect this liability 
(arising from a final close-out audit determination) have been 
suspended in accordance with 34 C.F.R. Part 668, Subpart H--Appeal 
Procedures for Audit Determinations and Program Review Determinations 
because an appeal is currently pending resolution with the Department's 
Office of Hearings and Appeals. The suspension of collections is 
required under the Department's regulations at 34 C.F.R. 
Sec. Sec. 668.23(f)(1); (g)(1)(i)-(ii); and 668.123. These regulations 
provide that an institution must repay an audit liability within 45 
days of the date of the Department's notification, unless the 
institution files a timely appeal or unless a longer repayment period 
is permitted. A liability may be established but not paid in full 
because an institution is repaying the liability owed under a repayment 
agreement. The Department monitors institutional compliance with 
repayment requirements. Failure to comply with these repayment 
requirements is a violation of the Department's financial 
responsibility standards, as described above.
    The report suggests that Department improperly issued a Program 
Participation Agreement to Ashford University (also owned by Zovio, 
Inc.) while Ashford owed a $32,965 liability. The Department's Federal 
Student Aid office received confirmation on Oct. 5, 2016, that Ashford 
University had fully repaid the $32,965 liability to the Department on 
Sept. 9, 2016. The Department would not dispute that the $32,965 
receivable erroneously included in the records provided to NSDLN 
through the FOIA request was the result of a recordkeeping error. 
However, before the Department provided a Program Participation 
Agreement to Ashford University on Oct. 20, 2017, the Department had 
determined that Ashford had fully paid the liability.
    As another example, the report states ``The Department has asserted 
a $283,782,751 claim in the bankruptcy proceeding against ITT Technical 
Institute, plus an additional $1,544,738 against the school due to its 
ownership and operation of Daniel Webster College. Yet the Department's 
list of unpaid debt only includes approximately $343,000 from ITT and 
nothing with respect to Daniel Webster College.'' In this instance, the 
Department did not issue final determinations associated with the debts 
identified in the proof of claim to avoid violating the automatic stay 
provisions of the Bankruptcy Code.
    The NSLDN report unfortunately misinforms its readers that ``[t]he 
Department's inaction has irrevocably cost at least $218 million 
because the statute of limitations on collections has expired'' by 
misconstruing 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2462. The NSLDN report cites as support 28 
U.S.C. Sec. 2462 and the Lincoln University case (Docket 13-68-SF), 
April 25, 2016, in Footnote 35. A reading of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2462 
undermines the notion that there is a statute of limitations on 
collections. Rather, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2462 establishes a statute of 
limitations for commencing actions to assess civil fines, etc. which 
must be commenced within 5 years from the date when the claim first 
accrued. In Lincoln University, the Department asserted on Oct. 25, 
2013, fines for Clery Act violations which occurred on Oct. 1, 2006, 
and were repeated annually on that date until 2009 under the 
Department's regulations at 34 C.F.R. Part 668, Subpart G--Fine, 
Limitation, Suspension and Termination Proceedings (Subpart G). The 
question was whether the Sec. 2462 statute of limitations for these 
violations had elapsed based on the date the violation occurred. After 
close review of Sec. 2462, the Subpart G hearing official held in the 
initial decision dated March 16, 2015 that the statute of limitations 
barred the Department's fines for the 2006, 2007, and 2008 Clery Act 
violations, but that the fines for the 2009 violations were not barred. 
There is however no discussion in the Lincoln University decisions to 
support the assertion that a fine is uncollectable under Sec. 2642 
simply because the debt is asserted or continues to exist more than 5 
years after the claim first accrued. Indeed, the initial and remand 
decisions ordering payment of fines in Lincoln University were dated 
more than 5 years after the violation. To assert otherwise implies that 
those who are subject to a civil penalty or fine action can evade and 
self-discharge their payment obligation after 5 years of making no 
payments. Additionally, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2462 only applies to civil 
fines, penalties and forfeitures; it does not apply to repayment 
liabilities. Funds owed back to the Title IV program are not subject to 
any statute of limitations.
    Question. Two decades ago, a CDC study came out that changed the 
way we think about public health. It was called the Adverse Childhood 
Experiences or ``ACEs'' study and it established the link between 
exposure to trauma--things like witnessing violence or an overdose--and 
our long-term health, education, and economic outlook. We now 
understand how trauma and ACEs harm brain development and how having 
multiple of these emotional scars can reduce life expectancy by up to 
20 years make you two times less likely to graduate high school and 
make you 10 times more likely to attempt suicide. Prior to COVID-19, we 
already had an epidemic of gun violence, suicides, and overdoses--all 
of which exacerbate and stem from the root issue of trauma. But the 
pandemic has magnified this problem, with a recent CDC study finding a 
50 percent increase in suicide attempts by teenage girls. Senator 
Capito of West Virginia and I teamed up in 2018 to pass legislation to 
increase funding and coordination across the Departments of Education 
and HHS to promote this understanding of trauma in more Federal grant 
programs. Specifically, we authorized a $50 million trauma and mental 
health services grant program for schools, which we have not yet been 
able to fund. This grant program--Section 7134 of the SUPPORT Act--
would support schools in adopting trauma-informed practices, training 
more staff, engaging families, and forging partnerships with clinical 
mental health professionals. I know the Biden Administration is 
proposing $1 billion to support more counselors in schools--sign me up 
for that. Would you also support appropriations for this already 
authorized program to address the breadth of trauma needs in schools--
setting up comprehensive plans, trainings, and partnerships, beyond 
just adding school psychologists or counselors?
    Answer. COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on many families, 
contributing to significant trauma resulting from isolation, economic 
stress, housing insecurity, and the loss of loved ones, among other 
traumatic events. Prior to COVID-19, many of these kinds of traumas and 
others already existed and were only further exacerbated by the 
pandemic. A significant number of students, predominantly students from 
low-income backgrounds, rely on their schools for access to mental 
health services and other services that are intended to meet their 
physical, social, emotional, and mental health needs. The need for all 
students, especially those most underserved, to have access to these 
critical services is why the Department requested $1 billion to double 
the number of school counselors, nurses, social workers, and school 
psychologists over the next decade. It is also why we requested $250 
million for IDEA, Part D Personnel Preparation to support the pipeline 
into the profession , including mental health service providers, and 
their preparation, development, and support. The Department is also 
requesting $443 million to support Full Service Community Schools--
schools which have in place the kinds of comprehensive plans and 
partnerships you describe to support students and families. We also 
call for increased investments in the Promise Neighborhoods, School 
Safety National Activities, and Student Support and Academic Enrichment 
Grants programs, all in effort to provide a comprehensive set of 
investments intended to mitigate the impact of traumatic experiences 
and help our students heal from the trauma, develop, and thrive. We 
look forward to working with you to make these kinds of critical 
investments in existing programs and identify additional opportunities 
for targeted and increased investments.
    Question. Multiple Congressionally mandated Department of Education 
studies of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program--the only 
federally-funded voucher program--have found that the program does not 
improve the academic achievement of students in the program. In fact, 
two recent Department of Education studies of the program found that 
students using vouchers have performed worse academically than their 
peers not in the voucher program. And, previous studies have indicated 
that many of the students in the voucher program are less likely to 
have access to key services such as ESL programs, learning supports, 
special education supports and services, and counselors than students 
who are not part of the program. Moreover, a study from the Urban 
Institute found that receiving a voucher does not increase D.C. 
students' college enrollment rates. Given these troubling findings, do 
you support continuing Federal support for the program?
    Answer. The Administration seeks to phase out the D.C. Opportunity 
Scholarship Program while providing scholarships to students currently 
participating in the program through 12th grade. Accordingly, the 
Administration has requested level funding for fiscal year 2022 to 
continue funding scholarships for continuing students in school year 
2022-2023.
                                 ______
                                 
                Questions Submitted by Senator Jack Reed
    Question. PSLF and Military Service Members--Earlier this year, the 
Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report finding that 94 
percent of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) applicants in 
military service or Department of Defense (DoD) civilian jobs were 
denied. Additionally, the GAO recommended that the Department of 
Education could take additional steps to improve information sharing 
about PSLF with DoD about military service members and DoD civilian 
personnel seeking to participate as well with potential beneficiaries. 
According to the GAO, as of February 17, 2021, 178,215 active-duty 
service members had direct loans eligible for PSLF, and another 16,195 
active-duty service members had Federal loans that could be 
consolidated into new qualifying direct loans. These statistics offer 
just a small snapshot of the full scope of eligible military borrowers 
who should be benefiting from the protections of PSLF since borrowers 
first became able to secure forgiveness through the program in 2017.
    Using the Department of Defense's DMDC website, please provide the 
total number of active duty service members (and veterans) with Federal 
student loans who have served since PSLF launched on October 1, 2007 
and who continue to be in repayment on Director Loans and/or FFELP 
loans.
    Answer. FSA is working to produce such an analysis, in 
collaboration with the Department's Office of the General Counsel and 
the Department of Defense.
    Question. Please provide information on the Department's efforts to 
implement the GAO recommendations. Also please include information 
about the Department's plans to use any other authority, such as 
authorities under the HEROES Act of 2003, to ease the process and 
expand access to PSLF for military service members.
    Answer. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) made two 
recommendations for the Secretary of Education in its recent report, 
``Public Service Loan Forgiveness: DoD and Its Personnel Could Benefit 
from Additional Program Information (GAO-21-65).'' The other three 
recommendations in the report were addressed to the Department of 
Defense (DoD).
    First, the GAO recommended that Federal Student Aid (FSA) 
collaborate with officials in DoD's Office of the Under Secretary of 
Defense for Personnel and Readiness to share information about the 
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, including current 
information on program participation and eligibility, as well as 
program requirements. The Department concurred with the recommendation 
and has already begun this collaboration with DoD. For example, FSA had 
already begun discussions with DoD about enhancements to our digital 
toolsets and is actively working with DoD on providing more and 
improved information to employees interested in PSLF.
    Second, the GAO recommended that FSA update the student loan guide 
for service members to provide information on applying for PSLF and 
TEPSLF, as well as the steps borrowers can take to count their annual 
payment from DoD's student loan repayment program as multiple 
qualifying payments for the PSLF program. The Department again 
concurred with the recommendation and intends to update the next 
version of the student loan guide for service members to reflect the 
new combined PSLF form, which no longer requires borrowers to 
separately apply for TEPSLF. In addition, FSA currently makes 
information available on lump sum payments made by DoD for service 
members through StudentAid.gov. We agree this information should be 
included in the next version of the student loan guide for service 
members. FSA will work with DoD to ensure there are clear instructions 
for borrowers participating in DoD's student loan repayment program to 
earn qualifying payments for the PSLF Program.
    On October 6, 2021, the Department of Education announced a set of 
actions that, over the coming months, will restore the promise of PSLF. 
We will offer a time-limited waiver so that student borrowers can count 
payments from all Federal loan programs or repayment plans toward 
forgiveness. This includes loan types and payment plans that were not 
previously eligible. We will pursue opportunities to automate PSLF 
eligibility, give borrowers a way to get errors corrected, and make it 
easier for members of the military to get credit toward forgiveness 
while they serve. We will pair these changes with an expanded 
communications campaign to make sure affected borrowers learn about 
these opportunities and encourage them to apply.
    The Department is working hard to eliminate barriers for military 
service members to receive PSLF. The Department will allow months spent 
on active duty to count toward PSLF, even if the service member's loans 
were on a deferment or forbearance rather than in active repayment. 
This change addresses one major challenge service members face in 
accessing PSLF. Service members on active duty can qualify for student 
loan deferments and forbearances that help them through periods in 
which service inhibits their ability to make payments. But too often, 
members of the military find out that those same deferments or 
forbearances granted while they served our country did not count toward 
PSLF. This change ensures that members of the military will not need to 
focus on their student loans while serving our country. Federal Student 
Aid will develop and implement a process to address periods of student 
loan deferments and forbearance for active-duty service members and 
will update affected borrowers to let them know what they need to do to 
take advantage of this change.
    Finally, the Department is working to automatically help service 
members and other Federal employees access PSLF. Military service 
members and other Federal employees devote themselves to serving the 
United States, and we should make it as easy as possible for them to 
receive PSLF. Next year, the Department will begin automatically giving 
Federal employees credit for PSLF by matching Department of Education 
data with information held by other Federal agencies about service 
members and the Federal workforce. To date, approximately 110,000 
Federal employees and 17,000 service members have certified some 
employment toward PSLF. These matches will help the Department identify 
others who may also be eligible but cannot benefit automatically, like 
those with FFEL loans.
    Question. Restarting Student Loan Repayment--Payments on Federal 
student loans have been paused for over a year due to the pandemic, 
with borrowers currently expected to begin repaying their student loans 
on October 1 of this year. There are indications that the restart will 
trigger unprecedented outreach to servicers, with survey data showing 
that servicers could field inquiries from more than 9 million 
borrowers. There have been indications that it will take approximately 
2-4 months for servicers to rehire, train, and obtain background checks 
for their workforce.
    As the U.S. Department of Education and its student loan servicers 
prepare for the repayment restart, what are the essential steps that 
the Department is considering to ensure a seamless return to repayment? 
What is the timeframe for implementing these steps so that the Office 
of Federal Student Aid and servicers have sufficient time to implement 
this plan so that both borrowers and servicers can prepare? What is the 
Department's monitoring plan for servicers on their implementation of 
the restart of repayment?
    Answer. The Department's goal is to achieve a smooth transition 
that minimizes borrower harm due to confusion, lack of awareness, and 
insufficient servicing capacity. To this end, the Department has 
produced a comprehensive plan that combines elements of borrower 
outreach, servicer hiring, training and preparation, and vendor and 
process oversight to ensure borrowers have the resources they need to 
effectively manage the process of returning to repayment.
    From an outreach perspective, in March 2020, FSA launched an 
ongoing communications and engagement campaign to provide borrowers 
clear, concise messaging related to available CARES Act benefits and 
the eventual transition to repayment. Since then, FSA has engaged in 
continuous communication efforts to encourage student loan borrowers to 
take actions to put them on the best repayment plan for their economic 
situation before payments resume. From July 2020 until the end of 
February 2021, FSA sent over 220 million emails to borrowers, 
supplemented by multiple paid media campaigns.
    FSA has also posted information on StudentAid.gov to assist 
borrowers in preparing for payments to resume, specifically 
recommending that borrowers update their contact information with their 
loan servicer and in their StudentAid.gov profile, use Loan Simulator 
to find a repayment plan that meets their needs and goals, and consider 
applying for an income-driven repayment plan. As we approach the end of 
the forbearance period, outreach to borrowers will increase and include 
broad campaigns aimed at increasing general awareness of payment 
resumption and options to address ability to repay, as well as targeted 
outreach to at-risk borrowers.
    To ensure our servicers are prepared for the restart of repayment, 
FSA engaged in ongoing conversations with loan servicers about their 
preparations and staffing levels since the CARES Act was passed in 
March 2020. During the payment pause, FSA has clearly communicated 
expectations for how loan servicers should engage with borrowers. FSA 
is continually analyzing historical, current, and projected future loan 
servicer staffing levels against several customer service metrics to 
ensure servicers are ready for payments to resume. As we prepare for 
borrowers to enter repayment, FSA will provide detailed communications 
``playbooks'' for loan servicers to follow. To ensure loan servicers 
are held accountable for customer service performance during the return 
to repayment effort, FSA plans to add explicit return-to-repayment 
performance expectations, called service level agreements (SLAs), to 
the servicers' existing contracts. Proposed SLAs would focus on call 
center performance, such as abandon rates and Average Speed to Answer, 
to ensure borrowers have prompt, easy access to information. As 
borrowers exit the payment suspension period, FSA will expand our 
monitoring to include all aspects of return to repayment. Vendors who 
fail to adhere to any statutory, regulatory, or contractual standards 
will be held accountable through appropriate corrective actions, which 
may include financial penalties.
    On Aug. 6, 2021, the Department announced a final extension of the 
payment pause until Jan. 31, 2022. The Department is already working 
diligently to ensure a smooth transition back to repayment for all 
borrowers
    The pause on student loan repayment will end on January 31, 2022, 
and we are planning around that date. The Department's priority is to 
ensure students and borrowers get the service they deserve. We are 
committed to ensuring that student loan borrowers are able to 
transition smoothly into repayment. The Department has established 
timelines with key deadlines related to returning student loans to 
repayment. Those plans include substantial communications and outreach 
to make borrowers aware of the resumption of loan payment obligations. 
FSA also continues to communicate with servicers about return to 
repayment as information becomes available. Additionally, the 
Department plans to collaborate with Federal and state regulators to 
ensure our oversight of Federal student loan servicers is as effective 
as possible, and are working to ensure the tools available to the 
Office of Federal Student Aid are used to the fullest extent possible.
    Question. FFEL and Repayment Relief--In April, Senator Murkowski 
and I sent you a letter asking you to address the over 5 million FFEL 
and the roughly 1.7 million Perkins loans borrowers who have been left 
out of the CARES Act relief and the subsequent extensions of the pause 
on student loan repayment.
    What steps is the Department taking to ensure that all Federal 
student loan borrowers have equal access to any current or proposed new 
relief and benefits?
    Answer. We have taken steps to assist those FFEL borrowers that 
have defaulted during the national emergency. In March 2021, the 
Department announced that the payment pause on interest and collections 
would be extended to all defaulted FFEL loans, protecting more than 
800,000 borrowers from debt collection activity such as wage 
garnishment and seizure of tax refunds. FFEL loans on which borrowers 
defaulted since March 13, 2020, the start of the national emergency, 
are being restored to good standing, and the record of default removed 
from their credit reports. The Department continues to explore 
additional opportunities to aid all Federal student loan borrowers, 
whether they hold FFEL, Perkins, or Direct Loans, and to ensure that 
their payments remain affordable, particularly during a period that has 
been challenging for so many borrowers.
                                 ______
                                 
            Questions Submitted by Senator Joe Manchin, III
    Question. I want to once again thank you for working with myself 
and Senator Murkowski on getting out the first tranche of the American 
Rescue Plan funding for homeless children and youth in an expedited 
manner, so we could ensure that homeless children and youth are 
identified and are able to access summer programming and wrap-around 
supports they need in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic. In the 
Department's initial announcement surrounding this funding, you 
indicated that the second tranche of this funding could be available as 
soon as June, to help states and school districts prepare for the fall. 
This is critical as we expect to see even greater numbers of 
homelessness and higher level of service needs, as communities return 
to in person learning.
    Can you tell me if those plans for the release of the second 
tranche of homelessness funding are on schedule, and will be out this 
month?
    Answer. The awards for the second tranche of American Rescue Plan 
funding for homeless students were made on July 27, 2021.
    Question. In the final fiscal year 2021 spending package, I was 
able to secure language urging the Department to ensure that local 
educational agencies (LEA's) set aside adequate amounts of Title I Part 
A funds for students experiencing homelessness and use those resources 
effectively.
    Can you tell me what the Department has done to date to implement 
this request and does this budget proposal do anything to implement 
that language further?
    Answer. In July 2018, the Department sent a letter to State 
educational agencies (available at: https://oese.ed.gov/files/2020/02/
letterforessatitleialeahomelesssetaside-1.pdf) that highlights the 
requirement that an LEA reserve sufficient funds under Title I, Part A 
to provide services for students experiencing homelessness. This 
clarification was included in an update in August 2018 to the non-
regulatory guidance for the Education for Homeless Children and Youth 
(EHCY) program and it is also part of the monitoring protocol for the 
EHCY program. The Department asks the States that it is monitoring to 
provide a list of all Title I, Part A set-asides by LEA. These are 
compared with the latest available homeless student enrollment counts, 
which usually lag by 1 year. The SEA is asked to explain if any LEAs 
had homeless students enrolled but did not set aside a reservation from 
Title I, Part A to serve them. We also correlate a per-pupil amount to 
look for statewide patterns of insufficiency. The EHCY State 
Coordinator Handbook developed by the National Center for Homeless 
Education (NCHE) has a Summary of EHCY Performance Management Pilot 
Monitoring, fiscal year 2015-18 that summarizes which States had 
findings or recommendations in this area (Indicator 3.3). For fiscal 
year 2022, due to the American Rescue Plan funds for homeless children 
and youth, the Department will expand its monitoring of States for 
homeless education programs, including the Title I, Part A LEA set-
aside.
    In addition, NCHE also provides technical assistance concerning 
Title I, Part A requirements for serving students experiencing 
homelessness (see https://nche.ed.gov/legislation/title-1-part-a/).
    The key proposal in the fiscal year 2022 request that would support 
stronger implementation of Title I requirements related to meeting the 
needs of homeless students is the additional $20 billion for Title I, 
which would more than double funding for Title I districts and schools, 
direct more funds to LEAs with the greatest concentrations of poverty, 
and help close equity gaps for all students, including homeless 
students.
    Question. Student loan disclosure forms are essential in helping 
students and families understand the costs and terms of their student 
loans, but as currently written they are filled with unhelpful legal 
jargon, are complicated. lengthy, and don't show the true cost 
associated with taking out the loans leading to excess borrowing, 
further contributing to the nation's student debt crisis.
    What is the Department doing to address this issue and simplify 
student loan disclosure forms? Is there anything in this budget 
proposal to help with this?
    Answer. We are regularly looking at ways to help students, 
families, and borrowers better understand and support their efforts to 
meet their student loan obligations. For instance, we continue to 
promote use of the College Financing Plan, which provides a 
standardized financial aid offer letter so students can understand and 
compare their options for paying for college. If there are additional 
improvements you have in mind, my staff would be grateful to have them 
for consideration.
                                 ______
                                 
                Questions Submitted by Senator Roy Blunt
                         student loan servicing
    Question. Mr. Secretary, your budget requests $2.1 billion, which 
is an increase of $200 million from the fiscal year 2021 level, to 
administer the student aid programs. Yet the budget provides very few 
details about how those funds would be used on student loan servicing 
activities aside from mentioning a ``long-term servicing solution.'' 
Can you provide the Subcommittee additional details on your plans for 
the long-term servicing solution?
    Answer. The Department is currently working on its long-term 
servicing plans and looks forward to sharing more information in the 
future.
    Question. For the last several years the Labor/HHS bill has 
included appropriations language requiring the allocation of Federal 
student loans to servicers based on the quality of their performance to 
encourage the Department to leverage competition among student loan 
servicers. The budget request proposes to strike this language because 
the requirement will be included in FSA's ``long-term servicing 
solution'' despite the fact that no information is included in the 
request on what the long-term solution will look like. How will you 
continue to hold the Federal student loan servicers to performance-
based allocations as required by years of appropriations laws 
regardless of what a future long-term servicing solution may look like?
    Answer. The Department currently allocates loan volume based on 
servicer performance. We will continue this practice going forward 
under the two-year extensions of servicer contracts (as outlined in the 
appropriations language), as well as in the future under the final 
servicing solution.
    Question. The Department has struggled to complete the contracting 
process to fully implement its Next Generation Financial Services 
Environment. In light of that prolonged struggle, what are your plans 
for using the current five Business Process Operations contractors, 
which were awarded in June 2020, in the servicing of student loans 
moving forward?
    Answer. As you are aware, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 
included several provisions related to the future state of loan 
servicing, including provisions directly applicable to the Interim 
Servicing Solution (ISS) solicitation and Business Process Operations 
(BPO) contracts. Specifically, the language prohibited the use of ISS 
as a transitional servicing solution and called for an accelerated BPO 
implementation that would make it possible for BPO providers to perform 
the full suite of loan servicing activities upon migrating accounts to 
the ISS platform. After reviewing the change in the solicitation's 
requirements as a result of the appropriations provisions, Federal 
Student Aid (FSA) decided to cancel the ISS solicitation.
    FSA is using this opportunity to work with our new leadership in 
the Biden-Harris Administration to refine our long-term strategy for 
loan servicing, with the first priority being to ensure student loan 
borrowers have a stable, reliable, and accountable solution that meets 
their needs. In developing this long-term solution, FSA will continue 
to build on the newly modernized systems, tools, and resources for 
customers. In particular, FSA expects to leverage the new 
StudentAid.gov, the myStudentAid mobile app, and enhanced systems that 
allow FSA to improve how we collect and analyze data, offer more self-
service options, provide better customer service, and communicate 
directly with students, parents, and borrowers.
    In addition, FSA will continue its work to bring BPO vendors online 
in preparation for a fall 2021 migration of all non-servicing contact 
center work. This work includes taking on FSA's legacy contact center 
functions, including the Federal Student Aid Information Center, 
Student Loan Support Center, Feedback Center, FSA Ombudsman, borrower 
defense hotline, and Office of Inspector General fraud referral. The 
BPO vendors will handle much of FSA's direct communication with 
customers and partners, including inbound and outbound calls, email, 
chat, social media inquiries, and physical correspondence. BPO vendors 
will receive training from FSA to ensure they are providing customers 
with correct and consistent information and are treating customers and 
partners equitably.
    The five-month transition to fully onboard the BPOs is expected to 
begin in November 2021 and be finalized by April 2022.
                            career pathways
    Question. Programs that provide academic and career counseling and 
exposure to postsecondary opportunities to students, as early as 8th 
grade and continuing through secondary and postsecondary education, 
have been shown to significantly increase rates of postsecondary 
enrollment and completion among rural students. To that end, the fiscal 
year 2021 Labor/HHS bill included $10 million for the Department of 
Education to improve rates of postsecondary enrollment and completion 
among rural students through development of career pathways aligned to 
high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand industry sectors and occupations in 
the region. What is the timeline for publishing a Notice Inviting 
Applications for these funds? What can you tell me about how the 
Department plans to prioritize and spend this funding this year?
    Answer. While the Department is still developing a notice inviting 
applications (NIA), we plan to make up to 7 awards to institutions of 
higher education and other public and private non-profit organizations 
and agencies for 3-year projects that would implement innovative 
approaches to improve rates of postsecondary enrollment and completion 
among rural students through development of career pathways aligned to 
high-skill, high-wage or in-demand industry sectors and occupations in 
a specific region.
    Question. The budget request proposes a new $1 billion program to 
expand career pathways for middle and high school students, 
particularly in underserved communities. This Subcommittee will only be 
considering the discretionary request, but providing students in high 
school or middle school with access to quality work-based learning 
opportunities and exposure to their full range of postsecondary college 
and career opportunities should be happening in every school. How will 
additional funding for CTE help meet that goal?
    Answer. Additional funding under both the Career and Technical 
Education (CTE) State Grants formula program and CTE National Programs 
would support opportunities to provide high school or middle school 
students with access to quality work-based learning opportunities and 
exposure to postsecondary college and career opportunities, albeit in 
different in ways. The reauthorization of the Perkins Act in 2018 added 
provisions and requirements pertaining to work-based learning and 
including students in middle school in certain CTE activities. However, 
States and local grantees have been expected to implement these and 
other new requirements with relatively small increases in funding. 
After more than a decade of relatively flat funding, the increase in 
funding for the program since fiscal year 2019 (the implementation date 
for the reauthorized Perkins program) has been approximately 5.7 
percent. Increases for this program would provide additional resources 
to State and local grantees to implement these provisions.
    Increases in funding under CTE National Programs would provide 
opportunities to quality work-based learning opportunities and exposure 
to support and evaluate targeted activities to provide high school or 
middle school students with access to postsecondary college and career 
opportunities. Under that program the Department could fund focused, 
high quality proposals for such activities and set priorities for 
funding, such as funding to high-poverty LEAs and LEAs serving a high 
percentage of students of color or a high percentage of students from 
low-income backgrounds.
                 k-12 covid-19 funding/school reopening
    Question. Mr. Secretary, you and I both agree it is crucial that we 
get kids back in the classroom to prevent further learning loss. While 
I'm encouraged to see that more and more schools are reopening for in-
person learning, the latest data from the Department shows that only 51 
percent of 4th graders and 41 percent of 8th graders are enrolled in 
fully in-person learning and these numbers are even worse for low-
income and minority students. Given the significant amount of COVID-19 
emergency funding that has gone to K-12 schools, I would expect these 
numbers to be closer to 100 percent. What actions have you taken to 
help states and school districts use their ESSER funds to reopen 
schools and get kids back in the classroom? Do you expect that all 
schools will be fully open for in-person learning this fall?
    Answer. We are doing everything possible to support students, 
families, teachers, staff, school leaders, and communities to in 
returning to full-time, in-person learning this fall, and the 
Administration is confident that we, as a nation, will achieve this 
goal to the greatest extent possible.
    Most recently, on August 2, 2021, the Department released the 
``Return to School Roadmap,'' an online resource available at https://
sites.ed.gov/roadmap/to support students, schools, educators, and 
communities as they prepare to return to safe, healthy in-person 
learning this fall and emerge from the pandemic stronger than before.
    The Roadmap includes three ``Landmark'' priorities that schools, 
districts, and communities are encouraged to focus on to ensure all 
students are set up for success in the 2021-2022 school year: (1) 
prioritizing the health and safety of students, staff, and educators, 
(2) building school communities and supporting students' social, 
emotional, and mental health, and (3) accelerating academic 
achievement. The Roadmap also includes planned releases of additional 
resources for practitioners and parents on each of these priorities and 
will highlight schools and districts that are using innovative 
practices to address these priorities. These resources also will 
explain how American Rescue Plan funds, including ESSER funds, can be 
used to address these priorities in schools and communities across the 
country.
    The Roadmap is part of the Department's broader efforts to support 
schools and districts in the safe and sustained return to in-person 
learning since the beginning of the Biden Administration. In addition 
to releasing the Roadmap, the Department has issued three volumes of 
the COVID-19 Handbook to support K-12 schools and institutions of 
higher education in their reopening efforts, prioritized the 
vaccination of educators, school staff and child care workers, 
published a Safer Schools and Best Practices Clearinghouse, which 
includes over 200 examples of schools and communities safely returning 
to in-person learning, held a National Safe School Reopening Summit, 
provided $122 billion in support through the American Rescue Plan 
Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund for K-12 schools, 
provided over $3 billion in IDEA funds within the American Rescue Plan 
to support children and families with disabilities impacted by the 
pandemic, awarded $800 million within the American Rescue Plan to 
support students experiencing homelessness who have been 
disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, released a report on the 
disparate impacts of COVID-19 on underserved students, and launched an 
Equity Summit Series focused on addressing school and district 
inequities that were made worse by the pandemic.
                           student loan pause
    Question. Mr. Secretary, I am concerned that the Administration has 
not outlined a plan to transition borrowers back into repayment when 
the student loan pause ends this fall. Now that the pandemic is winding 
down, it is time for this pause to end. Furthermore, the extension of 
the pause beyond what was originally authorized in the CARES Act cost 
taxpayers an additional $36 billion. I understand that some borrowers 
may still be struggling, but they have access to income-driven 
repayment plans where they can pay as little as $0 per month. Will you 
commit to end the pause as scheduled at the end of this fiscal year?
    Answer. On Aug. 6, 2021, the Department announced a final extension 
of the payment pause until Jan. 31, 2022. We believe this additional 
time and definitive end date will allow borrowers to plan for the 
resumption of payments and reduce the risk of delinquency and defaults 
after restart. The Department is already working diligently to ensure a 
smooth transition back to repayment for all borrowers
    Question. Federal student loan borrowers have gone over a year 
without making a payment on their loans. It is absolutely imperative 
that the Department begins communicating with borrowers early and often 
to ensure that all borrowers understand their responsibilities and 
their repayment options when their loans come due on October 1, 2021.
    What are your plans to help ensure that borrowers are prepared to 
begin repaying their loans when the pause ends?
    Answer. In March 2020, FSA launched an ongoing communications and 
engagement campaign to provide borrowers clear, concise messaging 
related to available CARES Act benefits and the eventual transition to 
repayment. Since then, FSA has engaged in continuous communication 
efforts to encourage student loan borrowers to take actions to put them 
on the best repayment plan for their economic situation before payments 
resume. From July 2020 until the end of February 2021, FSA sent over 
220 million emails to borrowers, supplemented by multiple paid media 
campaigns.
    FSA has also posted information on StudentAid.gov to assist 
borrowers in preparing for payments to resume, specifically 
recommending that borrowers update their contact information with their 
loan servicer and in their StudentAid.gov profile, use Loan Simulator 
to find a repayment plan that meets their needs and goals, and consider 
applying for an income-driven repayment plan. As we approach the end of 
the forbearance period, outreach to borrowers will increase and include 
broad campaigns aimed at increasing general awareness of payment 
resumption and options to address ability to repay, as well as targeted 
outreach to at-risk borrowers.
    Question. How will the Department engage the Federal student loan 
servicers and provide the necessary instructions so that the return to 
repayment process goes smoothly?
    Answer. FSA has engaged in ongoing conversations with loan 
servicers about their preparations and staffing levels since the CARES 
Act was passed in March 2020. During the payment pause, FSA has clearly 
communicated expectations for how loan servicers should engage with 
borrowers. FSA is continually analyzing historical, current, and 
projected future loan servicer staffing levels against several customer 
service metrics to ensure servicers are ready for payments to resume. 
As we prepare for borrowers to enter repayment, FSA will provide 
detailed communications ``playbooks'' for loan servicers to follow.
    To ensure loan servicers are held accountable for customer service 
performance during the return to repayment effort, FSA plans to add 
explicit return-to-repayment performance expectations, called service 
level agreements (SLAs), to the servicers' existing contracts. Proposed 
SLAs would focus on call center performance, such as abandon rates and 
Average Speed to Answer, to ensure borrowers have prompt, easy access 
to information. As borrowers exit the payment suspension period, FSA 
will expand our monitoring to include all aspects of return to 
repayment. Vendors who fail to adhere to any statutory, regulatory, or 
contractual standards will be held accountable through appropriate 
corrective actions, which may include financial penalties.
    Question. Both the CARES Act and the December COVID-19 
supplemental, as well as the American Rescue Plan, provided a total of 
$161 million to FSA to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the COVID-
19 pandemic. How much of this funding has been used and what has it 
been used for?
    Answer. As of July 30, 2021, approximately $25 million has been 
committed and obligated for the following activities: system changes 
due to COVID-19; targeted communication campaigns to notify borrowers 
of administrative forbearance; increased server capacity and support 
for telework; and personnel and compensation for approximately 38 on-
board staff at FSA to support CARES Act related activities.
    Question. Does the Department intend to use the remaining funds to 
improve communications and outreach with borrowers about the upcoming 
end of the repayment pause?
    Answer. Yes, the remaining funds will be used to improve 
communications and outreach to borrowers, as well as any additional 
actions needed to support borrowers regarding the end of the payment 
pause.
                            charter schools
    Question. During the last school year, several states saw 
significant enrollment shifts into charter schools. For example, 
charter schools in California saw an increase of around 2.5 percent 
while districts saw a decrease of 3 percent, Colorado saw a 4 percent 
increase while districts saw the same decline. New York City charter 
schools had an influx of 10,000 students--a 7 percent increase. And yet 
the President's budget does not request new funding for the Charter 
Schools program. Given the demand we are seeing at the state level, why 
isn't the administration requesting more funds for the Charter School 
Program?
    Answer. The Administration's fiscal year 2022 request would provide 
over $210 million for new awards under the various grant components of 
the Charter Schools Program. We believe these resources will be 
sufficient to meet demand for funding.
    Question. The budget proposes prohibiting Charter School Program 
funds from being provided to schools that are substantially operated or 
managed through a contract with a for-profit entity. However, most 
public schools are utilizing the services of for-profit entities in 
some way, including for spending their COVID-19 relief funds.
    What does ``substantially operated or managed'' mean? Does it 
include contracting for services such as payroll and benefits, 
staffing, curriculum, professional development, or individual student 
services?
    Answer. We recognize that public schools, including charter 
schools, may contract with for-profit vendors for specific services 
that do not constitute management or control of operations and do not 
intend to prevent schools engaged in such procurements from accessing 
funds under the CSP or other programs.
    Question. Why are you proposing this restriction only for charter 
schools? Are you considering this requirement for other programs?
    Answer. The Administration believes that Charter Schools Program 
(CSP) funds should not support charter schools that are operated or 
managed by for-profit entities, and we urge Congress to adopt language 
that would prohibit CSP funds from supporting schools that are operated 
or managed by such entities through contractual relationships. We 
believe this is consistent with intent of the program statute, under 
which charter school developers or management organizations seeking CSP 
funds must be nonprofit.
                         title i equity grants
    Question. The budget request includes $20 billion for a new Title I 
Equity grant that proposes to create a new formula not authorized in 
statute to force State and local behavior changes related to school 
funding systems, teacher compensation, access to advanced curricula, 
and access to preschool. There have been a lot of questions and 
concerns about this proposal, specifically how funding would be 
allocated. Do you have any further details on the impact of this 
formula and where the money would be allocated?
    Answer. The Administration remains committed to addressing 
longstanding concerns around equity in education funding at the 
Federal, State, and local levels. However, we also recognize that 
further consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including 
Congress, will be necessary to develop a comprehensive set of proposals 
aimed at improving education funding equity that can generate broad 
support. Consequently, the Administration supports allocating the 
proposed $20 billion increase for Title I through the authorized 
funding formulas.
    Question. Why is the Department proposing to create a new grant 
program that interferes with decisionmaking that is best left to State 
and local school districts rather than putting additional funding into 
programs we know work to increase student achievement, such as the 
Charter Schools Program, or further increasing this existing Title I 
programs or IDEA, which has long been underfunded?
    Answer. The nearly $30 billion, or 41 percent, increase for the 
Department of Education proposed by President Biden for fiscal year 
2022 provides strong support for Federal education programs across the 
board, including a $3 billion or 21 percent increase for IDEA State 
formula grant programs. However, because nearly all Federal education 
programs provide supplemental funding, the impact and effectiveness of 
that funding depends in large part on a level playing field in terms of 
the overall education resources made available at the State and local 
levels. For this reason, the Administration strongly believes that a 
key goal of any major new Federal investment in education should be to 
leverage significant improvement in equity for all students, but 
especially for students from low-income families and students of color. 
In this context, the Administration is working closely with Congress 
and stakeholders to leverage additional investments in Title I to 
improve education funding equity, support high-quality preschool, 
address teacher compensation, and enhance rigorous coursework in Title 
I schools. In that context, the Department believes the proposed $20 
billion increase for Title I would provide a meaningful incentive for 
systemic changes in the equity of our decentralized education system.
                              naep funding
    Question. NAEP provides crucial information about what our nation's 
students know and can do in various subject areas. Ensuring we continue 
to have this information is more important than ever given the 
widespread learning loss that is expected as a result of the pandemic. 
Your budget requests an additional $15 million for NAEP in fiscal year 
2022. Will this increase ensure that the planned assessment schedule 
can remain on track?
    Answer. The $15 million proposed for fiscal year 2022, if sustained 
in future years, would support operational funding needs, including 
planned assessments, through 2024.
                             mental health
    Question. Mr. Secretary, one of my priorities in the Senate has 
been mental health--and ensuring that a person's mental health is 
treated the same as their physical health. The Department's budget 
requests $1 billion for a new program to increase the number of health 
professionals in our public schools, including school counselors, 
nurses, school psychologists, and social workers. I share your concern 
about the well-being and mental health of our nation's students, 
particularly given the widespread disruption to school that students 
have experienced over the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
However, states and school districts have yet to spend the vast 
majority of COVID-19 funding provided to them, and one of the ways they 
can spend this money is to provide mental health services to students. 
What has the Department done to help states and school districts use 
their COVID-19 funding to support the mental health of their students?
    Answer. The Administration has recognized from the beginning of its 
response to the pandemic that students need a strong social and 
emotional foundation to excel academically. It is clear that many 
students, and especially students from low-income backgrounds and 
students of color, have suffered much over the past 18 months and 
require additional support to help them heal and recover from all the 
trauma and hardship the pandemic has brought. And we know for many 
students, schools are the only place where they can access mental 
health professionals, school counselors, nurses, and support structures 
they need--including their friends--to help them through the adversity 
of the last year. This is why we have emphasized meeting students' 
mental health needs as part of our overall effort to reopen schools for 
fully in-person learning, including through the hiring of school-based 
health professionals as well as other efforts to address social and 
emotional development needs.
    For example, the Department published Volume 2 of the ED COVID-19 
Handbook: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students' Needs 
(see https://www2.ed.gov/documents/coronavirus/reopening-2.pdf), in 
April, 2021, which includes a section on Supporting Student Mental 
Health Needs that highlights examples and best practices that States 
and school districts can implement using funds provided by the American 
Rescue Plan. Additional guidance is provided in our ESSER Fund 
Frequently Asked Questions document (see Question C-14 at https://
oese.ed.gov/files/2021/05/
ESSER.GEER--.FAQs_5.26.21_745AM_FINALb0cd6833f6f46e03ba2
d97d30aff953260028045f9ef3b18ea602db4b32b1d99.pdf).
    We have seen the results of these efforts in the plans that States 
have developed for using ARP ESSER funds. For example, Nevada is 
reserving ARP funds to hire 100 school-based mental health 
professionals and Alaska is using ARP funds to help social workers 
provide virtual lessons in self?care and methods to reduce student 
stress, depression, and anxiety. The New York City Department of 
Education is using ARP funding to hire over 600 mental health 
professionals to provide care as students returned back this fall. This 
means that every school will have at least one full-time social worker 
or school-based mental health clinic.
    In addition, we plan to issue guidance on using ARP funs to address 
student mental health needs in fall 2021.
                                 ______
                                 
            Questions Submitted by Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith
    Question. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) funds education 
research, data collection and analysis, and a national assessment of 
student progress. The fiscal year 2016 Omnibus included a $44 million 
(8 percent) increase for IES. The budget request includes a further $76 
million (12 percent) increase. The Investing in Innovation (i3) grant 
program required that at least 20 percent of recipients be located in 
rural areas. The i3 competition has been replaced with a new grant 
program, the Education Innovation and Research program, in fiscal year 
2017. Geographic diversity in all research grant programs is important. 
From 2013 to 2015 the Department made almost 1,900 grants to 
institutions of higher education and other research organizations. 
However, those grants went to colleges, universities, and research 
organizations in only 35 states. Not one went to a school or 
organization in Mississippi and generally the same schools and 
organizations tend to get the bulk of research grants year after year.
    In my state, 92 percent of school districts and more 50 percent of 
students are rural, yet most research is conducted in urban and 
suburban communities. The Every Student Succeeds Act requires that 
schools implement evidence-based strategies to improve student outcomes 
yet most education research is conducted in urban and suburban 
settings.
    How will you ensure that education research addresses the unique 
needs of rural districts?
    Answer. Supporting education research to help understand and 
address the unique needs of rural districts is a priority for IES. We 
support education research, including on rural education, primarily 
through two funding mechanisms: (1) field-initiated research grants, 
and (2) research conducted by the Regional Educational Laboratories. We 
discuss the role of each below.
    Research Grants. As a scientific agency, funding decisions are 
based on peer reviewer's independent assessments of the scientific 
merit of applications, including the significance of the proposed 
research project, the scientific quality of the research plan, the 
skills of the personnel, and the resources available to support the 
proposed project. We hold competitions on various topics to ensure that 
the education research that we fund meets the needs of the diverse 
populations and geographic settings of our nation.
    For example, in 2021, IES launched a new research competition 
inviting State agencies to apply for funds to expand use of their State 
Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) for generating evidence in support of 
education policy decisions. Using SLDS as a data source ensures that 
all districts within a State can be included in their research 
activities. Of the 7 awards made, 5 are made to States with substantial 
rural populations, including Tennessee, Montana, Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, and Oregon. Mississippi received $6.6 million in 2016 for 
an NCES SLDS grant that ended 9/30/20 to enhance its SLDS system, so we 
encourage the State education agency to apply for funding under this 
program for projects using data from its SLDS for research on rural 
populations, and to reach out to IES program officers for input as they 
prepare their application.
    In addition, IES invested $20 million in two five-year research and 
development centers focused on the needs of rural education in 2019: 
The National Center for Rural Education Research Networks (NCRERN) and 
The National Center for Rural School Mental Health (NCRSMH): Enhancing 
the Capacity of Rural Schools to Identify, Prevent, and Intervene in 
Youth Mental Health Concerns. Rural districts participating in the work 
of these two centers are located in: New York, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, 
Wyoming, Missouri, Virginia, and Montana. Both rural centers are 
actively engaged with communities in these States and beyond and are 
developing and sharing resources for the rural education community. For 
example, NCRSMH has developed an Early Identification System (EIS) 
Intervention Hub (https://www.ruralsmh.com/intervention-hub/) designed 
to connect rural educators to resources focused on preventing and 
remediating student mental health challenges.
    In addition, 27 of our new fiscal year 2021 research awards and 16 
of our fiscal year 2020 research awards are being carried out in rural 
settings. These studies are addressing teacher retention in rural 
schools, fostering positive family-school involvement for students from 
economically disadvantaged households in rural communities, 
interventions to help special educators with behavior management, and 
web-based professional development to help teachers improve students, 
reading comprehension in rural districts.
    The Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs). For more than 50 
years, the REL program has worked in partnership with State, district, 
and college and university leaders to develop and use research that 
improves academic outcomes for students and their communities. REL 
Southeast serves has successfully completed a number of projects 
focused on the needs of rural communities in Mississippi, including:
  --The Improving Schools in Mississippi Research Alliance, a 
        professional learning community that supports research and 
        practice on rural school improvement. Partners include district 
        leadership from the Vicksburg/Warren Public Schools, Durant 
        Public Schools, Yazoo City Public Schools, Holmes County Public 
        Schools, and Humphreys County Public Schools, as well as Alcorn 
        State University and Mississippi Valley State University.
  --The Southeast School Readiness Research Alliance, which seeks to 
        build the capacity of preschool teachers and administrators 
        across Mississippi and the other five States in the Southeast 
        region to use evidence-based emergent literacy instruction to 
        support three-to five-year old children's language and literacy 
        learning and to help policymakers understand the factors that 
        influence access to high-quality childcare and preschool 
        programs.
  --Examining School-level Reading and Math Proficiency Trends and 
        Changes in Achievement Gaps for Grades 3-8 in Florida, 
        Mississippi, and North Carolina, which detailed student 
        achievement trajectories for Mississippi students overall and 
        within student group, supporting stakeholders decisionmaking 
        about how to prioritize school improvement efforts.
  --Educator Outcomes Associated with Implementation of Mississippi's 
        K-3 Early Literacy Professional Development Initiative, which 
        examined changes in teacher knowledge of early literacy skills 
        and ratings of quality of early literacy skills instruction, 
        student engagement during early literacy skills instruction, 
        and teaching competencies.
  --Beating the Odds in Mississippi: Identifying Schools Exceeding 
        Achievement Expectations, which identified K-12 schools that 
        were performing better than would have been predicted and was 
        used to inform decisionmaking on statewide school improvement 
        efforts.
  --Math Course Sequences in Grades 6-11 and Math Achievement in 
        Mississippi, which examined the relationship between students' 
        course-taking patterns in middle- and high-school and their 
        subsequent performance on college admission tests, supporting 
        local and State college readiness efforts.
    Question. In awarding research grants, how will you ensure that the 
Department considers the geographic distribution of research projects 
and geographic disparities in education research funding? How will you 
ensure funding is going to colleges, universities, and research 
institutions in under-researched and underserved areas?
    Answer. IES is required by law, under the Education Sciences Reform 
Act, to base our funding decisions on the independently assessed 
scientific merit of applications. In all of our grant competitions, we 
explicitly seek to broaden participation in our research studies and to 
expand the populations and geographic settings within which our studies 
are taking place. We are currently supporting a research project at the 
University of Southern Mississippi (grant award R305A200185) and two 
projects that are collaborations between Arizona State University and 
Mississippi State University (grant awards R305A180261 and 
R305A180144). IES also periodically holds competitions with a specific 
focus on addressing the unique needs of rural America, such as the two 
R&D Centers on rural education awarded in 2019. It is important to 
stress that these are competitive grant programs which are funded based 
on the scientific merit of the applications submitted. We do not 
include the State or geographic region in which the applicant 
institution is located in the selection criteria for our education or 
special education research grant programs.
    We also actively seek to broaden participation in our applicant 
pool through our research training programs. For example, our Pathways 
to the Education Science Research Training program was established to 
develop a pipeline of talented education researchers who bring fresh 
ideas, approaches, and perspectives to addressing the issues and 
challenges faced by the nation's diverse students and schools. These 
grants are awarded to minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and their 
partners. In the initial two rounds of competitions, IES made awards to 
7 institutions and their partners. IES is currently accepting 
applications for a new program: Early Career Mentoring Program for 
Faculty at Minority Serving Institutions that seeks to prepare faculty 
at MSIs to conduct high-quality education research that advances 
knowledge within the field of education sciences and addresses issues 
important to education policymakers and practitioners.
    Question. President Biden's campaign included a Plan for Rural 
America. That plan opened with the statement ``Rural America is home to 
roughly 20 percent of Americans, but we are all connected to rural 
communities in many ways. Rural Americans fuel us and feed us. Rural 
lands provide us with places to spend time outdoors with friends and 
family and relax.'' This statement suggests an attitude that rural 
people and places exist to provide for and serve more populated urban 
and suburban areas. The current version of the plan, available here 
https://joebiden.com/rural-plan/contains some of the same language but 
has been revised. It will be important that the administration move 
beyond metro-centric policy making to ensure rural schools are treated 
equitably.
    How will you ensure that policies and practices in the Department 
recognize and value the strengths and unique contexts of rural schools 
and communities?
    Answer. The Department is committed to educational opportunity and 
academic achievement for all students throughout the nation, including 
those in rural areas. Our Rural Education Achievement Program, for 
example, recognizes the need of many rural school districts for 
additional funding, as well as flexibility around the use of Federal 
education funds, to address their unique circumstances. Similarly, many 
of our discretionary (competitive) grant programs include rural set-
asides to ensure that rural applicants receive an equitable share of 
grant funds, and we also use grant priorities for rural and new 
applicants that help level the playing field and ensure that rural 
applicants can compete successfully for Federal funds.
    Question. In 2018, the Department released the Section 5005 Report 
on Rural Education in response to a provision in the Every Student 
Succeeds Act that called on the Department to critically examine its 
policies and procedures in related to rural education. The 2018 report 
touted some things the Department is doing to ensure the needs of rural 
schools and students are met, and also listed steps the Department 
intended to implement to address the needs of rural schools. To date, 
not all of those seven steps have been accomplished, most notably, NCES 
has not updated its 2007 report on the status of rural education. In 
2019 this analysis by Devon Brenner (of MSU) of the Section 5005 report 
summarized the reports findings and plans or implementation and 
critiqued the report, saying ``it falls short of the 5005 mandate to 
self-assess and determine actions to be taken. The Department engaged 
in listening sessions and sought feedback from rural stakeholders, but 
does not seem to have incorporated feedback from key stakeholder 
organizations (e.g., AASA and Rural School and Community Trust, The 
University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), the National 
Indian Education Association (NIEA), and the National Association of 
federally Impacted Schools). The Department commits to increasing 
listening sessions and improving communication but is not clear that 
rural input is or will be ``baked into'' the system to ensure that 
rural communities are considered in every facet of the Department's 
work, particularly rulemaking.'' See https://
journals.library.msstate.edu/index.php/ruraled/article/view/535/501.
    How will you ensure that the Department completes these commitments 
to improve policies and procedures for rural schools and considers the 
needs of rural schools in the development of regulations and the 
implementation of programs?
    Answer. The Department is committed to ensuring educational 
opportunity for all students, including those in rural areas, and 
recognizes the need to account for all education settings when 
developing policies and procedures.
    To that end, in recent years, the Department's Rural Interagency 
Working Group has helped offices responsible for our programs, 
including the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP), collaborate 
on issues such as access to broadband services which disproportionately 
impacts rural schools and communities. Department staff are examining 
how we can build upon these internal collaborations. Drawing on the 
experience of other Federal agencies, the Department also plans to 
collaborate more closely with the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, 
and Health and Human Services to better support and serve students in 
rural communities.
    The Department interacts regularly with REAP grantees and 
organizations advancing the interests of rural schools. The Department 
appreciates input from rural stakeholders and is working toward being 
responsive to that feedback. For example, in order to reduce burden on 
rural local educational agencies (LEAs), the Department has simplified 
the application process for the Small, Rural School Achievement (SRSA) 
grant, under which OESE awards over 4,000 LEA grants annually. OESE 
plans to increase its outreach to REAP grantees and its participation 
in events organized by rural advocacy organizations such as the 
National Rural Education Association (NREA). Additionally, the 
Department has recently been in contact with the Organizations 
Concerned about Rural Education (OCRE) regarding issues affecting rural 
schools and communities and emphasizing collaborative efforts to 
support rural schools.
    The Department will continue to rely on local leaders and rural 
stakeholders for their expertise and knowledge of rural schools, with 
those conversations informing plans to support student achievement in 
all settings.
    Question. Across the nation, equitable access to effective teachers 
remains an issue. Rural schools, especially, often struggle to recruit 
and retain talented teachers and school leaders. Previous programs such 
as the Transition-to-Teaching grant program provided for scholarships 
for teacher preparation programs to meet the needs of schools with 
demonstrated teacher shortages. In Mississippi, Transition-to-Teaching 
grants awarded in the last decade led to the successful licensure of 
hundreds of new teachers in the past 5 years, addressing the needs of 
rural schools.
    Please discuss how you envision the that the Department can 
explicitly addresses inequitable distribution of effective teachers, 
particularly in rural areas.
    Answer. The Administration's fiscal year 2022 request provides both 
flexible ESEA formula grant funding and competitive opportunities that 
can help States and school districts carry out strategies aimed at 
putting effective teachers in front of every classroom:
  --The $20 billion increase proposed for the Title I program would 
        more than double the formula grant funding available to help 
        address under-resourced school districts while helping to 
        ensure that teachers in Title I schools, including thousands of 
        rural Title I schools, are paid competitively.
  --The $2.1 billion requested for Title II will support ongoing State 
        and local efforts to improve teacher and principal 
        effectiveness and help ensure that all students have equitable 
        access to well-prepared, qualified, and effective teachers and 
        principals. In particular, States may use Title II-A funds for 
        programs that provide alternative routes for State 
        certification of teachers in areas where the State experiences 
        a shortage of educators, similar to the previously authorized 
        Transition to Teaching program.
  --The $250 million request for IDEA Personnel Preparation, an 
        increase of nearly $160 million, would help ensure that there 
        are adequate numbers of personnel in underserved rural schools 
        with the skills and knowledge necessary to help children with 
        disabilities succeed educationally, including enhanced support 
        for beginning special educators.
  --The $80 million requested for Supporting Effective Educator 
        Development (SEED) would support evidence-based educator 
        preparation and development efforts that can serve as models 
        for similar efforts across the country; new projects could have 
        a stronger focus on building and enhancing the instructional 
        skills of a more diverse educator workforce.
  --The $200 million requested for Teacher and School Leader (TSL) 
        Incentive grants would support reforms to human capital 
        management systems and performance-based compensation systems; 
        the statue requires that priority be given to applicants that 
        support teacher and leaders in high-need schools; in addition, 
        consideration is given to ensuring an equitable geographic 
        distribution of grants, including equitable distribution 
        between urban and rural areas.
  --The $30 million requested for first-time funding (since 
        reauthorization) of the School Leader Recruitment and Support 
        program would support grants for high-quality professional 
        development for principals, other school leaders, and aspiring 
        principals and school leaders. Under the first competition for 
        the program since the reauthorization of the ESEA, projects 
        would focus on ensuring that the nation's most underserved 
        schools have resources to improve school leadership.
  --The $132.1 million request for the Teacher Quality Partnership 
        program, an increase of $80 million, supports projects that 
        improve the preparation of teachers, including through teacher 
        residencies and ``grow your own'' programs that can be 
        especially valuable in rural communities.
  --The $20 million request for first-time funding of the Hawkins 
        Centers of Excellence program would support diversifying the 
        educator workforce, including in rural areas, by increasing the 
        number of high-quality teacher preparation programs at Minority 
        Serving Institutions.
    Question. Rurally located and rural serving public colleges and 
universities have an important role to play in the economic and social 
recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Public institutions of higher 
learning are important economic anchors in their communities and 
provide important access to educational opportunities that drives rural 
economies. However, rural colleges and universities are often 
underfunded compared to more urban and suburban institutions of higher 
learning, and students face particular challenges including geographic 
access and access to broadband Internet and technology. This report on 
the role that rural serving institutions play and Federal policy 
solutions to strengthen rural anchor institutions https://
www.regionalcolleges.org/project/ruralanchor.
    How will you work to enact policies and practices that strengthen 
rural serving and rurally located public colleges and universities, 
including HBCUs and other minority serving institutions, and the 
communities they serve?
    Answer. The Department, in general, provides funding to 
institutions of higher education (IHEs) through two primary vehicles: 
(1) formula-based institutional capacity-building grants, and (2) 
discretionary competitive grants. For the Department's formula-based 
institutional capacity-building grants, such as HBCUs, HBGI, PBIs, and 
HBCU Masters, the Department has little flexibility given statutory 
requirements to provide additional funding to rural IHEs. For 
discretionary competitive grants, unless specifically prohibited by 
statute, the Department generally can give priority to particular types 
of institutions.
    More broadly, rural-serving postsecondary institutions, include 
HBCUs, would benefit significantly from key mandatory programs proposed 
as part of the American Families Plan and now included in the Building 
Back Better Act. These include Free Community College, which would 
provide $108.5 billion over 10 years to create a new partnership with 
States, territories, and Tribes to make 2 years of community college 
free for first-time students and workers wanting to reskill, 
potentially allowing up to 5.5 million students to pay zero in tuition 
and fees for 2 years of community college; the Advancing Affordability 
for Students program, which would award $39 billion over 10 years for 
eligible 4-year HBCUs, TCUs, or MSIs to provide 2 years of subsidized 
tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000; and 
Completion Grants, which would provide $62 billion over 10 years for 
grants to States and Tribes to support completion and retention 
activities designed to ensure postsecondary success for low-income and 
underserved students in high-need institutions.
                                 ______
                                 
            Questions Submitted by Senator Patrick J. Leahy
    Question. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Vermont was facing a 
mental health crisis in its schools. Many students have been 
irrevocably impacted by the opioid epidemic, losing parents and 
caregivers. This trauma has had a negative impact on their mental and 
behavioral health, leaving many teachers and school staff struggling to 
deal with the consequences. This is why I am so pleased to see the new 
$1 billion fund proposed by the administration to help schools hire 
more counselors, nurses, and mental health professionals. 
Unfortunately, Vermont is plagued with a severe shortage not only of 
teachers but of mental health professionals. As of May 2021, there were 
780 staffing vacancies among our mental health agencies in the state. 
The number of kids seeking inpatient mental healthcare in Vermont 
tripled between 2010 and 2019, as a dearth of community-based resources 
has led many families no choice but to turn to the Emergency Room as a 
last resort.
    How does the administration propose to help schools, particularly 
schools in rural areas, utilize this fund to hire school based health 
staff in areas where there are community, or even statewide, shortages 
of mental health professionals?
    Answer. The School-Based Health Professionals proposal recognizes 
the challenges to hiring such professionals in areas facing shortages, 
and would allow State educational agencies to reserve up to 15 percent 
of their allocations to address shortages of health professionals by 
establishing partnerships with institutions of higher education to 
recruit, prepare, and place graduate students in school-based health 
fields in high-need LEAs and to complete required field work, credit 
hours, internships, or related training as applicable for the degree, 
license, or credential program of each health-based candidate. SEAs 
also may use a portion of these funds for review and revision of State 
licensure standards to promote mobility of health professionals into 
school settings.We look forward to working with both chambers to ensure 
this proposal provides adequate support for both hiring these key-staff 
and developing the pipeline.
    Question. I strongly support the administration's goal to increase 
equity in public education funding. The COVID-19 pandemic has 
particularly laid bare the systemic inequalities that exist in our 
nation's schools. Vermont has many small and rural schools that have 
historically struggled to close both the equity gap and the digital 
divide due to a lack of resources. The proposed $20 billion for a new 
Title I equity grant program would represent the most significant 
Federal investment the program has ever seen. It is vital that this 
grant program is an option for all schools that need it around the 
country.
    How will you ensure that these equity grants are distributed among 
geographically diverse areas, particularly rural areas?
    Answer. State educational agencies would allocate funds to school 
districts based on existing Title I formulas, ensuring that virtually 
all school districts--urban, suburban, and rural--receive significantly 
more Title I funding to help close equity gaps in teacher compensation, 
access to rigorous coursework, and access to preschool.
    Question. TRIO and GEAR UP are vital student assistance programs 
that helps first generation, disabled and low income college students 
in Vermont succeed in all aspects of college life. These programs have 
proven effective in increasing postsecondary enrollment and graduation 
rates, as well as helping to address workforce shortages in the state. 
Unfortunately, both the COVID-19 pandemic and a historical lack of 
Federal funding for the programs has meant that many of the grant 
application cycles have become highly competitive. For example, the 
fiscal year 2020 TRIO Student Support Services (SSS) competition faced 
a significant increase in applicants. Separated by mere percentage 
points, 80 longstanding SSS programs were defunded, among more than 600 
un-funded applicants. This left nearly 15,000 high-need students 
without access to services provided by the program.
    How does the administration propose to allocate the increase in 
fiscal year 2022 funding for TRIO and GEAR UP? Will any of the funding 
become eligible to programs that were defunded in the fiscal year 2020 
SSS cycle?
    Answer. The Administration recognizes that limited resources under 
the TRIO and GEAR UP programs have historically resulted in an 
inability to fund all high-scoring applicants. This is why the 
increased funding proposed for TRIO in fiscal year 2022 would be 
allocated, in part, based on historical trends in the programs 
scheduled for competition in fiscal year 2022. Specifically, the 
Administration reviewed peer review scores on all applications 
submitted for fiscal year 2017 competitions under Upward Bound, Upward 
Bound Math and Science, Veterans Upward Bound, and McNair 
Postbaccalaureate programs (the last year in which competitions were 
held under these programs also scheduled for competition in fiscal year 
2022), and proposed to allocate additional funds to each program based 
on the number of high-scoring unfunded applicants from that year to 
ensure that funding more appropriately met demand. In addition, the 
Administration has proposed to provide all grantees under the Student 
Support Services program a 10 percent supplemental award to support the 
critical services they provide our students. However, at this time 
there are no plans to make additional Student Support Services awards 
to applicants that were unsuccessful in the fiscal year 2020 
competition.
    Question. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program 
forgives Federal student loan debt of borrowers who work for at least 
10 years in qualifying public service employment. The program has been 
plagued by complicated eligibility criteria and ongoing administrative 
problems that have resulted in a dismal approval rate. I was pleased to 
see the administration recently announce a regulatory review of PSLF 
and other Federal student loan relief programs to understand how they 
can better serve the needs of our nation's borrowers. However, the 
President's Budget proposes a decrease in funding for PSLF.
    Could you explain the justification for a 50 percent budget 
decrease for PSLF? What progress has the agency made in addressing the 
issues that have resulted in such a low approval rate for loan 
forgiveness?
    Answer. The Department recognizes that there are PSLF areas for 
improvement and we are committed to addressing them as quickly as 
possible so that our public servants receive the benefits they have 
worked hard to earn. We have already made some improvements to make it 
easier for eligible borrowers to access relief through administrative 
actions and others are in store. For instance, the Department has 
launched and updated the PSLF Help Tool, is now allowing lump sum and 
prepayments to count as qualifying payments, and created a single 
application for PSLF, Temporary Expanded PSLF (TEPSLF), and Employment 
Certification Forms (ECFs). However, we recognize more needs to be 
done. To that end, we recently announced that PSLF is among the topics 
we intend to revisit through an upcoming rulemaking process. We also 
recently issued a Request for Information, inviting feedback on 
borrower experiences and possibly policy solutions with the PSLF 
program, to identify broader areas for improvement.
    At the same time, Congress has provided funds annually toward 
TEPSLF so borrowers who may have made payments in a repayment plan not 
previously eligible for PSLF could still qualify for relief. Though 
these funds have remained largely unspent to-date, the Department still 
requested additional funds for fiscal year 2022 in recognition of the 
importance of this program to public servants. The additional $25 
million the Administration requested will ensure even more borrowers 
can access the program and receive relief under the TEPSLF program. In 
addition to those funds, we are also working to improve administration 
of the TEPSLF program and streamline access to its benefits; we believe 
those improvements will lead to these funds being more easily awarded 
to borrowers in the future.

                          SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS

    Senator Murray. With that, this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., Wednesday, June 16, the 
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of 
the Chair.]