[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 63 (Thursday, April 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2411-S2412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        GEAR UP for Success Act

  Madam President, on another matter, when the Senate is in recess next 
week, I, like most of our colleagues here, will be running to my State 
to talk to my constituents and to hopefully listen to what they have to 
say.
  As I travel from El Paso to Laredo, some of the things I will be 
talking about will include the GEAR UP for Success Act with students, 
teachers, and school administrators. GEAR UP seeks to increase college 
and career readiness for underrepresented and low-income students. It 
currently serves about 600,000 students nationwide, and Texans have 
benefited from the $885 million in GEAR UP grants over the last 20 
years.
  I am glad I have had a chance to visit with some of my constituents 
in San Antonio and Harlingen about this bill and the incredible impact 
that GEAR UP grants have had on their students. I guess I didn't fully 
appreciate the fact that students really have to begin deciding in the 
seventh grade what their courses of study will be because, if they 
don't take the required courses, or the prerequisite courses, or the 
other courses they are going to need in order to graduate or to get 
into college, they may miss the boat entirely. Many of these students 
come from families whose parents have never attended college or who may 
be unaware of the requirement to plan in order for their children to 
make the right course selections early on as opposed to their waiting 
until their junior or senior year to begin to think about where to 
apply to college.
  This legislation would allow school districts to better cater to 
their students' specific needs rather than to use

[[Page S2412]]

a one-size-fits-all program, and it would reduce the local cost share 
required by half.
  I am eager to hear from my constituents in El Paso and Laredo and to 
talk about what else we can do in Washington to promote college and 
career readiness. In a tight labor market with a booming economy, one 
of the things we hear about the most back home is the fact that 
employers can't find adequately trained workers for the jobs that are 
available and return a good wage. So it is important that we continue 
to do everything we can not only to promote education generally but 
also to promote career readiness for many of the well-paying jobs that 
are going wanting for the lack of qualified workers.