[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 130 (Thursday, July 23, 2020)]
[House]
[Page H3699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             CALLING ON SENATE REPUBLICANS TO FUND SCHOOLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Levin) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the public 
schools in Macomb and Oakland Counties.
  In between votes earlier this week, I hosted a Zoom call with the 
superintendents in my district. I was struck by how much they figured 
out in such a short time about operating a school during a pandemic.
  Educators are nimble and creative. They are used to doing a lot with 
a little. The PPE, the cleaning, the social distancing, the technology 
needs, and the social and emotional health, they are up for figuring it 
all out on top of already having one of the hardest jobs there is.
  The problem is, they don't have a fraction of the resources they need 
to put their plans into place. While they have spent their summer days 
and probably fitful nights determining how to keep their students, 
educators, and other school professionals safe, this administration has 
offered no plan other than: Reopen or else.
  As a father of four, as a lifetime advocate for and product of public 
schools, as a union organizer with worker safety top of mind, and as a 
human being with compassion and common sense, I am calling on the 
Senate to offer a real plan in this next relief package, one that 
acknowledges that we must contain this pandemic and provide schools 
with the resources they need to reopen safely.
  It has been nearly 10 weeks since the House passed the HEROES Act to 
put us on a path required to reengage our schools and the economy as a 
whole safely.
  Mr. Speaker, 59,679 Americans have perished from COVID-19 since May 
15 when the House passed the HEROES Act, yet here we are, still trying 
to push public health common sense uphill in the face of denial, 
politicization, and the most disastrous vacuum of leadership in modern 
times.
  The HEROES Act directs more than $100 billion in emergency education 
funding to cover unexpected costs and $75 billion for COVID-19 testing 
and contact tracing, including key provisions of the coronavirus 
containment corps legislation I wrote with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
  What has happened in the intervening 10 weeks with their 60,000 
deaths? The need has not only grown; it has doubled. Just this week, 
national health organizations and child advocates, led by the American 
Academy of Pediatrics, wrote to House and Senate leadership, calling on 
Congress to pass at least $200 billion in K-12 education funding. 
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have met this growing need with the 
inaction we have come to expect: ignoring this proposal.
  What is even more dangerous, Trump and DeVos threaten to strip 
funding from public schools, a threat they have no authority to fulfill 
unless they put students in the classroom full-time even as daily cases 
are higher than they were when schools went online in the first place 
during the spring.
  Nowhere is this more dangerous than in our communities of color, 
where schools are disproportionately underfunded even in normal times. 
These are some of the same communities that have been the hardest hit 
by the coronavirus and may need more time to reopen safely. If we are 
at long last serious about racial justice, we must offer resources and 
flexibility, not ultimatums.
  Senate Republicans can choose to be redefined by the vanity projects 
of a President only concerned with pretending this virus is over and a 
Secretary of Education continuing her lifelong crusade to defund public 
schools and even spreading outright falsehoods, such that children are 
stoppers of COVID-19, or they can do their job: represent the 
educators, school professionals, parents, and students in their States 
by doing what is in the best interest of the health and safety of our 
citizens.

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