[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 12, 2022)]
[House]
[Page H46]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   ANOTHER YEAR OF DISRUPTED LEARNING

  (Mr. McCARTHY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, more than one million students started 
2022 with closed schools: another year of disrupted learning.
  In Chicago, more than 300,000 kids spent 4 days locked out of their 
classrooms. This is the same Chicago that received nearly $2 billion 
from the Democrats' so-called COVID relief bill to keep schools open.
  We have an education and a mental health crisis on our hands. Every 
student who is trapped behind a screen knows it. Every mom and dad who 
is anxious about another year of last-minute closures know it. Even 
Democrat mayors and voters know it.
  And yet, President Biden said yesterday, America is on the ``right 
track'' with regard to the pandemic.
  Mr. President, in what world is this considered the right track?
  Disrupted learning means we are leaving behind a generation of 
struggling students. It might be the single most destructive policy 
imposed on our children this century. The negative consequences can 
last a lifetime.
  The only question we have now is, how do we save our kids from more 
disruption to their education in the days and weeks to come?
  The President of the United States could have gone to Chicago or any 
of the 5,400 schools that started off this year closed to send a clear 
signal that kids belong in the classroom.
  Instead, he was in Atlanta yesterday delivering a speech that was so 
self-serving and out-of-touch that even Stacey Abrams kept her 
distance.
  But I have a simple principle that every parent knows well: Our kids' 
education is not dispensable. Their futures are not dispensable. I 
believe that as a parent, as a lawmaker, and as an American citizen, 
and I know every House Republican believes it, too.
  We must be a society that pushes to do the best we can for the next 
generation, a society that finally achieves the goal of allowing every 
kid in every neighborhood to go to the school that their parents 
believe is best for them.
  House Republicans will work to make sure our children are the 
national priority they should be, even if this administration and House 
Democrats won't.

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