Ranking Member DeLauro Remarks at the Federal Investments in Elementary Education Hearing

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's hearing on Federal Investments in Elementary Education:

Thank you, Chairman Aderholt, for holding this hearing on how our investments in elementary education have demonstrably improved outcomes for children, and how ending those investments would jeopardize the future success and prosperity for millions of young Americans. 

I want to extend my thanks — and a warm welcome — to today’s witnesses: Ms. Gentles, Dr. Burke, Mr. Kim, and Ms. Coleman, welcome to the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee. 

This hearing is on an incredibly important topic, but I must begin by underscoring that these are not normal times, and we cannot continue, business as usual. In fact, the topic of this hearing ignores the outcries of the American people. House Republicans want to discuss investments in education while Elon Musk and President Trump are illegally terminating Department of Education funding. The American people are calling our offices every day asking about the illegal spending freeze and about what has happened to already-appropriated funding. 

Republicans owe the American people real answers about when their disrespect for the law will end – not more pretending that this is business as usual. 

Furthermore, we are on the cusp of an Executive Order to dismantle the Department of Education. 

An unelected, unchecked billionaire has already done untold damage to our nation’s ability to collect and analyze invaluable information on school performance, including, and especially, for our youngsters in elementary school.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency terminated $1 billion in Education Department contracts and awards, including dozens of contracts awarded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the Department’s independent research and statistics panel that tracks school performance nationwide. 

Without IES’s critical work, parents, educators, and policymakers are in the dark when trying to compare student and schoolwide achievement. 

Elon Musk is taking a wrecking ball to the welfare of children in school and their ability to learn. It is unconscionable, I believe it is immoral, and it is unlawful. And that is only where they began.

President Trump reiterated that his top goal for his Secretary of Education nominee, Linda McMahon, was to, quote, “do a great job and put yourself out of a job.” I refuse to let these hearings distract us from where Republicans want to take public education. The Department of Education is fundamental to the American Dream, and that will be demonstrated by our hearing today. 

So, let us begin. Today’s hearing was called by our majority to reexamine a question that has been settled for decades – does money matter when it comes to elementary student outcomes? 

Some of my Republican colleagues claim that additional funding for our public schools does not improve outcomes – a claim with no basis in reality, and one that is in fact at complete odds with ample scientific evidence.

A 2018 review of research on the relationship between education spending and student outcomes by Northwestern University found statistically significant, positive results for students in 12 out of 13 studies. Similar studies in Texas, Wisconsin, California, and other states have also found that increases in school funding improve student outcomes.

It is common sense that funding that puts more teachers in classrooms to serve students from low-income backgrounds yields positive results.

So, that raises the question, why would anyone advance a baseless claim that has been debunked over and over again?

I believe, as the majority’s fiscal year 2025 Labor-HHS-Education bill showed, House Republicans are following the Project 2025 playbook, and helping Elon Musk reach Project 2025’s stated goals of eliminating the Department of Education, illegally stealing lawfully appropriated federal education funds, and eliminating Title I, which is thecornerstone of our federal investment in education, and which supports 25 million students nationwide.

Let us look at that widely debunked claim again, specifically as it relates to Title I. 

In his paper, “Follow the Money: School Spending from Title I to Adult Earnings,” renowned economist Dr. Rucker Johnson found that, and I quote, 

“increases in Title I funding are significantly related to increases in the likelihood of graduating from high school, reductions in both the likelihoods of grade repetition and school suspension or expulsion, more years of completed education, higher earnings and work hours, a reduction in the annual incidence of poverty in adulthood (ages thirty to forty), and a reduction in the likelihood of ever being incarcerated by age thirty-five. The effects on educational outcomes are more pronounced for children from poor families.” End quote.

Of course, these findings and others were only made possible thanks in part to grants, contracts, and studies administered by the Department’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Perhaps that explains the unlawful and reckless termination of $1 billion in research contracts – when this Administration finds facts inconvenient, they simply try to change the facts or silence the source.

What is even more baffling is that the Republican attacks on public education are wildly unpopular. There is no mandate to remove teachers from classrooms, but that is where they are taking us.

A recent bipartisan poll commissioned by All-for-Ed found that 58 percent of voters oppose eliminating the Department of Education, while just 29 percent support such a reckless move. 

And a whopping 68 percent of voters agree that, quote, “We should increase funding to improve public schools so that they better meet the needs of students for the jobs and careers of the future,” 

with only 24 percent supporting a contrarian view that, quote, “we should increase funding to give parents vouchers so they can send their child to the school that best meets their needs.”

Selling vouchers as “school choice” is a misnomer. 

The real choice in the equation goes to private schools, who can choose to reject students that do not come from well-to-do families. And then what happens? Where should those students go? 

Nine out of ten students in our country attend public school. I implore my colleagues across the aisle – stand up for the majority of Americans who reject the premise of this hearing, who oppose the actions Elon Musk and Russ Vought are taking to make Project 2025 a reality. Stand up for the 50 million children who attend public schools in rural, suburban, and urban school districts across the country.

And in the meantime, we must get our work done.

We are nearly five months past the end of the fiscal year, without a Labor-Health and Human Services-Education bill that can become law. 

But the funding cuts in the fiscal year 2025 Labor-HHS-Education bill that has been proposed by the majority would take a wrecking ball to programs that ensure elementary school students ever have a chance at achieving the American dream. 

From K-through-12 education, the majority put cuts of $8.6 billion on the table. Where are they seeking to exercise their so-called fiscal responsibility?

Nearly half of that cut comes from Title I, which would result in thousands of teachers being kicked out of classrooms. I do not believe the American people want larger class sizes and fewer teachers among them, but that is exactly what House Republicans aim to deliver.

House Republicans have also found savings by eliminating programs that help young children learn English, programs that provide grants to state and local education agencies to help schools meet their state academic standards, and programs that provide grants to help students grapple with ever-mounting stress and pressure.

I am disheartened, to say the least, to see my colleagues across the aisle taking aim at the programs that help their own constituents advance their education – programs that improve the livelihoods of children and their families. 

And when we sit down to negotiate a full-year funding bill that can reach 218 votes – which the House Republicans’ proposal cannot – I look forward to protecting investments like Title I and ensuring a quality elementary education does not become the purview of only the wealthy.

This Committee – and this Congress – should be focused on finishing full-year appropriations bills, but we now stand less than four weeks away from the March 14 deadline without so much as a topline agreement. 

The American people are demanding help with the cost of living, the single biggest issue they are facing, and we can do that here. This committee has incredible power to change lives and help the middle class. We can help make education affordable and make it easier to succeed in the workforce through our funding bills. 

But unfortunately, the pressing need to finish full year bills is not even the most urgent challenge to our federal education priorities.

The Department of Education – created by an act of Congress, funded by appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed into law – ensures that, no matter the wealth their family does or does not have, or whether they have a disability or other disadvantage, every single child has the opportunity to obtain an education. It is the embodiment of what Horace Mann called the “great equalizer.” 

The role of the Department of Education is crucial in securing the opportunities and rights of every student in America. Instead of shoring up our investments in America’s students, Elon Musk plans to follow the Project 2025 playbook and turn public education over to the highest bidders and wealthiest families, and he is doing so with the cooperation and capitulation of House Republicans. 

Families and communities across the country are reeling from multiple crises in classrooms – skyrocketing costs, learning loss and achievement gaps, educator shortages, and epidemics of loneliness and school violence – and they are looking to their elected leaders for solutions.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, cannot be replaced by government of billionaires, by billionaires, for billionaires. 

To my colleagues: if you want to eliminate the Department of Education, then put your name on a bill to do that. Let your constituents see it. Let us debate it. Let us and the American people deliberate. Do not yield our authority, and the rule of law, to unchecked billionaires.

As we will discuss today, elementary education is an irreplaceable prerequisite to economic mobility in this country, and our federal investments play an irreplaceable role in ensuring the promise of an education is fulfilled for every child in this country. 

What we cannot do and will not do is retreat from our children’s education altogether. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

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