Remarks
Good Morning. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for our Member Day hearing.
We are looking forward to taking testimony from our colleagues this morning.
This is an opportunity for any Member of Congress to come before this panel and draw our attention to issues of importance both in their districts as well as across our nation. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues about the challenges they see and how this Subcommittee can help address them.
Before we begin, I’d like to turn to the Ranking Member for any remarks she would care to make.
Good morning. Thank you to our witnesses who have come to testify before us for this important hearing. Today, this subcommittee will examine the effectiveness of Federal K-12 funding and the importance of school choice. I look forward to learning more from our witnesses about the state of our public K-12 schools, challenges facing these students, and the trends these experts are seeing in the field.
America’s students are struggling. There is no way to sugar coat this fact. The results from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress showed student test scores overall are below 2019 levels in all grades and subjects. Students have still not recovered from the pandemic, and the lowest-achieving students are disproportionately falling further and further behind. One-third of eighth graders nationwide are currently reading below the basic level.
