Education

What I believe:

• High-quality education (like health care) must be a right of all Americans, not a privilege.
• Chronic underinvestment in education seriously threatens America’s future competitiveness and well-being.
• The single most important investment we can make is in the literacy, aptitude, productivity, and enlightenment of all Americans, young and old.
• We must strive to make college and higher education a possibility for all Americans who are eager to achieve that level of scholarship and post-secondary and training/re-training opportunities available to everyone.
• Teaching is among the noblest and most essential callings in society and should be rewarded accordingly.
• Massive inequality within our educational system effectively condemns Americans living in poor and under-served communities to economic hardship.

What I have done:

• Cosponsored the College Student Relief Act of 2007, which cuts from 6.8% to 3.4% the interest rate charged undergraduate student borrowers under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and Direct Loan (DL) programs.
• Voted to override President Bush’s veto of the American Competitiveness Scholarship Act, which would provide $10.2 billion in necessary funding for education in America.
• Convened a forum of public leaders, education experts, and hundreds of interested constituents -- including Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, Georgia Perimeter College President Dr. Anthony Tricoli, and Clark Atlanta University President Dr. Walter Broadnax -- to discuss the importance of closing the educational achievement gap.

What I will do:

• Work to drive more funding to struggling public schools.
• Work to protect the futures of college students and other post-secondary students who have taken on debt to attend school.
• Support significant increases in funding for public education nationwide, including full funding of neglected No Child Left Behind mandates.
• Continue to insist that teaching is a vital profession and ought to be rewarded with dramatically higher pay; we must make teaching a career that will lure America’s best and brightest.