WASHINGTON – This week, U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, and Richard Burr (N.C.), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, sent a letter calling on U.S. Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to provide a detailed plan on how the administration is utilizing the billions of dollars Congress provided to help keep schools open. Despite the high vaccination rate among teachers, ample federal funding, and CDC-backed prevention strategies, a growing number of universities and K-12 schools have unnecessarily shifted to remote learning in light of the omicron variant.
“Over the past several weeks, numerous colleges and universities have gone back to remote learning, including Georgetown University, Yale University, and Duke University. Further, more than 5,400 K-12 schools across the country have closed their physical building for one day or more in the first week of 2022, including districts in Chicago, the third largest school system in the country, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit, and Milwaukee. These preemptive school closures are unnecessary, especially given the high vaccination rate of teachers and the layered prevention strategies recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the test-to-stay program,” the senators wrote.
The senators note that funding isn’t an obstacle to keeping schools open as Congress has provided more than $266 billion for K-12 schools and institutions of higher education over the last two years.
The senators continued, “What concerns us is that, as of December 30, 2021, 86 percent of funding remains unspent by K-12 school districts and 36 percent remains unspent by colleges and universities. With more than $266 billion specifically appropriated for K-12 schools, colleges, and universities to ensure the continuity of learning during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and more than $191 billion currently available, where is the disconnect between the Department and schools? … We have appreciated your past efforts to keep schools open, but clearly more must be done. It is important for Congress, and the American people, to have a clear understanding of the administration’s strategy and a full accounting of how the Department of Education is using taxpayer funding.”
To read the letter, click here.
Last week, the senators called on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to detail the administration’s strategy for solving the nation’s severe shortage of COVID-19 tests.