Tom Harkin

Secretary Duncan has correctly called education 'the civil rights issue of our time.'

You are spot on to the issues that exist around the Common Core standards and the assessments that are related.

I am so appreciative that you understand the issues so clearly.

My needs for broadband are expanding, but the limited access and market in Maine is putting a stress on my business.

It is clear--40 years after the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health law--that it is time to move forward and to strengthen the protections that we provide workers in this country.

The simple fact is that it's out of date, and it is too weak to provide for incentives for compliance, to deter violations, and to protect workers from unnecessary injury and death.

I would urge and advocate that the committee strengthen the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and start moving on this by taking up the Protecting America's Workers Act, legislation introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy before his death.

The fact is that, for too many employers, the safety of workers is secondary, taking a backseat to production.

While I understand OSHA's priority of increasing enforcement, I do not support moving the $3M of funding of a program that is designed to create a positive safety culture in which labor and management collaborate to identify and eliminate…

The best way we can honor their memory is to renew our efforts to protect workers' lives and improve safety and health in our country's coal mines and other dangerous workplaces.

Educators, parents, and children rely on Congress to fund education initiatives that will help our kids reach their full potential.

One of the most stinging criticisms leveled at the No Child Left Behind Act is that it has caused schools, especially those serving disadvantaged students, to narrow the curriculum.

Research proves that students learn best when their academic, emotional, physical, and social needs are all met.

ESSCP was first established as a demonstration project in 1994, under Senator Harkin's leadership.

Thank you, Senator Harkin, and thank you to the members of the committee.

I'd like to thank Chairman Harkin and Senators Murkowski, Brown, Casey, and Bennet for their leadership on efforts to improve the nutritional content of school meals provided by the Federal school lunch program.

The current No Child Left Behind Act mostly focuses on academic achievement.

The power of a senator comes not by what we can do, but what we can stop.

The constitutional option has a history dating back to 1917.

I believe that my approach, I think, covers that adequately and that is why I am still after 15 years, and have been ever since promoting it, whether I am in the minority or in the majority.

I am willing to give it up. I hope others are willing to give it up, I think, for the benefit of having a better functioning United States Senate.

We should discuss options for amending the rules, such as Senator Harkin's proposal.

I do not think one of those votes has cost anybody an election yet, but I guess we go through that exercise.

I would hope that we get away from that sort of tit for tat kind of thing.

This is not a radical idea. It is the constitutional option.