Ben Sasse: “I rise to restate my support for H.J. Res. 58, a resolution to overturn the Obama administration Department of…”

“I rise to restate my support for H.J. Res. 58, a resolution to overturn the Obama administration Department of Education's rule regulating future teacher preparation programs from Washington, DC. This teacher preparation mandate actually assumes that Washington bureaucrats are competent to micromanage teacher training programs across America. There are 27,000 such programs, by the way, and this micromanagement is absurd. We all agree that education matters, that teachers matter, that teacher training programs matter, and that kids are the future of our country, but I ask my colleagues to acknowledge the expertise and to respect the reforms already begun at the district and State levels and to reverse this misguided Federal regulation of teacher preparation programs. I would like to close by reading several quotations from those who would have been affected by this regulation had it gone into effect. This first quotation comes from the American Federation of Teachers. Their public statement on the final rule, on October 12, 2016, reads as follows: It is, quite simply, ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by those program's graduates.…”