Political Quotes

“I thank the Chairman of the HELP Committee, Senator Alexander, for his comments. I share his concerns that section 578 of the National Defense Authorization Act bill is not the right way to ensure students can learn in safe and secure school environments, and will impose unfair and unreasonable requirements on more than 1,200 schools districts across the country. Criminal background checks are a critically important means to ensure that students are safe in our schools, and that is why they are required in 46 States. But the language of section 578 will force the 1,225 school districts that receive Impact Aid funds--and which are in almost every State--to have two separate criminal background check systems for different schools and different employees within a single school district. It is costly, duplicative, poorly conceived, and should not be part of a Defense authorization bill. In my State of Washington 628 schools, about a quarter of our public schools, receive Impact Aid funds and would be subject to a separate expensive set of background checks that differs from the background checks already conducted. In the chairman's State, 571 schools receive Impact Aid funds and would be subject to this different standard. It is fundamentally unfair and not beneficial to students to ask our schools and our school districts to assume the costs of these checks, which are similar to but not exactly the same as those already conducted in our States.…”