'Going To Be Disastrous': Ami Bera Warns Against Closing The Department Of Education

2 days ago

Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss recent moves at the Department of Education.

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Transcript

00:00I know that you said earlier in this conversation you want to host these

00:04town halls and talk about the Department of Education as well. Earlier this week

00:08we saw over 1,300 staffers at the Department of Education fired and

00:13according to multiple reports President Donald Trump has contemplated signing an

00:17executive order dismantling the entire department. What's your reaction to that

00:22news? You know I think it's going to be disastrous to every school district in

00:27this country. That means Democratic districts and Republican districts. We're

00:31obviously going to do what we can to preserve vital services that our kids

00:36depend on. School lunch programs for many kids that's the only hot meal they get

00:40every day. You know special programs for children with disabilities etc. That's

00:47going to impact Republican districts and you know many of these Republican voters

00:51are going to have to hold their members of Congress accountable. We're not going

00:55to let them you know if they do follow through with this it's going to hurt

00:59their kids as much as it's going to hurt Democratic kids. I know Republicans have

01:03said we're not doing anything that's like would totally dismantle or totally

01:09change education in this country. Instead we want to give the power back to the

01:13states when it comes to education. What do you make of that argument? So I'm fine

01:18with power and control of schools. That's why you have school boards. That's

01:24why you have you know parent-teacher associations things like that. That's

01:29fine. But for programs like school lunch programs, for programs that go to local

01:35farmers and try to provide fresher fruits and vegetables, make America

01:40healthy again. Programs that service students with disabilities. A lot of that

01:45comes from federal funding. If you cut that funding you cut those programs. I

01:50was speaking with your colleague Congressman Tim Burchett yesterday and

01:54we were talking about the Department of Education and he told me quote people

01:58are going to be astounded and shocked the amount of waste abuse and fraud

02:02that's at the Department of Education. Is that true in your opinion? What does that

02:07look like? Sure if there's waste, if there's programs that are not effective

02:12or efficient, great let's work on that together. Again how I would do that is I

02:17would actually go to the cabinet members, come to Congress and let's do

02:23it with a scalpel in a specific way. Not just haphazardly lay off individuals

02:28without knowing what the bad impact is going to be. Congressman we haven't seen

02:34test scores bounce back since COVID and if you look at the national test score

02:39average in this country it's shocking to see. What do you think by dismantling the

02:44Department of Education what is that going to do to education in this country?

02:48Yeah I think it's gonna make it harder. I totally agree that we're getting

02:53something wrong with education. If Donald Trump came out and said we're gonna do

02:57something that radically improves our literacy rates in America, we're gonna

03:01try to get every five-year-old being able to read in America, great let's work

03:07on that. Let's figure out how we get back to better literacy rates, better math

03:12scores, better education. I'm not against that and there are lots of things that I

03:17think Republicans and myself and Democrats would find in common. I think

03:22we should do more vocational and technical education, woodshop, metal shop,

03:26auto shop, things that I had when I was a kid. Probably less testing not more

03:31testing and teach kids how to put their cell phones down and get out there and

03:36play.

'Going To Be Disastrous': Ami Bera Warns Against Closing The Department Of Education

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