Protecting Education for Children with Disabilities

Floor Speech

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today first in thanks to our fearless leader, Representative Hayes, today, but Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound the alarm on what is happening at the U.S. Department of Education or at least what is left of it.

For millions of students with disabilities, the IDEA, or Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, is a landmark civil rights law that guarantees a free and inclusive public education for all students.

However, under the Trump administration, IDEA is under attack, with the administration announcing at the height of the government shutdown in October that it would fire nearly all of the staff responsible for ensuring that students with disabilities have access to resources and support services.

Can you imagine? It is not just reckless, it is not just illegal. It is heartless, and it is disgusting.

Piled onto continuing cuts and threats to other programs of vulnerable families, the President and the GOP have continued to cut healthcare, education, food assistance, housing, and childcare to millions of American families, attacking the very families who need it most while giving billionaires tax breaks on the backs of hardworking Americans. It is shameful.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the administration's attacks on education and what these actions mean for all students, but especially students with disabilities, their educators, and their families. The Department of Education exists to ensure that every student has access to opportunity, to protect their civil rights, to ensure that every student has a fair shot at success.

However, since day one, this administration has systematically dismantled the department, with budget cuts, cutting programs, delaying grants, and firing staff. Over the course of the last year, my office has heard from hundreds of parents, teachers, and students who are scared about what is happening and wondering what will come next: from teachers and counselors who are stretched thin and uncertain about whether or not resources will be there next year, from schools who don't know if their funding will be cut, and from young people, the very children that these programs serve, who are afraid because this administration is terrorizing the children of this country by attacking education and schools and their families, attacking the most vulnerable families.

I have to say this, Mr. Speaker, there is no demand for this. There is no one out there in the American public who is demanding that we cut programs for students and young people with disabilities because it is cruel, wrong, and illegal. It must stop.

That is why Democrats are standing here tonight: to stand up for our students, to stand up for our young people, to fight back against these attacks, and to take a stand against the dismantling of these vital programs.

Let me just say this: In New Mexico, we understand that our young people are our future. That is why we are the first State in the Nation to pass universal free childcare and education for every single student in our State.

I, for one, as a public school kid, was deeply proud to carry the Federal enabling legislation. It is why I fought for funding to build new schools at To'hajiilee, Sandia Pueblo, and Mescalero Apache. It is why I am carrying legislation to increase teacher pay, to protect BIE in Tribal schools, to create a postsecondary pathway of success for students with disabilities, veterans, and first-generation students. It is why I have supported New Mexico also becoming the first State in the country to guarantee free trade school and free college for every single New Mexican. That is how you should be transforming education, that is how you deliver for communities, and that is how you care for the children that we have been blessed to take care of in our role and prepare the next generation of leaders.

I will say this to Mr. Trump: While he and his colleagues may not believe in the power of public education or civil rights or the need to protect children--because their actions speak as loud as their words-- we do. We believe in investing in education from early childhood education to higher education, and everything in between, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to fight back at every turn and honor our commitment to the students of this country. I, for one, and all of us will not stand by and allow this to happen.

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