Our Education System Needs Help

Floor Speech

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, the education system in our country needs help. But instead of helping education through additional funding, the sequester, which I voted against as a bad idea, cuts education services to the children in our country who are most at risk.

$740 million will be cut from Title I education programs that provide financial assistance to improve academic achievement of disadvantaged students. Tennessee would receive $14.5 million less and, in Memphis, almost every single school relies on those funds. Head Start would be stripped of $406 million.

These programs are relied upon by low-income families, families that need more assistance to assure that their children have a safe place to learn while their parents work to pay their bills.

Nationwide, nearly 1.2 million students are affected by Head Start cuts. Tennessee will lose at least $7 million and, in Memphis, it means 31,000 children will lose access to affordable early education.

As a result of this reduction in Federal funding and the needs to reprioritize our allocation of Title I funding, Memphis City Schools will be forced to eliminate approximately 80 of their pre-K classrooms for the next year. Eighty-two classrooms are being closed, affecting 1,640 children, more than a third of the students.

The sequester needs to go.

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