Rosa DeLauro Meets With Third District School Superintendents

NEW HAVEN, CT— Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3) held ameeting with Third Congressional District school superintendents today,discussing the federal budget and its impact on education, as well as schoolsafety and possible reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary EducationAct (ESEA).

"Superintendents never have an easy job, and both theterrible tragedy at Sandy Hook and the budget situation we have faced inWashington have made it harder. Exchanges like the one we had today areextremely valuable for me, both as a representative for our communities and inmy role as Senior Democrat on the subcommittee responsible for funding federaleducation programs critical to providing opportunity to our children.

"We spoke about the budget situation and how federal supportfor education has not kept pace with population growth and inflation. Statelawmakers are doing the best they can, but we are not making it easy on them.The deeply harmful, indiscriminate cuts known as sequestration have slashed $23million from federal education funding for Connecticut.

"We also discussed school safety and possiblereauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. What happened atSandy Hook is December remains shocking and unthinkable. I stronglysupport increasing the availability of mental health resources in our schoolsand better integrating those services into our schools."

Excluding Pell Grants, per-capita and inflation adjusteddiscretionary spending at the Education Department has been cut by about 14.2percent-- $7.5 billion--since 2002. Since the current Republican Majority tookcontrol of the House of Representatives, 44 federal education programs, totalingmore than $1.1 billion, have been completely terminated. The deeplyharmful, across-the-board cuts known as sequestration have cut $2.48 billionfrom education programs, including funding for disadvantaged children, studentswith special needs, Head Start and afterschool programs.