00:00I now want to recognize the gentle lady from Georgia, Ms. McBath.
00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Secretary McMahon, thank you so much for being with us today.
00:09As Secretary, you have a direct authority over the cancellation of grants and contracts at the Department of Education.
00:16On February 10th, you canceled the Charting My Path for Student Success program
00:21that served over 1,600 disabled students and their families across 62 schools in 11 states,
00:29including Paulding County, which is in my home state of Georgia.
00:32This year round program provided support services and frequent small group sessions to ensure that physically disabled students
00:41or students with dyslexia, autism and other disabilities as well as their families can meet their goals of transitioning to
00:49and succeeding in adulthood, which is really what every parent wishes for their child.
00:55All too often, it's unfortunately a sink or swim situation for disabled students after high school,
01:03and programs like this can be the difference between a lifetime on disability insurance
01:09versus a good job that they can raise a family on.
01:14On this poster right here, you can see the exact email that was sent out to parents in Georgia because of your decision,
01:22which I would like to submit digitally for the record.
01:25It says, the federal funding provided by the Department of Education for this initiative has been discontinued immediately
01:32and that your child will no longer receive transition supports.
01:38I would like to also submit, for the record, an article from NPR about a young man named Logan and his mother, Jessie,
01:46who were really benefiting from this program before it was abruptly canceled.
01:51Secretary, this is just simply a yes or no answer.
01:54Do you stand by your decision to cancel this program in the middle of the school year without any warning
02:02to the hundreds of students, teachers and families that were participating?
02:08Well, I would like to explore that more and get back to you.
02:12Secretary, this is a yes or no answer.
02:13No, it's not a yes or no answer.
02:14Yes, it is.
02:15It is not.
02:16Certain people deserve a full answer from you, yes or no.
02:21I'm not going to let you circumvent.
02:22I'm not going to let you ignore it.
02:24Yes or no.
02:25It's a simple question.
02:26Do you stand by this decision?
02:27Well, I'll have to look into some of the different programs, and I can't speak to individual grant programs
02:31without looking into them exactly.
02:34There are a lot of grant programs out there, so I'd like to get back to you.
02:38Note for the record that the Secretary is unwilling to answer my question.
02:43Is it clear or do you believe that you are misleading the public regarding the actions that you and President Trump have taken to cut or cancel programs and services for disabled children and their families?
03:01You have said multiple times that disabled students will not be negatively impacted by your decisions, but they already are.
03:09Time and time again, this administration asked the American people to listen to everything that they say, but to ignore actually what they're really doing.
03:19Given our limited time, I plan to submit written questions to you and for the record to learn more about your decision and get some direct answers from these parents as to why the kids can't meet with their teachers anymore.
03:35Do you believe that gun violence, the leading cause of death for children in this country, is a public health crisis?
03:49I believe that gun violence is just, we shouldn't, we should take steps to make sure that gun violence does not happen in our schools.
03:59Is it a public health crisis to you?
04:01The American people and families want to know, do you believe that our children sitting in our classrooms should be fear of unnecessary gun violence?
04:10Most of America believes that this is a public scourge.
04:14Do you believe that gun violence poses a threat to our children while they're sitting in our classrooms?
04:22Gun violence should not be allowed anywhere and gun violence especially should not be in our schools.
04:28I'd like to say to you, Secretary, as a mother who lost her son to unnecessary gun violence in the prime of his teenage years, your response or basically a lack of response is completely out of touch.
04:42Every parent, whether they send their kids to public or private school, worries about their child being killed at school.
04:49And there's a lot of data to prove that.
04:51It is unfortunate reality that this happens every single day, but yes, this is the reality.
04:56There's something very wrong when the highest ranking government officials responsible for the safety and education of our kids cannot claim that the leading cause of death among children is not a crisis.
05:08Every American should be deeply concerned while you remain Secretary of Education.
05:13And I hope that I'm able to get some answers in writing from you and I yield back.
