Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

As a mother and former PTA president, education is one of Senator Murkowski's priorities. Whether you are an educator, a parent, a business owner, or a member of the community, you want to make sure that children leave school prepared to contribute to their communities in a positive and meaningful way. In order to reach that goal, we must ensure that high-quality early childhood and K-12 education are available to every child in every corner of our country, no matter how remote or urban the setting. It means that access to high-quality job training and college education is available and affordable. And it means that communities are active partners in helping our children grow up strong. As a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Murkowski has been in an excellent position to put in place policies and fund programs that work for Alaskan students, educators, parents, and our state as a whole.

Education is the engine of Alaska's future. For Alaskans to find and keep good, well-paying jobs, they need to have the knowledge and skills to get the job done. In order to build economic opportunity, Alaska needs people who have the skills to start and sustain new businesses and keep established businesses competitive. Alaska's schools, job training programs, and universities are the sparks that make Alaska's engine run strong. Just as Alaska Native elders have, for thousands of years, made sure that young people learn the skills they need to survive and adapt in a harsh environment, we must all ensure that each and every Alaskan child has the knowledge and skills they need to keep Alaska strong and vital. In Senator Murkowski's view, a good education is the ultimate economic stimulus package.

Senator Murkowski has focused her attention on fighting and fixing one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C. and that Congress addresses the problems we encounter due to the state's unique characteristics. She has made sure that the Head Start Act is more responsive to the Indian Head Start programs. She has introduced legislation to fix No Child Left Behind. She held field hearings of the Senate HELP Committee to find solutions to Alaska's tragically low graduation rate, and to identify what is working to help young Alaska Native students succeed in school. The Senator has also focused on making college and job training more accessible and affordable for more Alaskans. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, she has advocated for programs that make a real and lasting investment in our students' futures.

Early Childhood Education

Children need a solid foundation of literacy and social skills, health and nutritional assets, and parents who know how to help them grow strong, healthy, and happy from the moment of their birth.

The federal Head Start program prepares low-income children for school by providing comprehensive, early childhood development services including educational, health, nutritional, and social activities. Senator Murkowski worked closely with her colleagues on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions to write and pass the Head Start for School Readiness Act, which includes many of the priorities of Alaska's Head Start Directors, including authorizing more funding, expanding eligibility, maintaining local control, and additional, guaranteed support for Indian Head Start programs.

Since the enactment of the Head Start for School Readiness Act in 2007, Senator Murkowski continues to assist Alaskan Head Start grantees to work through issues associated with the regulatory process, to ensure full participation for Alaska's Indian Head Start grantees in the Tribal Consultations, and to ensure the state's small Head Start centers are allowed to open and serve Alaska's children.

K-12 Education Dropout Prevention

Senator Murkowski is fully committed to ensuring that all children have access to a quality K-12 education. Alaska has one of the highest dropout rates in the nation. Senator Murkowski believes that this is unacceptable, and a symptom of a number of issues that can be improved if educators, policymakers, students, parents, and the community will work together. At the end of 2008, she convened a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in Anchorage to hear from Alaskan and national experts about the problem and how to solve it. Expert national and Alaskan witnesses provided moving personal statements and strong recommendations for how the federal government can assist the State of Alaska and our schools to ensure that every student has the tools they need to graduate on time and be well-prepared for a successful adulthood.

Senator Murkowski believes there should be increased focus on young children that have risk factors associated with not graduating from high school. She believes students who are at risk early need to be identified, put on track, and kept on track throughout their school years. For that reason, Senator Murkowski has introduced S. 1109, the Early Intervention for Graduation Success Act, which would provide states, early childhood providers, and school districts with research-based, effective ways to identify and assist students who might otherwise not graduate from high school.

K-12 Education The No Child Left Behind Act

Senator Murkowski has received support in Alaska and across the country for her efforts to improve the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as "No Child Left Behind" or NCLB. She believes it is essential to fix the one-size-fits-all Washington-based mandates that do not fit Alaska's unique needs. She also believes the federal government has a responsibility to Alaskan taxpayers and our state's future to help ensure that every Alaskan child not only has access to an excellent education, but there is accountability for federal taxpayer dollars spent in our schools and that federal education law meets the needs of Alaskan educators, parents, students and communities.

As a result, Senator Murkowski has re-introduced S. 1110, the Educational Accountability and State Flexibility Act. This bill would maintain accountability for billions in federal tax dollars and students' access to a good education while allowing states and districts to recognize good schools, recognize improvement, and implement common sense ways to fix all schools that need to improve. Among its provisions, S. 1110 would:

Maintain the requirement for schools, districts, and states to publicly report student progress by subgroup, such as economically disadvantaged, minority group, disability, and other factors;

Eliminate the "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) designations that have too often mis-identified good and improving schools as "failing schools";

Require states, not the U.S. Department of Education, to determine each school's level of success based on each subgroup's academic growth and publicly report the data to parents and communities;

Require school districts and states to diagnose why schools are not improving based on analysis of curriculum, assessment, instruction, learning environment, professional development, and leadership and to fix what is wrong in ways that will work for that school and community;

Prohibit the U.S. Department of Education from mandating any school turnaround strategy;

Maintain access to alternate assessments for students with severe cognitive disabilities;

Replace references to "highly qualified teacher" with "highly effective teacher" and requires states, not the federal government, to define what that means;

Ensure that Native Americans who are experts on American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian languages, culture and history can teach these subjects in schools that offer them;

Require schools to share student data with tribes and Native organizations that are working in schools to help Native students; and

Strengthen the rights of tribes and Native organizations to be involved in school improvement efforts.

In June, 2013 the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions moved S. 1094, the Strengthening America's Schools Act, out of committee on a party-line vote. Unfortunately, the bill was drafted with little input from minority members. Twenty-five amendments were offered during the markup; only ten were agreed to, most of them on a partisan basis. One of the few amendments adopted on a bipartisan basis was offered by Senator Murkowski. This amendment would update the Alaska Native Educational Equity Program (ANEP). Senator Murkowski drafted the amendment based on the advice of Alaska Native organizations, school superintendents, teachers, and others. It was adopted by voice vote.

While gaining the support of the Senate HELP Committee for updates to ANEP was important, the Strengthening America's Schools Act retained too many one-size-fits-all provisions that would not work well in Alaska and did not appropriately balance accountability and flexibility. Senator Murkowski voted with several of her colleagues to not move the bill from Committee. The Senator remains hopeful that the Committee will eventually be able to fix No Child Left Behind, through a fully bipartisan and inclusive process, build legislation that will work in both the urban and rural corners of the nation and that will work for parents, educations, students, and taxpayers alike.

Postsecondary Education Access and Affordability

Senator Murkowski visits with high school travelers in Washington, D.C.

Financial Aid Resources

Important information to help students find high-quality college or job training and to make informed decisions about federal and other financial aid is available on Senator Murkowski's Financial Aid page.

Senator Murkowski wants to ensure that all students can afford to attend and graduate from college. She worked throughout 2007 and 2008 to enact legislation to reauthorize the College Cost Reduction and Access Act and the Higher Education Opportunity Act. These bills increased the maximum Pell Grant award, made the cost of college more transparent, protected student aid borrowers from unethical and unscrupulous lenders, simplified the process of applying for student aid, and offered colleges the opportunity to improve their teacher preparation programs. These bills also helped students by putting a cap on student loan payments based on graduates' income, provided for loan forgiveness for public service employees, created more protections for active duty service members and their families and for veterans, and created the College Access Challenge Grant program, which was designed to help get more Alaskan students to college and job training. Summaries of these bills can be found at: College Cost Reduction and Access Act and Higher Education Opportunity Act.

Senator Murkowski continues to recognize that in the current economic environment, college graduates in Alaska and across the country face the major obstacles of rising college costs and an incredibly tight job market. She still supports keeping the interest rate on federal student loans low however, and a consensus was reached between a bipartisan group of Senators to tie loan rates to the 10-year Treasury note plus an add-on and to cap rates to protect future borrowers from market fluctuations. Rates would be fixed for the life of the loan.

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