Committee on Education and Workforce
More on Committee on Education and Workforce
March 13, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03), Ranking Member of the Education and Workforce Committee, along with top Democrats, sent a letter to Peter Robb, General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), requesting that he resume the litigation of the McDonald’s case. The General Counsel decided to pursue settlement of the McDonald’s case – with only a handful of days remaining before the close of hearings. “[W]e are troubled that your decision to prematurely suspend this litigation adversely impacts the charging parties’ due process rights,” the Members wrote. “Imposing a settlement that the charging parties do not approve would risk denying them recourse for the harms the General Counsel’s office alleged in its complaints. For that reason, it appears both imprudent with respect to resources already committed, and unfair to the charging parties to prematurely terminate prosecution of this matter.”
March 12, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) issued the following statement after the Trump administration released their proposals for school safety. “Yesterday’s school safety proposals from the Trump administration are both inadequate and concerning. The administration has misplaced its focus on arming school personnel and dismantling civil rights protections for students instead of offering meaningful, evidence-based solutions to gun violence prevention. Our students and families do not need a federal Commission to study violence prevention, when real solutions that curb access to high-powered firearms and evidence-based violence prevention strategies are readily available.
March 9, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) issued the following statement after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 313,000 jobs in February, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1 percent. “Today’s job report shows the economy has built on the progress of the previous administration by adding almost as many jobs in 13 months as the number of jobs added in the last 13 months of the Obama administration. However, even though the economy is generating new jobs, workers are still struggling to find economic security. Compounding this instability is the Trump administration’s proposed rule that would allow employers to confiscate workers’ hard-earned tips. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that tipped workers could lose $5.8 billion dollars a year.
March 9, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) issued the following statement after the Department of Education (ED) published a ‘notice of interpretation’ of state’s rights to protect federal student loan borrowers. “In recent years, there have been numerous credible claims of servicing failures stemming from potentially unethical practices and purposeful misinformation provided to student loan borrowers. States under both Democratic and Republican leadership have rightly increased their investigation of such claims; implemented additional consumer protections for borrowers in their states; and where appropriate, taken legal action. States are well within their rights to enact and enforce consumer protection laws.
March 6, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03), ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, released the following statement after the Department of Education (ED) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released their recommendations for H.R.4508. “Independent analysis continues to confirm what we have said about H.R. 4508 from the beginning, it makes college more expensive for students and is a wish list for for-profit schools. Our claim that it will make college more expensive was supported by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s analysis that the bill slashes $15 billion from federal student aid. And today, the Office of the Inspector General has confirmed that the ‘accountability’ provisions in H.R. 4508 could result in less scrutiny of the sector responsible for the overwhelming majority of OIG investigations and monetary recoveries.
March 5, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03), ranking member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, released the following statement after the Department of Education announced their final list of priorities last Friday March 2, 2018. “As with many recent actions by the Department, I am deeply disappointed with Friday’s announcement. I am disappointed by the Secretary’s failure to heed the advice of many commenters, including Members of Congress, who urged her to abandon school privatization proposals and focus on making sure every public school succeeds. I am disappointed that the words espoused in the final priorities –‘ to support the needs of students with disabilities and improve school climate’ – do not align with recent actions taken by the Department to remove protections for students of color with disabilities and undermine the efficacy of the Office of Civil Rights.
March 1, 2018
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to rise, on behalf of Congressman Morgan Griffith and myself, to recognize the achievements of Ron Carson who has made the plight of tens of thousands of disabled coal miners a central part of his life's work. Through his decades of work directing three black lung clinics in Southwest Virginia, and tireless advocacy efforts across the coal fields of this country, he offered help and hope to miners whose lungs were irreversibly scarred with the scourge of black lung disease.
February 27, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA), ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a two year delay of the Equity in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) rule, which addresses disproportionate identification, placement, and disciplinary treatment of students of color in special education. When Congress last reauthorized the IDEA in 2004, it sought to correct disparate treatment of students of color with disabilities by requiring states, for the first time, to identify school districts with, and direct federal resources to address, gross inequities.
February 23, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Education and the Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03) issued the following statement after being appointed by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to the Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans (Joint Select Committee). Ranking Member Scott is one of only 16 Members of Congress to be appointed to it. Established by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, the Joint Select Committee is responsible for putting forward solutions to Congress before the year’s end to significantly improve the solvency of multiemployer pension plans and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
February 15, 2018
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Chair, H.R. 620, the so-called ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017, is an attack on the civil rights of Americans with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act, or the ADA, is a civil rights law passed in 1990 to protect people with disabilities from discrimination in all aspects of society.
I recognize that the ADA falls within the committee jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee, and I am here as the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce because, if H.R. 620 were to become law, it would have a profound effect on students and workers with disabilities who are trying to learn, work, or just generally access their community.