US Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy accused the Training Division of misappropriating funds.
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Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy and Home Training Committee rating member Virginia Foxx despatched a letter to Training Secretary Miguel Cardona Wednesday demanding copies of emails between his DOE, the White Home and the lecturers’ unions.
Within the letter, obtained by Fox Information, the Congressional Republican leaders blasted federal schooling officers for “radical spending” throughout the pandemic and accused them of mishandling faculty closures and billions of dollars of COVID-19 schooling aid.
“We famous Congress had already appropriated almost 3 times the funding the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention stated was wanted to function faculties efficiently,” the Republicans wrote.
“Sadly, fairly than persevering with Congress’s bipartisan strategy to addressing COVID-19, Democrats superior their partisan agenda, approving greater than $120 billion in extra funding for faculties” in final yr’s $1.9 billion American Rescue Plan COVID-19 aid invoice.
McCarthy and Foxx wrote that Democrats argued “radical spending was crucial for faculties to reopen safely for in-person instruction,” however stated the claims have been confirmed false by knowledge that confirmed solely 4 p.c of the aid funds have been used because the overwhelming majority of US faculties reopened within the fall, in line with the report.
“Regardless of Democrats’ claims on the contrary, these funds weren't wanted to reopen faculties,” the lawmakers reportedly wrote. “Due to this, some faculties are greedy at any mission they will discover on which to waste these taxpayer funds, together with indoctrinating college students and employees with racist and divisive ideologies.”
As they accused the Training Division of misappropriating funds, McCarthy and Foxx additionally referred to as the Biden administration’s dealing with of educational disruptions “appalling,” as “a million public faculty college students throughout the nation have been impacted by district-wide faculty closures” as 2022 started.
“Your tepid response to the return of college closures is tragically insufficient,” they wrote. “Through the Committee’s consideration of the ARP final yr, Republicans provided 5 completely different amendments that may have required faculties to keep up in-person instruction as a situation of receiving ARP assist. Sadly, Democrats blocked every of these proposals.”
The lawmakers referred to as on the DOE to sentence “political allies blocking the schoolhouse doorways,” and demanded “transparency” from federal faculty officers within the type of an inventory of conferences or calls about faculty closures over the past 14 months, copies of emails between the administration and union reps or faculty districts relating to closures, and paperwork associated to closures and restricted “entry to ARP funds.”
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