Education
Investing in Our Children’s Future and Improving Rhode Island's Schools
Good schools are essential to our communities and our economy, and Senator Reed is working hard to help all our schools make the grade. This means strengthening education from pre-school through college and beyond.
Parents are children’s first teachers, and Senator Reed continues to work to strengthen family engagement in education. Senator Reed introduced the Family Engagement in Education Act to ensure that schools have the tools they need to effectively partner with parents. He also fights for Head Start and other initiatives so that all kids have access to good pre-schools and local communities can expand effective afterschool programs.
Senator Reed strongly believes that every student with the drive to attend college should have the opportunity to go. That is why he has authored bipartisan measures to increase Pell Grants and other need-based financial aid for students.
Read More »Senator Reed believes the more we do to support effective teaching and effective school leadership, the better results we will get for students. He has a new bill to improve the professional development and mentoring of educators that builds on laws he authored to reform the recruitment, training, and retention of teachers.
Key Priorities & Accomplishments
- Senator Reed worked to ensure that investing in education was a key component of our economic recovery strategy. Since 2009, Rhode Island received over $430 million in additional funding to stabilize the state education budget and support education reforms. Rhode Island college students alone benefitted from an additional $73 million in Pell grants.
- Senator Reed’s Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program has provided over $100 million for school libraries to purchase books and computers, train librarians, and stay open longer so that more kids have access to educational opportunities.
- To help make college more affordable for Rhode Islanders, Reed helped pass the largest investment in college aid in history – ending a flawed system that gave away billions in federal subsidies to private banks and putting those taxpayer dollars directly in the hands of students to pay for their education.
- Senator Reed annually hosts a free College Financial Aid Workshop to help college-bound students and their families get a better sense of the financial aid options available at the federal and state levels; the eligibility criteria for these different types of aid; and how students can go about applying for it.
The Latest
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Reed Bill Would Help Local Libraries Improve Job Search Assistance & Workforce Development Programs
CRANSTON, RI - In an effort to help connect more job seekers with employment, U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) have introduced the Workforce Investments through Local Libraries Act (WILL) Act. This bipartisan legislation will better integrate public libraries into state a...
Posted on 6/14/2013 | -
RI Gets Over $2.14 Million to Boost Community Service Programs
CRANSTON, RI - U.S. Senator Jack Reed today announced that Serve Rhode Island and eight local non-profit organizations will receive over $2.14 million in federal AmeriCorps grants. The AmeriCorps grants are the result of the 2013 AmeriCorps State and National funding competition and advance...
Posted on 6/14/2013 | -
Reed, Blunt Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Boost Health Care Workforce
In an effort to build a stronger health care workforce and ensure patients have access to the medical care they need, U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced the Building a Health Care Workforce for the Future Act (S. 1152). This legislation would help m...
Posted on 6/13/2013 | -
Senate Votes 51-46 in Favor of Reed-Harkin Student Loan Rate Fix; But Republicans use procedural tactics to prevent bill from moving forward
In an effort to protect taxpayers and shield college students from a sharp increase in federal Stafford loan interest rates, 51 U.S. Senators today voted in favor of legislation authored by U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) to ensure student loan interest rat...
Posted on 6/6/2013 | -
Reed Speaks on Student Loan Affordability
Mr. President, let me first commend Senator Warren for her very thoughtful discussion on this increasingly important topic of student debt and her efforts to assist us in extending the current interest rate of 3.4 percent while we work on a much longer and much more thoughtful approach to reform. She wi...
Posted on 6/6/2013 | -
Reed Calls House GOP Student Loan Vote ‘cynical and misguided;’ Says it would Cost Students More in the Long Run
Today, after the U.S. House of Representatives voted 221-198 to narrowly approve a bill that would potentially leave students worse off than if the interest rate were allowed to double on July 1st with the Congressional Budget Office projecting that the rate would rise to...
Posted on 5/23/2013 | -
Reed & Honda Introduce Bills to Improve the Effectiveness of Educators & Raise Student Achievement
In an effort to ensure teachers, principals, and other educators are better prepared to meet challenges in today’s classrooms, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and U.S. Representative Michael Honda (D-CA) today reintroduced two key pieces of legislation: the Educator Preparation...
Posted on 5/23/2013 |
