Rep. Cole Condemns Bait and Switch Policy for Upward Bound

July 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Yesterday Congressman Tom Cole (OK-04) spoke in favor of his amendment to prevent the Department of Education from imposing an unnecessary and unfair evaluation policy on the Upward Bound program. The amendment was passed by voice vote.

"The Department of Education's Absolute Priority program is inconsistent with our teachers' obligation to do what is best for their students," Congressman Cole said. "The required evaluation component of Absolute Priority would have Upward Bound programs recruit twice as many students as they would be able to serve. This second set of students would then be directed away from TRIO, becoming a control group to prove or disprove TRIO's effectiveness. Additionally, the second set of students in the Absolute Priority program would be ineligible for TRIO after being unknowingly placed in the control group."

"I offered this amendment to help put a stop to the harmful Upward Bound evaluation requirement that recruits more students that it can help," Congressman Cole added. "We should aim to put our students and teachers on the path to success and redirect our support to valuable programs like TRIO."

"Although I am pleased that this amendment passed, I have serious concerns about the amount of spending in the overall legislation," Congressman Cole said. "Too many extravagant spending projects have been inserted into the bill. Hopefully when it comes back to the House for final passage a conference committee will have trimmed some of the pork."

This amendment was offered jointly by a bipartisan partnership of members comprised of Tom Cole (R-OK), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and Bobby Scott (D-VA). The final legislation must now be considered by the Senate.

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