Rep. Jahana Hayes Talks Education Improvements, COVID-19

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, the past pandemic year has challenged teaches like never before, many have lost their jobs with others forced to adapt to online learning classes along with their students. Connecticut congresswoman, Jahana Hayes, has over 10 years’ experience as a teacher. And in 2016, President Obama named her National Teacher of the Year. Here she is now talking to our Michel Martin.

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks, Christiane. Representative Hayes, thank you so much for joining us.

REP. JAHANA HAYES (D-CT): Thank you so much for having me.

MARTIN: To start our conversation, I wanted to go back to your former life. I think people may remember that you were a highly regarded teacher, in fact, you were National Teacher of the Year before you went to Congress in 2018. So, I wanted to ask you how are teachers doing? They’ve been very much in the apex of this health crisis we’ve all been living through over the past year. I mean, you know, on the one hand, you know, many of them are parents themselves and having to have their sort of adjust to online learning or trying to adjust to, you know, distance learning themselves. How do you think it’s been going?

HAYES: Well, first of all, I think teachers are amazing. But I’m biased, I’ve always thought that I could not have been more proud what teachers manage to do. I also believe that it’s not their job alone. The idea that people thought that, oh, it’s just as easy to go to virtual as it is to teach in-person, is just not true, you know that is a skill that needs to be practiced and mastered and really developed. So, teachers really have to have the professional development and the infrastructure to support that. So, now that we’ve seen just the tremendous equity gaps in so many of our communities, in so many of our schools that didn’t have the digital infrastructure, that didn’t have, you know, proper ventilation or overcrowded classrooms where they couldn’t socially distance, we really have to address all of those things and support teachers. They should not be fighting for the things that we all know they need. I was very pleased to see the conversation shift around vaccinating teachers. They should be treated as frontline and essential workers. And, you know, now this new American rescue package has over $130 billion dollars to address some of the things that I’ve just described.

MARTIN: The latest U.S. Department of Labor estimates show that state and local education employment was down 8.8 percent in October from the previous year, that represents the lowest national jobs total at that point in the schoolyear since 2000. What accounts for that? Is our teachers leaving just because the stress of trying to take care of their families and do their jobs, health concerns? What’s your understanding of why that’s happening?

HAYES: I think it’s a combination of things. And I actually — I don’t want to say predicted, that’s not the right — but I foresaw this happening, which is why I really pushed for legislation. I had a bill, The Save Education Jobs Act, to make sure that we could retain teacher contracts, paraprofessionals, nurses, support services personnel, you know, like our guidance counselors and social workers. A lot of this is because as local budgets became more and more uncertain, teaching — you can’t hire a teacher for a week. Generally, a contract is for a full year. So, if a district was concerned about, will we be able to retain this teacher for a full year, they would not sign the contract or cut the contract. And many of our teachers felt concerned about their own safety who are the primary caregivers for their own families or as their own children switched to virtual learning, they could not leave them to go return to their job, so they had to make a really difficult choice. So, all of these factors have to be considered as we figure out how to navigate our way out of this.

MARTIN: And as you know, you know, some parents are (INAUDIBLE) some demonstrations in some places, sometimes they’re joined by students and a number of your Republican colleagues and state and local officials blame Teachers’ Unions for the current, you know, situation with, you know, the frustration that a lot of parents are having, disconcerting. You know, they say and a number of governors have said, a number of your Republican colleagues have said that they think that the teachers have had too much sway over keeping the schools closed and that they think that, you know, that they’ve been an impediment to getting the economy back moving because parents have no place for their kids to be. And what do you say to that?

HAYES: First of all, I say to my Republican colleagues, to local leaders, to whoever is engaging in this conversation that Teachers’ Unions are the teachers. So, the same people that they’re saying are an impediment to reopening school are the people you want to send your kids back to, the people who care about your kids in care about their health and wellbeing. These are legitimate concerns that teachers had. They were asked — everybody wanted schools to reopen and everybody right now wants schools to reopen. But our teachers were being asked to make these decisions absent all of the supporting structures that were necessary to do it safely. And that’s not fair to ask anyone to do. So, now, that we are allocating funds for PPE, of making sure that we have more transportation for kids, making sure that we can socially distance them and provide the supports, teachers are more willing to return to the classroom. But that was a really unfair ask to say, we want the economy to open. So, we need for schools to open. However, we don’t have any specific plans or have not put any resources in place. That’s just not fair. And our teachers who belong to Teachers Unions really were using their voice to ask legitimate questions that were necessary to keep them and their families safe and in turn keep, their students safe. So, I think it really is an unfair assessment and I struggle with that because these are the same people who months ago, we were hailing as heroes for taking on the herculean task of doing whatever was necessary to meet the needs of their students and literally, in the space of just a few months, now, they’re selfish and an impediment to opening schools. And that really has been a narrative surrounding this profession for a very long time and that’s just not fair.

MARTIN: Why do you think there’s such a different view of the role that teachers have played over the course of this last year and their expectations and requests?

HAYES: I think it’s always been that way, which is why I was very surprise when I ran for Congress, coming into Congress, how few people have actual classroom experience. I heard people talking about, well, they can just space the kids out 6 feet and open the windows. And my question is, when’s the last time you’ve been in a school building? Because some of our schools don’t even have windows that open, or I can tell you from my own personal experience, if all of my students were in school on the same day, I didn’t have enough desks. I had a student sitting at my desk and I was circulating the room and I borrowed a chair from next door and had three students at the front table. That really is the reality of most of our educators. So, this idea that people are taking just a snippet of information and then forming an opinion, we can’t legislate without teacher input, without teacher voice, without really having — I mean, I heard many of my colleagues suggest things and I said, that’s extremely well intentioned and I know what you’re trying to do but let me help you understand what that looks like by the time it gets to the classroom. And I think that’s why representation matters. It really is important to have people just from all walks of life, all professions, all background in these legislative bodies because we are tasked with making very important decisions and we need all of the information to do that.

MARTIN: Your colleague, Representative Katie Porter pointed out, you know, she’s the — I believe, the only currently serving single mother of young children in Congress, and she points out that there’s a class difference, that a lot of members of Congress right now, at this point in history, are quite wealthy, they’re quite wealthy individuals and maybe their kids go to private school or they just have a very different kind of personal financial situation and I just wonder if, you know, that you just — these just aren’t, you know, personal to them and I wonder if you’ve experienced that yourself and do you have the same observation? Do you think that’s part of it?

HAYES: Oh, there’s definitely a class difference. I have a young son who’s in school right now. But as a single mother, this pandemic would have been untenable for me to try to take care of him, support his schooling and still be required to be in-person at work or even logged in at work. I know so many of my friends who, even if they have a home computer, they may only have one. So, if they have multiple children or if there’s multiple people logged on to the internet, their experience is just going to be different. So, Representative Porter is absolutely right, there is a class difference. And those are the experiences of the majority of people who are relying on our public-school systems. You know, our — many of our smaller private schools were able to reopen but by design, they have smaller enrollment, they — many of them have this — the children of parents who have jobs that they can work remotely or they can afford to — they’re not the frontline workers that we’re talking about. And then couple that with the other pieces, the trauma. You have so many kids who see their parents unemployed or out of work for the first time, parents who are visiting food banks. Kids cannot learn when they’re dealing with all of those family and societal issues. So, it’s not just geography. It’s not like if you put kids back in the building then the learning resumes. They are going to have — be returning from what is likely the most traumatic incident of their life, you know, worried about their family’s health and wellbeing, worried about their family’s economic future, you know, worry if they’re going to have enough food. Those are all real factors that are impediments to student learning. And for so many people in our country, that is front and center before everything else.

MARTIN: I want to hear more about the COVID relief plan that was just passed by Congress. It’s a huge bill. I mean, it’s a huge piece of legislation, you know, $1.9 trillion dollars. Many, many moving parts to it. So, I’m just going to ask you to tell me what you think the most important parts of it are.

HAYES: It is a huge bill. I could — I don’t — I couldn’t even fathom that $1.9 trillion dollar. But when you start to break it apart, I think what I am most proud of is that most of this addresses the needs of everyday people. You know, so many people say, what does this have to do with COVID, but there’s an intersection between everything that we’re talking about in this bill that was impacted by COVID. You know, the rental relied, the SNAP benefits, the 15 percent pandemic EBT plus up (ph) that people got. That will be a lifesaver for people. As you know, I just talked at length about the education funding, this is perhaps the largest investment in education that we’ve made. And a lot of this not only addresses the short-term issue but many of the long-term gaps that I’ve been shouting from the rooftops that have been present. This bill will allow schools to update their infrastructure, their ventilation systems. This bill will set aside money for a long-term learning loss, for those afterschool programs and wraparound programs. I think though, the thing that really just — I don’t even know how to describe it. I talked about it in church yesterday to one of my — to some of the people there, the Child Tax Credit, which just would have been a lifesaver for me as a single mom. You know, I was working two jobs and going to school and just still trying to make ends meet. This Child Tax Credit is likely to — I think they said it will lift about 40 percent of children out of poverty. The fact that in one fell swoop, we as a country, can lift almost half of our kids out of poverty, I think it’s something that — and I don’t think we hear enough about that part of the bill, but it is incredible to think about. You know, that really will address many people’s childcare needs. So many of our parents who are frontline workers, our — work in the service industry and have to return to work. Childcare was a big issue. From the beginning of this pandemic, the big problem with closing schools was that parents now couldn’t work. So, for the people who really need that assistance to have that boost, you know, in periodic payments throughout the year, I think is a lifesaver for so many other people.

MARTIN: As I think, most people know by now, that no Republicans voted for this bill. And one of the arguments that they made is it isn’t really about COVID relied, this is really more about policy priorities that Democrats have had for a long time and that they use this this bill as a vehicle to accomplish that. What do you say to that?

HAYES: I think this pandemic has just exacerbated so many inequities and our society. Everything is about COVID relief. Many of these families, the fact that they didn’t have enough savings to last more than eight days being out of work was a problem, you know, the fact that people had to go to a food bank because they didn’t have food, the fact that people who lost their jobs or became unemployed immediately lost their insurance and that helped the spread of this virus because people couldn’t get tested, they couldn’t get health care. There are so many things that — there’s a nexus between what happened with COVID and all of these inequalities that already existed. So, for my Republican colleagues, we cannot just vaccinate people have testing. We have to help people to stand again and at a time of unprecedented challenges. We have a once in a lifetime pandemic, once in 100 years. Government has to have a bold response to this. I was very disappointed that no one — no Republican in Congress voted for this, and I heard them say over and over, we’ve passed previous bills were all bipartisan, and I believe it’s because, you know, as a Democrat, I don’t care who got the credit, I don’t care who signed the check, my constituents needed help, they need it support and I needed to work in Congress to do whatever I needed to do. I don’t know how I could have come home having voted no to this. You know, I have Republicans, Democrats, first selectman from red cities and blue towns, it doesn’t matter, all of them were saying, we need help, we need for Congress to act. We don’t know how we’re going to survive without some type of intervention. I don’t know how I could have come home and said, I just walked away from the whole package. I voted no to this package. So, this is — every part of this is about COVID. You know, had we addressed the infrastructure problems in our school, maybe our kids would have been able to return sooner. Had we addressed the digital divide, maybe virtual learning would have been more successful. So, we know too much to go back to March of 2020. If we are not invested in saying, OK. How do we try to just make sure that this doesn’t happen again? That’s, I think, is our responsibility.

MARTIN: We are in a moment where many people believe or have been encouraged to believe that government does not work, and that’s both on the left and on the right. And I’m wondering if you think that if this relief package, the American Rescue Plan, which is just adopted by the Congress and signed by the president, will that encourage people to take a different look at government, at the role of government in their lives?

HAYES: Absolutely. I mean, I know that good government works. I have been the beneficiary of good government, you know, someone who went to a community — started at a community college using student loans, who, as a single mother, relied on food stamps, who really worked my way up the ladder with — you know, I feel like this should not be permanent solutions. They’re temporary solution so that people can stand on their own and then those people become contributors in their community. I think that really has been my life story, and that can be possible for so many other people if we just provide, I guess, just some stability. Help people get back on their feet the same way that we provide that stability to businesses. We’ve bailed out the auto industry, the banking industry, the housing industry. We’ve done it so many other times. We need to shift our focus to — I don’t even like the word bailout — to supporting our people. And I think that’s what this bill does and I think the direct impact will be felt by so many people that people will say, you know, government stepped in and then my life was better.

MARTIN: Congresswoman Jahana Hayes, thank you so much for talking with us today.

HAYES: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Be safe.