Sen. Tim Kaine discusses major topics in education with students around Virginia
On Dec. 4, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) held a conference call during which he fielded questions from representatives of college newspapers around the state.
Kaine, the former governor of Virginia, spoke for nearly an hour, first explaining his work in the various congressional committees he’s involved with and then addressing questions about his stance on events taking place in Virginia and around the world. Following the call, The Breeze got reaction from some students on campus.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Kaine was first asked how he felt about the recent changes in a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which would provide more funding for music and arts curricula in public schools.
“One of the weaknesses of the ESEA and the Virginia Educational Initiatives beginning back in the mid-90s to focus on curriculum standards was that there was sort of a definition of what a ‘core curriculum’ was, and it was usually social studies, science, English and math and it really gave some school districts an incentive to — since the testing was kind of high-stakes and a lot was on the line — really downgrade arts, music and physical education,” Kaine said.
Emily Lewis, a freshman biology major, recalled her experience with her school district, Cherry Hill Public Schools in New Jersey, attempting to downgrade its music and arts program.
“My junior year they were thinking about cutting [funding for music and arts],” Lewis said.
Lewis said she and her classmates had to petition to keep the funding and even then some cuts were made. The Senate’s rewrite of the act changes this.
In previous versions, the focus was on the core curriculum but it has since been redefined to include arts and music. Special provisions were made for the use of Title IV funds to go toward music and the arts. The portion of the education fund that schools get directly from the federal government are the Title IV funds.
“I think this education policy is a better policy than the one we had in the past, the one it replaced because it is a recognition that core curriculum is not simply those four subjects but arts education needs to be an important part of a well-rounded educational experience,” Kaine said.
Josh Merrick, a freshman finance major, agreed with Kaine.
“I’m not super political but I understand that the arts and music are very important to a lot of students, especially around here,” Merrick said. “I think that depending on the school’s budget —
and I’m sure he’s going with the right move on that — there’s a huge outlet for stuff like that and it really helps students connect with each other and with the world around them.”
Sexual Assault
An in-depth discussion of the sexual assault crimes on college campuses dominated the call. Kaine said he’s been working to try to pass legislation to combat sexual assault but faces many issues. One particular point of contention is trying to balance the roles that colleges and universities, and the criminal justice system, should take in dealing with sexual assault on college campuses.
The Safe Campus Act was introduced to the House earlier this year and, if passed, the act would require universities to wait to take action against the accused until a conviction is made by law enforcement. This would apply for sexual assaults but not for any other form of crime.
“I think requiring a student to have to go to the police with a sexual assault investigation and saying that a university can’t take action on a sexual assault case when they can take action on cheating or theft or other kinds of crimes is just a horrible idea. I very much oppose that,” Kaine said. “It’s important to have law enforcement involved to stop other crimes from occurring but telling somebody that they can’t bring a complaint unless they go to law enforcement first is a very bad idea.”
Branden Gross, a sophomore engineering major was unsure of how to best approach this.
“I think it depends on the situation, depending on what the circumstances are,” Gross said. “Maybe there should be a kind of a court system or something inside the school and then they would go on from there depending on the severity of the case itself.”
Earlier this year, state-level legislation written by a commission appointed by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and that Anne Holton, Kaine’s wife, worked on was more lenient. The new legislation allows universities to have their own process to handle sexual assault cases on their own campuses and it would require employees of the university to report sexual acts to the campus Title IX coordinator.
“The reason that was put in is because there are a lot of colleges that are trying to hide acts of sexual assault,” Kaine said. “They would rather paint the picture to the public that, ‘Hey, everything’s fine’ and not be honest about the problem.”
The goal of requiring cases to be reported to the campus Title IX coordinator is to prevent schools from trying to cover up what is happening. The coordinator would share the information with a committee but that wouldn’t be required to turn it over to law enforcement if the health and safety of the survivor or other individuals wasn’t threatened.
“In many instances they won’t have to, but I think that that state law was an effort to try to strike the balance between law enforcement prerogatives, the needs of a survivor, the potential that there could be future victims and the needs of the institutions,” Kaine said. “I think it reached a good balance. The federal law that has been introduced in the House doesn’t try to balance the rights effectively and that’s why I don’t support it.”
Kaine visited students at the University of Virginia in the wake of the controversial Rolling Stone article last year to hear students speak about the issue. He has since used what he learned from students to try to push for legislation that would enable public schools at the junior high and high school levels to teach about safe sex practices.
Kaine worked with Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill to introduce the Teach Safe Relationships Act, legislation that would ultimately designed to require schools receiving Title IV funds to teach safe relationship behavior.
“We defined safe relationship behavior as behavior that will help students to understand what are appropriate and inappropriate behaviors with respect to sexuality and coercion and consent and where to go if you think somebody is pressuring you to do something wrong or if you need help,” Kaine said.
The senator couldn’t gain the backing he needed so he worked to get this legislation added to the rewrite of the ESEA.
“It was attached and we got it into the Senate version of this act,” Kaine said. “The Senate version basically said that if you get Title IV monies then you have to teach safe relationship behavior but you can design the curriculum yourself and every year as you report how you used your Title IV monies you tell us what you’re doing to promote safe relationship behavior.”
Emily Drummond, a sophomore engineering major, believes that how sexual assault is discussed needs to change.
“Coming in freshman year we would do the ‘Step Up’ program,” Drummond said. “It’s definitely important to educate and teach people that and that’s the best way to do it where it’s mandatory that as a freshman that you take these classes but it does come off as kind of kitschy and we need to find a way to make it a little more serious.”
That version passed through the Senate, however, the House passed a rewrite that ignored that topic. Both sides of Congress hashed out a compromised version. Instead of specifically requiring the instruction of safe behaviors, the new version makes sure that the Title IV funds can be used for such.
“Now we have some work to do to go out and convince jurisdictions to do it, but given that the bill was very well supported by educational groups and by mental health professionals and by folks who work with survivors of sexual assault, I think we will be able to get a lot of school districts to actually follow the lead and use monies for that purpose,” Kaine said.
Standardized Testing
Students around Virginia grow up taking the Standards of Learning standardized tests and Kaine was asked for his stance on how big standardized testing has become. He was optimistic about the future.
“I think too much of K-12 education has been about standardized testing,” Kaine said. The test is a means to an end, not the end in itself.”
In rewriting the ESEA, Congress hoped to change this. Kaine noted that there will still be scientifically validated tests in the future with their own consequences.
“I think [the rewrite of the Act] will give states much more flexibility to decide how to do them and I think that is a good idea,” Kaine said.
A potential VP?
Kaine was also asked if any rumors about him making it onto a Democratic ticket next year were true.
“I would say ‘Don’t believe everything you hear,’” Kaine said. “I was considered and vetted as a vice presidential candidate back in 2008 when President Obama had a long list of candidates and it kept getting shorter and shorter and I ended up being one of the last two or three that was considered, but I was not chosen, and never really expected to be chosen and I kind of have the same feeling now.”
Kaine said that he has enjoyed his time in the Senate these last three years and will be supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
“I think she’s gonna do well and do well in Virginia but I think it’s just not that likely that I will be asked to join the ticket,” Kaine said.
