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Next Week: Rubio Staff Hosts Mobile Office Hours

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person and virtual Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of...

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Rubio Habla en Maxima 92.5 de Tampa Bay

El senador estadounidense Marco Rubio (R-FL) habló con Nio Encendio de Maxima 92.5 de Tampa Bay, sobre cómo la inflación ha impactado a las familias, sobre las olas de migración ilegal, sobre el juicio político de Biden vs. el de Trump, sobre el canje de prisioneros...

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ICYMI: Rubio Joins All Things Considered

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined National Public Radio’s All Things Considered to discuss his plan to expand the child tax credit for working families. See below for the full transcript and listen to the edited interview here. On the connection between the child...

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Rubio Leads Colleagues in Bill to Study Long-term Effects of COVID-19 on Students’ Academic and Health Outcomes

Mar 18, 2022 | Press Releases

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bob Casey (D-PA), Tim Scott (R-SC), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) introduced the Assessing Children’s Academic Development and the Emotional and Mental Health Implications of COVID-19 (ACADEMIC) Act. The legislation would authorize the U.S. Department of Education, in coordination with other relevant federal agencies, to include a new longitudinal component on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student outcomes and well-being to an existing longitudinal educational study. Over the last two years, it is evident the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on students’ academic achievement and mental and physical health. This legislation ensures the public and policymakers have a more complete understanding of how the pandemic affected students and what steps need to be taken to support students moving forward. A one-pager of the bill is available here.
 
“COVID disrupted the lives of students across the country and we are only beginning to see the harm done to our kids,” Rubio said. “Understanding the pandemic’s long-term impact on students’ academic achievement and well-being is critical to avoiding future mistakes and correcting the ones we’ve made.” 
 
“Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we have made progress to help students persevere through the challenges of remote learning and pandemic disruptions,” Casey said. “We owe it to American students to continue to support them, and that starts with understanding the long-term impact of the pandemic on students’ academic achievement and mental, physical, social and emotional health. The ACADEMIC Act will invest in research on these effects and enable us to understand how to best help our kids.”
 
“From learning loss to mental health crises, the damaging effects of school closures on our nation’s children are already undeniable,” Scott said. “If we want to move forward, we must examine the long-term repercussions for today’s youth, who will be tomorrow’s leaders. The success of our nation depends on it.”
 
“Students need to be in school and we are only beginning to understand the impact of school closures on kids and teenagers,”Hassan said. “It’s clear that more research needs to be done so we can better assess learning loss and social impacts, as well as other effects. The results of this study will help give us a roadmap to figuring out how we can best help our kids and support their education.”
 
Specifically, the ACADEMIC Act:  

  • Authorizes the incorporation of this new interagency longitudinal component to an existing longitudinal educational study under the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which is required to begin no later than two years after enactment;  
  • Measures the long-term impact of COVID-related school closures, remote learning, and other factors on pre-kindergarten, elementary and secondary school students, including academic achievement (learning loss), social-emotional wellbeing, and mental, behavioral, and physical health;  
  • Assesses a representative group of students, including residents of rural and urban localities, female and male students, and students from different grades, races, ethnicities, and incomes;  
  • Examines the impacts on specific subgroups of students including low-income students, military connected students, students experiencing homelessness, students in foster care, students in the juvenile justice system, students with disabilities, students who are English learners, and migratory students; and  
  • Requires the Secretary of Education to release a preliminary summary of findings to the public no later than one year after the end of the data collection.