Womenstake, NWLC's Blog

As an alum of Swarthmore College who looks back on my years there with halcyon nostalgia, nothing could be more disheartening to me than to learn that my alma mater had been covering up reports of sexual assault, misreporting campus crime statistics, and turning a cold shoulder to survivors looking for support and justice. But after students filed Clery Act and Title IX complaints against the college last spring, I was forced to acknowledge that while Swarthmore gave me the educational foundation and friends to last a lifetime, other students—survivors of sexual assault—received so much less than the college promised and than they deserved.

Swarthmore took an important step last Thursday in restoring my confidence in the school and, more importantly, the safety of the students currently enrolled. In an open letter, President Rebecca Chopp detailed the initial actions Swarthmore will take to respond to the “sea change” in the law addressing sexual assault and harassment at America’s colleges and universities. From a number of new policies the college will roll out as soon as this summer, it’s clear that Swarthmore would rather surf the wave than drown.

So yesterday was a REALLY exciting day for me! I was invited to the White House to see President Obama give a speech on the health care law, a.k.a. Obamacare. There are a lot of beneficial parts of the health care law for young women such as myself, like no co-pay preventive services and no longer being charged more for insurance by simply being a woman. I was asked to come to the White House because a few months ago I received a rebate from my insurance company. Yes, my insurance company sent me a check as opposed to a bill. The reason for this is that there is a provision in Obamacare that says that insurance companies have to use 80% of premium costs on care. If insurance companies do not use the majority of funds on care then they need to return the difference. Pretty great, right?

How it worked for me was that because I have insurance through NWLC, they received the check and the amount that normally comes out of my paycheck for my insurance plan was less. Some people might not even realize that they received the rebate but I was watching for it. Full disclosure, I have a lot of student loans, but on one of my loans I was really close to paying it off. When I received that extra amount in my paycheck, I was actually able to pay off one of my student loans!!

When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, its goal was to enhance educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. As Senator Tom Harkin, Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, asserted in an Education Week blog last month, ESEA was meant to help lift children out of poverty by making high-quality education accessible to all.

That is still the goal today. And while the 2001 reauthorization of the law, also known as No Child Left Behind, was well intentioned and helped expose the stark disparities in our education system, leaders from both parties acknowledge that the law needs improvement. Republicans and Democrats in the both the House and the Senate have come up with their own revised versions of ESEA this summer (New America’s blog put out a helpful side by side comparison here [PFD]).

Today, the House will begin debate on the so-called “Student Success Act” (SSA), the version of ESEA reauthorization proposed by John Kline, chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee. Despite the clever title, the bill is a giant step in the wrong direction for students.