POLITICO Morning Education
July 25, 2016

WHERE TIM KAINE STANDS ON EDUCATION ISSUES: Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick has been active in Congress on education issues, particularly when it comes to career and technical education. He’s been pushing to expand federal student loans for some career education programs, has worked on a rewrite of the Perkins Act, and founded and co-chairs the Senate career and technical education caucus.

– On LGBT students’ rights: In early May, Kaine wrote a letter [http://bit.ly/2am2DJL] to Education Secretary John B. King Jr. urging him to issue a clarification that LGBT students are fully protected from discrimination under Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities. Less than two weeks later, the Education Department issued guidance [http://politico.pro/2am2VjL] that transgender students must be permitted to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity – which has prompted about half of states to sue over the issue.

– On free public higher education: “We need to give careful consideration, particularly on the fiscal front, to whether there should be some type of income test with respect to free access to college,” Kaine wrote in a Q&A published in The Huffington Post earlier this year [http://huff.to/2aouS99]. “By making all public university education free, we’d be giving away college education to richer Americans who don’t need the assistance paying for it.”

– As governor of Virginia, Kaine also signed the state up to support [http://bit.ly/2am4o7W] the development of the Common Core. But the state ultimately rejected the academic standards in math and English in favor of its own standards, which state officials deemed more rigorous.

– Reflections on Virginia Tech shooting: Speaking Saturday at his first Clinton campaign rally as her VP pick, Kaine invoked his experience leading Virginia after 32 people were shot to death at Virginia Tech in 2007. He described it as the “worst day of my life.” Kaine subsequently signed into law a series of bills to address emergency responses on college campuses and mental health issues [http://bit.ly/2aovk73].

– His wife, Anne Holton, is a political power player in her own right – she’s the education secretary of Virginia; she also spent seven years on the judicial bench and, as a teen, helped integrate schools in Richmond, Va., when her father was governor. Kimberly Hefling has more: http://politico.pro/2a68cZg.