In remarks on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine spoke about the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), which incorporates key provisions of his legislation to help prevent sexual assault by ensuring public secondary schools teach students “safe relationship behavior.”
The Teach Safe Relationships Act, which Kaine introduced with U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill in February, would require all schools that apply for Title IV funding to describe how they are educating students about safe relationship behavior regardless of whether they use Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) funds for health education. The idea for the bill came out of a December 2014 meeting Kaine had at the University of Virginia to listen to students’ recommendations for preventing campus sexual assault.
“Communication, understanding what coercion is, understanding what consent is, understanding where to go for help – these are all matters that we will teach to our students at a younger age so that they can keep themselves safe,” Kaine said. “The idea for this came from students at the University of Virginia. I went and visited with them to discuss sexual assault in December and they told me that they wished they had come to campus better prepared…I praise them for putting this great idea on my radar.”
Earlier yesterday, Kaine applauded his Senate colleagues for unanimously passing an amendment he introduced to ECAA that designates career and technical education (CTE) as a core academic subject. Video from Kaine’s earlier remarks is available here.
“I grew up working in my dad’s ironworking and welding shop. I ran a school that taught kids to be welders and carpenters in Honduras many years ago, and what I learned is that high-quality technical information is an important part of the educational spectrum,” said Kaine. “This bill broadens what is a core curriculum to include computer science and foreign languages, and this amendment would make plain that high-quality career and technical education is a core academic subject.”
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