{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-on-civic-cipher-kelly-talks-about-why-america-needs-more-male-teachers-and-mentors-and-what-hes-doing-about-it/", "ICYMI: On Civic Cipher, Kelly Talks About Why America Needs More Male Teachers and Mentors,\u00a0and What He\u2019s Doing About It", "2026-08-18", "2026", "2026-08", "Democrat", "Senate", "AZ", "Mark Kelly", "K000377", "www.kelly.senate.gov", "markkelly", "https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "\u201cI think all successful men should be looking for opportunities to help young men.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy goal is to get this legislation passed. This will have a positive impact on people\u2019s lives.\u201d\n\nIn case you missed it, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly joined the Civic Cipher podcast with Ramses Ja and Q. Ward to talk about the positive impact of getting more men into teaching and mentorship roles. Kelly discussed his recently introduced two-bill package\u2014the Educators for America Act and the Building Community in America Act\u2014which will help young men step up and serve their communities.\n\nListen to the full conversation here. See key excerpts below:\n\nOn the dramatic decline in male teachers and mentorsin the US\u2026\n\n\u201cThe numbers have gone down dramatically. Decades ago, it was about thirty-five percent of teachers were men. Today, that number is twenty-three percent. In some places, it\u2019s even lower than that. And it\u2019s the same for mentors. Programs like AmeriCorps and the Boys and Girls Club do not have enough men mentoring men. The list is really low for young men and boys that are looking for mentors.\n\n\u201cSo, we\u2019re trying to solve those two problems. So, in one case, what we\u2019re doing is paid training for teachers who are men, and in the other, it prioritizes searching for male mentors to get them into programs like AmeriCorps.\u201d\n\nOn why young men are struggling today\u2026\n\n\u201cYoung men are really struggling. They spend much more time on their phone. They often don\u2019t think they have opportunity. They don\u2019t have opportunities for relationships like they used to because of social media. Social media has changed that landscape.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it over decades, and it took a while to see what the impact was. And the impact isn\u2019t great. Young men need to have men in their lives.\u201d\n\nOnsuccessful mensetting the example and helpingyoung men\u2026\n\n\u201cI think all successful men should be looking for opportunities to help young men. This didn\u2019t happen overnight and won\u2019t be fixed overnight. My goal is to get this legislation passed. This will have a positive impact on people\u2019s lives.\u201d\n\nOn the importance of investing in young people\u2019s education\u2026\n\n\u201cWe want young people to be able to grow up and be successful and contribute in society. Have a job, a career, be productive, be able to have a family, have an economic situation where they can raise a family.\n\n\u201cThe best money we spend as a nation\u2014after spending twenty-five years in the United States Navy and working at NASA for fifteen years\u2014the best money we spend in this country is spending it on education. That\u2019s my view because you get it back. You get it back with the future success of young people.\u201d", 1, "2026-08-19T05:29:02Z", "2026-08-19T05:30:24Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/icymi-on-civic-cipher-kelly-talks-about-why-america-needs-more-male-teachers-and-mentors-and-what-hes-doing-about-it/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3729790225625038, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}