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spe thank you thank you sir sorry about that the subcommittee on Early Childhood Elementary and secondary education will come to order I note that a quorum is present without objection the chair is authorized to call recess at any
time education outcomes in the United States continue to plummet the recently released Nations report card paints an alarming picture math and reading scores continue to to decline despite a steady
increase in overall spending as a result millions of young people are being deprived of the skills needed for success in college careers and life this is also a long-term risk to our nation's prosperity and security we are
at risk of losing our Edge to countries that are doing a better job educating the Next Generation yet amidst this troubling landscape there are positive outliers Across the Nation there are many outstanding schools of all kinds
with dedicated teachers and administrators that are defying the odds and getting tremendous results for their students in particular States and communities that have embraced school choice in all of its forms are defying the national Trend these success stories
provide a starting point for the education reform that America needs indeed America's education landscape is increasingly A Tale of Two models on one hand some states have used every lever of policy to limit the options available
to families these jurisdictions share certain perverse features students are assigned to a neighborhood school with few if any alternatives instruction is driven by top- down bureaucratic requirements with little regard for learning outcomes educators are given
lifetime job security at denied meaningful professional development the same things are done year after year impervious to changes in the world technology or the science of learning with parents kept at arms length through it all this this is the model behind
American educational decline it is the model that the Biden Administration did everything possible to reinforce fortunately a second model has gained significant Traction in recent years and
it flips every aspect of this failed model on its head parents select a school that is right for their child Educators receive the support they need and are expected to perform schools that fail to get results lose students and
eventually May cease to exist those that succeed attract more students and continue to innovate and grow with parents in the driver's seat through and through this is the school choice model which president Trump's first education
executive orders aim to reinforce there are now 81 private school choice programs across 33 States serving 1.2 million students which is about double the number of students served just three years ago the percentage of school age students homeschooling has roughly
doubled since 2019 there are also a variety of school choice programs within traditional public school systems such as those that allow open enrollment within a district or transfers across districts or offer choices like magnet schools or career education focused schools but the form of school choice
that I believe shows perhaps the greatest promise in elevating student achievement and closing achievement gaps at scale is Charter Schools since 2005 the number of charter schools has doubled and Charter enrollment has
tripled to over 3.7 million students unlike traditional public schools to which students get assigned based on their neighborhood Charters are schools of choice that families elect to attend such schools are publicly funded but
they only receive that funding if they attract families to opt in and they're held accountable for student learning outcomes in exchange Charters are generally freed from top-down bureaucratic requirements and can operate with greater flexibility and autonomy allowing them to innovate in
line with their own educational Vision this model has proven enormously successful a 2023 Stanford Credo study found that Charter students gain an additional six days of learning in math and six days in Reading per year compared to their District school peers
these gains are especially significant for historically underserved communities take two powerful examples the Success Academy Charter network has over 50 schools in New York City serving mostly lowincome minority students Success Academy has ranked number one in
the entire state of New York in math scores and the kip Charter network which stands for knowledge's power program has over 240 schools Nationwide focused on underserved communities a 2023 Mathematica study found Kip students
were twice as likely to complete College as their peers the opposition to Charters by the Biden Administration and political leaders in States like California is also revealing after all these are public schools that are open to all
tuition free yet they have become the target of funding Cuts enrollment caps authorizing obstacles and harassing regulations from Gavin Newsome to Bill deasio to Joe Biden a certain faction of the Democrat party has been bent on
closing public charter schools and stopping new ones from opening this proves Beyond doubt that opposition to school choice is not about protecting the public school system that's just a self-serving justification concocted by those who want to preserve a failed
education model and cater to the interests that feed off of it while denying choices to parents and dooming students to less promising lives beyond Charters generally research shows that students in school choice programs do better better academically their parents
are more satisfied and the students are more likely to graduate we also know that parents overwhelmingly want these options More than 70% of respondents to a real clear opinion research survey support school choice and that includes
82% of Republicans 68% of Democrats and 67% of Independents how many issues can you find that level of agreement on a January 2025 survey similarly found that 81% of Voters agree that the government should Empower parents and prioritize
individual students needs by providing greater access and more choices to assure CH children receive the best possible education and here's the thing school choice is also key to creating better traditional Public Schools research
suggests that traditional Public Schools perform better when they face competition from school choice we should all want traditional public schools to be the best that they can be while it's true that many have embraced woke ideologies there are also many teachers
and school leaders who are doing an admirable job to help students learn embracing school choice means that parents should have a range of high quality education options and that includes their neighborhood public school education is fundamentally a
state and local issue but there's a limited role for the federal government as well for example the educational choice for children act which I am co-sponsoring would create a federal tax credit so that donors could better fund private scholarships for children Across the Nation this bill would help ensure
that students even in states without school choice programs those that have adopted this failed model could access the education they need and deserve in addition Federal Charter Federal Charter School Grants which President Biden tried to reduce are vital for many
Founders starting new Charters or replicating successful schools and finally we can highlight the benefit benefits of school choice and encourage the expansion of success successful programs across the country this can be the year that we begin reversing the
decline of American education and today's hearing is an important first step with that I yield to the ranking member for an opening statement uh thank you Mr chairman and thank you to the witnesses for being here today I want to begin by acknowledging the role that
public schools play in our communities our economy and in democracy with the overwhelming majority of students in public schools public education is the foundation on which we build our future Public Schools serve the needs of every child regardless of
background or income that's why we need to protect public education and importantly funding for public education from voucher scams that funnel taxpayer dollars into private institutions that being said I and most Democrats support a wide range of options within the
public school system in many many states and districts families have choices among magnet schools public charter schools as the chairman mentioned and intradistrict and interdistrict open enrollment policies for example in the district I represent we have some of the top magnet programs in the state
including Portland's Benson poly Technic High School a CTE magnet school that offers major programs in automotive building construction electrical engineering Health occupations media production and more and the Beaverton School District has many choices an international magnet arts and
communication magnet and the Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering these valuable opportunities are offered to all students and most importantly they are offered at free public schools that are required to comply with the individuals with Disabilities Act I want
to note that the chairman mentioned W mentioned woke ideologies and this just another reminder that the federal government does not by law set curriculum uh but let's talk about Universal vouchers which are often pushed with little or no income restrictions meaning that every student
whether from a single parent home where the mom is working and making minimum wage or from a billionaire family like Elon musk's they could all receive the same amount of taxpayer money all while the public schools that serve the rest the majority are left to do more with less and in this discussion we must
consider rural areas in the district I represent I have urban areas but I have a lot of rural school districts where the public school is the heart of the community and the only option is a public school School uh so in those rural school districts I know what kind of reaction I would get if I told them
that part of their public school funding was cut but here's a voucher so your student can go to another school there is no other school and there's very little chance of bridging that funding Gap leaving them to either make Cuts increase class sizes or both and that's the main reason why several States
including Nebraska Kentucky Colorado they've all rejected voucher schemes moreover what message does it send to teachers and students who are already feeling the strain of a system that's underfunded and overburdened stripping away already strained public schools of more funding to support private schools
is not the answer the solution is clear we must invest in public education so every child has the chance to thrive in the classroom it's also worth noting that voucher schemes permit private schools to discriminate against students based on disability religion and other
factors that have and they've also been found to increase segregation and people across the country country remain legitimately concerned about the use of taxpayer dollars for religious schools because it is so intertwined that it violates the constitutional principle of
separation of church and state and for many reasons the argument to support Universal vouchers based on nape scores it's really not persuasive test scores are one way to eval evaluate Student Success we had a global pandemic that led to social isolation and according to
the American Psychological Association there's a mental health health crisis among youth there's increasing and some say excessive use of electronic devices by kids and importantly the scores of high performers stayed pretty much the same it was scores for low performers
that plummeted that's not a case for vouchers it's a case for funding fully funding Title One mckenny vento and other programs that support low-income students we cannot ignore facts voucher programs do not improve student outcomes
research shows that in states with large voucher programs like Louisiana Indiana Pio Ohio students using vouchers tend to perform worse than their peers in public schools these programs are a misuse of taxpayer dollars and they contribute again to discrimination segregation and
a lack of accountability speaking of a lack of accountability a recent study about the Arizona Voucher Program found that the state imposes no transparency or accountability requirements on private schools that receive taxpayer dollars through the state's voucher program and additionally Arizona parents
who are shopping for a schools say it's difficult to get any independently verified information about the quality of instruction or financial stability of these private schools that are getting public dollars public education is already under attack from this Administration we know that with the
looming threat of an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education let's not make things worse by allowing the use of Public Funding for private schools so instead of funding private schools we need to invest in public education so every child no matter their zip code Des reserves access to a high
quality education I look forward to the conversation and I yield back the balance of my time pursuant to committee rule 8C all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically and Microsoft Word format
by 5:00 pm 14 days after this hearing which is March 25th 2025 and without objection the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the offici official hearing record I note for the subcommittee that some of my colleagues who are not permanent
members of this subcommittee may be waving on for the purpose of today's hearing I'll now uh introduce our four distinguished Witnesses our first witness is Dr Michael McShan who is Director of National research at Ed choice in Indianapolis Indiana our second witness is Mrs Jenny Clark who is
the founder and executive director of love your school in Scottdale Arizona our third witness is Miss Jessica Levan who is litigation director and director of public funds uh Public School at the education Law Center in New York New York New Jersey and our fourth
witness is Mr Walter Banks Jr who is National spokesperson at the American Federation for children which is headquartered in Dallas Texas we thank the witnesses for being here today and we look forward to your testimony pursuant to committee rules I would ask that you each limit your oral
presentation to a three-minute summary of your written statement the clock will countd down from 3 minutes as committee members have many questions for you and we'd like to spend as much time as possible on questions however pursuant to committee rule 8D and committee practice we will not cut off your testimony until you reach the 5 minute
Mark I'd also like to remind the witnesses to be aware uh of your responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee I will first recognize Dr mcshain for your testimony good morning Mr chairman ranking member and subcommittee members
70 years ago The Economist Milton Friedman wrote a short paper titled the role of government in education in it he argued that the government government had a role in funding and regulating education but did not need to directly operate it independent and autonomous schools could educate children and
parents could choose between different School models based on their needs and desires this idea school choice is the topic of today's hearing he closed the piece by predicting what such a system might yield writing quote the result of these measures would be a sizable
reduction in the direct activities of government yet a great widening in the educational opportunities open to our children they would bring a healthy increase in the variety of educational institutions available and in competition amongst them private initiative and Enterprise would Quicken the pace of progress in
this area as it has in so many others we are not yet in Milton Friedman's ideal system but the growth in educational options in recent years has redirected the American education system towards his vision and we have some initial findings to see if his predictions have come true Choice programs have widened
the educational opportunities open to our children and the variety of educational institutions available to them there are 8,150 Charter Schools educating 3.7 million students 3,15 magnet schools educating 2.7
million students more than 415,000 students enrolled in open enrollment programs and more than 6,750 private schools participating in Choice programs educating 1.2 million students Choice programs have nurtured the growth of different School models
from Progressive montauri and wal schools to more traditional classical schools schools from a variety of Faith traditions and secular schools micro schools hybrid homeschools co-ops and probably new models that I don't even know about yet Choice programs have
sparked competition 29 Studies have been conducted on the effects of private school choice on students who remain in public schools 26 have found positive results one found no result and only two found negative results and third private initiative has quickened the pace of
progress new and Innovative schools are progress in themselves but looking at the results for students participating in private school choice programs 17 random assignment Studies have been conducted 11 found positive results for sumerall students four found no effect
and only two found negative effects looking at student attainment results seven Studies have been completed with five finding positive effects and two finding none but our work is not done many students and families across this country still want more options we need to learn from the programs that states
are implementing to refine and improve them we need to address other challenges that students and schools face the task before us today is the very one Dr fredman articulated back in 1955 where quote the government would serve its proper function of improving the
operation of the Invisible Hand without substituting the Dead Hand of bureaucracy thank you thank you very much uh I'll next recognize Mrs Clark for your testimony chairman and members of the subcommittee good morning and thank you for this
opportunity to testify before the subcommittee today as it explores the benefits of school choice my name is Johnny Clark and I'm the founder and CEO of love your school an Arizona based nonprofit that helps families navigate their school options in Arizona Alabama West Virginia and hopefully the rest of
the country very soon I a wife and a mother of five school age children three of which have diagnosed learning disabilities and I founded love your school in 2019 since then our team has helped thousands of families access the educational setting that best meets their child's unique needs I know
firsthand with my own children and through our work at love your school how transformative education Freedom can be for families especially education savings accounts or esas our family school choice Journey began eight years ago as we homeschooled our two eldest sons and noticed they were struggling
with reading I reached out to my local school district and requested an evaluation under idea's child fine process and initially the district told us that our boys simply lacked proper instruction knowing how much my husband and I worked on their reading instruction we disagreed with the district we received an independent
educational evaluation and it revealed that both of them had among other diagnoses severe dyslexia and dis graphia unfortunately the district had no dyslexia specific programming instead they offered 30 minutes of site word support a week which we knew would not
help remediate their dyslexia during this time we first learned of Arizona's empowerment scholarship account program and after jumping through a variety of Hoops for the next several months my boys finally qualified for Arizona's Esa program and this changed everything for my boys and for our family with the
$7,500 Esa scholarship we finally had access to a variety of Dyslexia specific educational resources audiobooks and amazing online programs like synthesis school things that boosted their confidence as they progressed in their reading and writing the esa scholarship has been truly transformative in shaping
the trajectory of my children's future according to the latest napes scores tens of millions of children across the country cannot read proficiently it is a national crisis like my boys I know many of these children would benefit tremendously from an Esa through our work at love your school we have seen
how Arizona's Esa program has been revolutionary Lifeline for thousands of children once Arizona's Esa program became Universal in 20122 meaning every schoolage child now qualifies the program has rapidly grown from around 12,000 children to as of yesterday a
little over 87,000 Arizona's Esa program is the most flexible in the country when it comes to accessing educational expenses and tutors and therapists and it's by far the most supportive of students with disabilities Arizona's Esa scholarship is 90% of the State per pupil funding
and that includes weighted funding for students with disabilities our program saves taxpayers money and allows parents to direct their children's education regardless of their income or zip code after all well we know loving families always know what's best for their children's education thank
you thank you very much I will next recognize Miss Levan I thank the subcommittee for allowing me to offer testimony today my name is Jessica Levan and I'm the litigation director at education Law Center a nonprofit organization that pursues Justice and equity for public
school students I also direct public funds Public Schools a national campaign led by ELC to ensure public funds for Education are used to support and strengthen Public Schools the Cornerstone of our democracy let me Begin by saying that private school vouchers do not benefit students and families nor the public there's an Ever
mounting body of evidence that they do not provide a better education for the most vulnerable High need students and in fact cause great harm to students families and communities I've submitted lengthy written testimonies supported by extensive citation so today I will highlight a few points the laws that
establish and govern voucher programs are notably devoid of meaningful quality or accountability standards and the shows that academic outcomes for voucher students are dismal study after study in places like Louisiana Indiana and Ohio reveal that vouchers actually have a detrimental academic impact on
participating students Professor Josh Cowen has explained that the negative educational effects of voucher programs are quote on par with what the covid-19 pandemic did to test scores and larger than hurricane Katrina's impacts on academics in New Orleans policy makers should heed this evidence moreover
vouchers are only truly accessible by the few but harm the many vouchers frequently don't come close to covering the full cost of private school tuition let alone other Essentials that are provided for free in public schools thus vouchers simply shift the cost of many core educational resources to families
data from multiple States shows the majority of vouchers are used by more affluent families who are already sending their children to private schools and not the low-income families they purport to Target vouchers harm often underresourced rural public schools with no benefit to rural students who generally don't have Geographic access to private schools
roughly one in five students attend schools in rural communities but those districts can't take advantage of the same economies of scale as larger ones and they have fewer resources to pay for fixed Education costs moreover public schools are often the backbone of rural communities playing a pivotal role in Social and economic activities and are
often the largest employer when rural Public Schools lose resources or closed the entire Community suffers vouchers harm students with disabilities who make up about 15% of students across the country and who lose most of their legal rights under special education and disability laws when they use vouchers
to attend private school voucher students with disabilities have no right to the specific programs and services they need to make educational progress and they lose idea and Section 504 protections against unfair discipline and segregation from non-disabled peers and parents lose rights to receive
notification provide input and seek judicial remedies regarding their child's special education parents are often not made aware of the loss of these rights a seminal GAO report found that 83% of those using vouchers specifically for stud students with disabilities were in a program that provided either no information or
misinformation about changes in idea rights the government should protect students from discrimination not fund it but students who use vouchers to attend private schools are not covered by many essential civil rights laws thus voucher programs funnel taxpayer funds to schools that can and often do
discriminate against students with disabilities English Learners lgbtq students students of minority religions and others finally voucher programs divert funding and resources from public schools and exploding costs devastate State budgets make no mistake States like Arizona and Florida are prime
examples siphoning billions of dollars to disastrous and unaccountable Universal voucher programs and creating massive budget holes many public schools around the nation face chronic and severe underfunding and diverted M diverting much needed funds to pay for vouchers exacerbates that lack of resources at the same time voucher
programs concentrate higher need more expensive to educate students in public schools as many private schools refuse or unable to serve them often students who took a voucher but did not receive the promised benefits return to Public Schools but the funds don't return with them in the meantime the loss of funding may have led the public school district
to make difficult cuts and even to close neighborhood schools with devastating consequences it's a myth that public school families lack any educational options first the overwhelming majority of children across the country attend public schools and the vast majority of parents are satisfied with their
children's education second there are numerous Public School options in addition to a students neighborhood school including Magnet School schools interdistrict public school choice programs and Charter Schools we know what needs to be done to help all students succeed adequately fund evidence-backed programs in public
schools that welcome all students vouchers are not a solution to the issue of educational Choice nor any other challenge facing our schools and Nation there's already quite a bit of school choice in public education and the affluent families that take vouchers are already paying for private education in fact vouchers are a windfall for them
and a significant harm for the nation's public schools and students thank you for the opportunity to speak with you and I'll welcome your questions thank you uh I will lastly uh recognize Mr blanks for your testimony Mr chairman and distinguished
members of the committee on education and Workforce my name is Walter blinks Jr and I am a spokesperson for the American Federation for children and I am here today because school choice changed my life and before I begin I would like to uh thank my wife because
today is our son's first birthday instead of uh partying like you know most families would uh in Nashville uh we are here um doing very important work and it's an honor to have my son growing up seeing his father do work that is very very important to him so I grew up
in Columbus Ohio where my local public school was was failing me every day I walked into a classroom where I felt unseen unheard and unchallenged I struggled academically and my parents knew that if something didn't change I would never reach my full potential
but like so many families we could not afford private school tuition on our own my parents reached a breaking point when I found myself sitting in the principal's office after being jumped by a group of other students and instead of addressing the immediate issue the principal turned to my mother and said
if you give us five years we'll have the Middle School turned around and the high school turned around and Walter will be able to thrive and without hesitation my mother who took off work to come and see her baby bruised up in School looked at him in the eye and said in 5 years
Walter will either be in jail or in a body bag and we don't have time for either of those things she took my hand and we left and from that moment on I never stepped foot in that school again thankfully my parents applied for and I received a scholarship a school choice
scholarship through the State of Ohio's Ed Choice scholarship program which gave me the opportunity to attend a private school that completely transformed my life for the first time I was in an envirment that nurtured my potential I went from a student who struggled to a
student who was finding great success in his academic Journey the opportunity set me on a path that led me to where I am now advocating for students who just like I was who are just like I was my journey has taken me to places that I
could have never imagined including the White House where I met president Trump I'll never forget looking him straight in the eye and telling them that I wanted to have his job someday that moment wasn't just about ambition it was about recognizing that when students are given the right
opportunities there are no limits to what they can achieve my life is living proof of that and now I have the honor to add sitting before Congress and sharing my story to that list as well and unfortunately too many students across the country are still waiting for their chance that's why I also support
the educational choice for children act which would give students in every state access to scholarships opening doors to schools that bets meets their needs that are currently closed for some it's a difference between struggling and succeeding for others like myself it was
quite literally a lifesaver I appreciate the members of this committee who have supported this important bill and I urge every representative to support this life-changing opportunity every child deserves the same opportunity I had the chance to succeed to dream big and to
write their own Futures I've had great success because of my school choice journey and I firmly believe more students should have that chance thank you you thank you very much Happy Birthday to Dear Son uh under committee rule nine uh we will now question Witnesses under
the five minute rule I'll first recognize the chairman uh of the full committee Mr Wahlberg thank you Mr chairman and thank you the panel for being here with the uh most recent nape scores that continue to show the down hill slide that's out
there I don't even know why we need this hearing uh because choice is what's going to to change it all around and the choice that comes through vouchers so full opportunity for parents to make the best decisions for their
students to support the teachers that will do the best job for their students is what we are concerned with here so thank you for being here this morning Dr mcshain one of the most frequent arguments we hear against and we heard it today against School choices
that it harms traditional Public School tools but unbiased research simply doesn't bear this out can you talk more about what the research actually says and why school choice doesn't harm traditional Public Schools absolutely thank you so much for
the question yes this is one of the most consistent findings we see in the private school choice literature that uh students who remain in public schools their schores actually do better in the face of if you want to call it competition or or the effects of the the program that are there and I think the
way of thinking about it is is sometimes we've gotten into a bit of an an outmoded way of talking about schools where we're we say these are the good schools and these are the bad schools I think it's we need to move to way of thinking about fit that certain students fit in certain schools better than
others and there may be schools that on average and in aggregate look good on paper but there are students that are struggling in them and there are students that are doing schools that look like they're doing poorly but uh students that are doing well in there so as students are able to move move to a school that best fits them we tend to think about it in the term of that
student they get to go to a school that's better fit for them but you can also think about the school where that student left if they weren't having a great time they could be taking time resources Etc um so the students in the school that they have could actually be better off so it could be a rising tide
that raises all boats and and that seems to be what the empirical literature tells us as generally and All Above plan works best and gives more opportunity doesn't it what fits best for your your child we're doing the same for our grandchildren now with the opportunities
that they have with this dyslexia and others and so Miss Clark thank you for being being here you mentioned that school choice matters for all children uh I certainly agree uh but I think it's especially important for children with special needs could you talk more about why that is yes thank you for the
question so it's very interesting because in Arizona the number of families that are on our ESA program the percentage if you will of students with disabilities is actually higher than the Arizona Public School System about uh 18% of students on the Arizona Esa
program are students with disabilities whose families believed that they were not being served in their local public school system um and of that 18% 50% of those students with disabilities are students with autism uh we know that one in five students have a learning
disability in Reading usually dyslexia uh now the number for autism is around 1 and 33 boys have a diagnosis of autism and families are choosing Arizona's Esa program because they feel like they're doing more for their student with disability uh disabilities with less
money than what the public school was doing yeah good to hear uh Mr Banks I won't say anything about go Blue since you're from Columbus congratulations from the national
championship um but let me ask you this and I appreciate your life story that you have to give um many critics of school choice say that private schools cream skin uh which in other words says that they only take the most academically
gifted and talented students and that's why some of these SC schools have high scores tell me about the school you attended with a voucher do you think your new school only accepted most talented accomplished students well well thank you for that question and that
Championship was a long long overdue um yeah so the school that that I attended actually I failed the the entry test twice and the principal and the superintendent took a liking to me for what reasons I'm not sure but they saw a lot of potential in me and they chose to
bring me on anyway and and accepting me actually forced them to open up an entire uh sixth grade Wing so they had to take on more students to justify just bringing me on and so we we often refer to ourselves as the uh the the class of rejects because most of us were coming
from um schools that had failed us and and lower academic outcomes and so we all of us struggled um during that time and so in in my experience the school did everything that they could to to bring the the the students who were struggling the most and coming from tough environments to a school where they could actually
Thrive they wanted to perform education on you and correct they they made the cream of the crop so thank you for being here my time has expired I yield back I'll now recognize the ranking member for five minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank you to the witnesses
is uh you know nearly one in five K12 students attend school in a rural community and Rural schools are in in particular are reliant on the federal funding they typically have a smaller population which means a smaller tax base they're also vital employers and
they provide many services to the communities for example shelters for natural disasters food pantries before and after care and importantly students in rural areas do not have private schools geographically close to them to make a voucher useful we've seen many conservative State lawmakers from rural
districts oppose Statewide voucher programs for that reason including recently recently when 16 rural Republicans in Georgia voted to defeat a school voucher Bill and in Texas where the house voted to block any state funding from being used for voucher so I want to ask you miss Levan how does the
implementation of a school voucher program affect rural schools and the funding of rural schools and are vouchers a viable alternative to the students who go to school there and how would vouchers affect the Greater Community in a rural area thank you for the question vouchers are
devastating to rural communities and they don't provide any benefits so um as we've as you and I have mentioned um there are very few private school options for students in rural communities um but the rural public schools that serve them have less
elasticity less room in their budget than many larger Urban and Suburban districts so any cuts to their budgets can be devastating for school programs um including for them to cover their fixed costs such as a library or the heating or Cooling in a school I I know
as a former state legislator and I know there are other former state legislators here it's not always easy to find the funding to fill those gaps that's exactly right and so when voucher programs take money away from State budgets or public education budgets specifically Statewide that's going to
affect rural School budgets they're getting no benefit but they're losing those programs and services as well as devastating The Wider community that relies on and I have another question too we know that private schools often deny admission to children with disabilities or subject them to inappropriate or unfair discipline and
even expulsion I'd like to enter into the record a report by nld the national Center for learning disabilities called private school vouchers education savings account and tax incentive programs implications and considerations for students with disabilities was originally published in 2017 but updated
in 2024 and it provides examples of this type of school conduct enter into the record without objection thank you and Miss Lan when when students with disabilities do attend a private school under a voucher program they're considered parentally placed in a private school and thus they forfeit
many rights and protections under the idea and as a result the schools are considered to be complying with the law even when the students are not receiving the same quality and quantity of services they would in a public school uh that are mandated with with an IEP individualized education program such as
speech occupational or physical therapy so um Miss Len do private school vouchers adequately serve students with disabilities they do not and they actively hurt their rights as you said the students lose many of their rights their parents lose the right to participate and and have um close
contact with their education and they lose rights under Section 504 and the Ada as well so so just to clarify the families of children with disabilities when they take a private school voucher they actually lose their rights that's correct they lose the vast majority of their rights and now now Mr Mr blanks I have thank you for sharing your story I
just have a yes or no question your organization the American Federation for children that was organized and funded by the DeVos family is that correct just for context yes or no thank you I appreciate that um uh I'm going to yeld back the balance on my time thank
you the uh representative from North Carolina Mr Harris is recognized for five minutes yes thank you Mr chairman and uh thank all of you on the panel I've had the pleasure of reading your testimonies as well as hearing you this morning and um very appreciative of you being here in your time
parents in my district have told me time and again that school choice is a priority of theirs and uh they really long for anything that we can do at the federal level to make that easier and uh Mr blanks today I appreciate your
testimony it was inspiring and yet we've heard lots of claims from the other side of the aisle made in opposition to school choice some are going to argue that school choice resegregate schools we've heard that school choice deprives children with dis abilities of their rights we've heard that support for
school choice is really a smoke screen for trying to destroy public education is it just me or is the conversation that one side of this debate is having is totally disconnected from the conversations that real families are having around their kitchen tables about
how best to educate their kids yes yes I I firmly believe that when we're having these discussions about education that the other side will typically leave out the the personal experience stories like my own or why parents want to send their child to a different
School in in the first place and so I am here to talk about my own experience and and as I've done this work I've heard a lot about how fouter or or schemes or or scams or whatever the case may be but it was my it was my life-saving device for me and for my family and we didn't have
support we didn't have any other options I was stuck in this school and I would beg my mom every day not to send me to that school and so I I do find some of those comments offensive but I'm I'm proud to stand behind the the very policies that that changed my life and put me on the path that I'm on now today thank you sir and God bless your mom for
Having the courage and the strength and determination to respond the way she did uh when she was asked to give a five-year reprieve uh to get things right Mrs Clark your story represents one of those parents who wants options and another objection we might hear to school choice is that there's no
accountability if the school fails to serve children with special needs but I noticed you went through the idea process and it sounds as if the public school system failed your child what would you say to critics who believe that the traditional public schools are
the only safe place for children with special needs and learning disabilities thank you for the question well I would say that's absolutely false and we can look at the demand of parents of students with disabilities for school choice programs you know there's a sad running joke amongst parents of students
with disabilities and it essentially goes like if you haven't cried in an IEP meeting with the public school you don't really have a student with a disability we all know as parents of students with disabilities how incredibly difficult the process is to actually get the
services that our children need in the public school system so this idea uh that idea is somehow benefiting all students in the public school system is absolutely false and contrary to what you've heard uh we don't lose all of our rights when we choose a school choice scholarship program uh idea Part B
proportionate share funding that's been around since the beginning of idea uh says that a proportion of all of the funds that come to the state um should be used for students with disabilities that are in private schools and homeschools I know one of my children on
an Esa received idea funding from their local public school just last year so there's a lot of misinformation out there around idea well you also mentioned in your testimony that even at the state level in order to qualify for Arizona's empowerment scholarship account program
you had to jump through a variety of Hoops for several months could you take just a moment and elaborate on some of the reasons why it took so long yes absolutely thank you for the question uh so prior to Arizona's Esa program being Universal where every student qualified
in 2022 families like myself had to go through the public school system process to have our students evaluated that was an extra expense on the public school system but the public school system is the one that had to qualify our student students as a student with a disability uh so there was you know an extra
process an extra burden there also in Arizona you used to have to attend public school uh either in person or online for a 100 days that was very difficult for families with students of disabilities or families that were moving into the states all right well eliminating bureaucracy is one of the
most important reforms I believe that we can make at the federal level we can never forget that parental rights will always take precedence over government and that taxpayer dollars have got to be accountable to the taxpayer themselves so I will ask you this M Clark do you think that eliminating or reducing the
role of the Department of Education would give more power to the states and people to influence education yes I absolutely do uh ending the Department of Education or greatly disempowering it is something that I hope to see very soon well it's clear
under our constitution the federal government was never supposed to have such an outsized role in education with a number of students failing core subjects growing in our nation it's clear that the status quo is not working as we've heard today what I'm hearing is that parents and states are more than
ready to step up and make sure children get the best education and with that Mr chairman I yield back the representative from Connecticut M Hayes is recognized for five minutes thank you and thank you to our Witnesses for being here today I want to first um frame my comments with
the information that I was a public school teacher before I came to Congress 16 years I taught as a high school history teacher and I just want to make provide some context for much of what you're hearing this Pro this hearing is
about school choice yet it is trying they're trying to position it as vouchers and public charter schools are the same thing they are not vouchers are very different and that is not we what we're talking about at the top of the hearing the chairman talked about 81
private school programs that um serve 1 million students yet the school that he highlighted as being successful um Success Academy is in fact a public charter school the gentle many no I will not many public schools offer uh school
choice to parents and that is not what we are talking about here today I heard um quotes from an economist from the 1950s 70 years ago so much has happened in public education I would encourage
you to engage in that conversation and yet again we have witnesses at the table right off the white house guest list and your um testimony where you said Mr blinks that you failed an entry test two
times before they finally decided to allow you to access to the school just reiterates the fact that these schools are not for everybody it is a system of winners and losers and to the idea about segregation in schools the Department of
Education actually protects civil rights if we're talking about the most important reform Congress can make it is increasing the funding for idea from 16% to the 40% that Congress promised that it would do schools are funded locally
so local um property taxes decide many of the decisions that we're talking about here today I do have a few questions and I want to move quickly because I have lots of questions but Miss Clark just yes or no you said that your CH you had to do an independent
educational assessment for your children in order to um understand their academic needs did your family pay for that out of pocket no the district day that's part of the law thank you you talked about you homeschooled your three children um was your family able to do
that because you had um stable income no my husband was in law school the time we were on loans okay uh $7,500 was given to your family to cover your children's de dislexia educational supports did was that the total cost of those
supports uh it was $7,500 per student and yes it was the full cost of those supports half of the public school funding so $7,500 in total for dyslexia funding Educational Funding for the entire year for one student yes that's correct
I would disagree with that because and I can tell you why Public Schools offer many of the wraparound supports and services so it's not just what happens in the classroom it is the occupational supports the technical supports the social workers all of those things I know and anyone who's ever looked at a
public school um uh budget knows that those services are not provided for $7,500 Miss Levan can you explain uh just briefly go into a greater detail why private schools are not mandated to
follow the same reporting requirements as most public schools yes um thank you for the question and I come from a family of Educators so I thank you for that as well um it's because of a deliberate choice in the statutes legislators choose not to put accountability measures in these bills and you have to
ask yourself why and when um a student is not accepted to these schools because I've yet to find one charter school one of these private voucher programs that uh supports all of the special education needs of these students and part of idea says that students need to be educated
alongside their non-disabled peers when those uh children don't have success in those schools and go back to the public school system can you explain a little bit about what happens in that case with their funding so often the student returns to a public school but the money has already gone to the private school so
the public school now has less money and it has a higher concentration of higher need students to serve with those fewer resources can the public school refuse to accept those students now that the funding source is gone they cannot they cannot that's what I thought I mean everybody knows that but again I would
caution people yes we want parents involved uh education is a partnership between parents families their teachers everyone but this idea of private voucher programs is absolutely a sham it's moving taxpayer Monies to uh a
profit source for the billionaire class that is not what public education is supposed to do I Yi back thank you very much and I'll note that I cited Success Academy and Kip specifically as examples of outstanding public charter schools problem is that many in uh this party
including President Joe Biden have been attacking public charter schools uh with that the gentleman from uh Indiana Mr Mesmer is recognized for for five minutes thank you um my home state of Indiana stands as a national leader in
Pro School Choice legislation back in 2011 our state legislature passed the Indiana Choice scholarship program that has become since become the largest single voucher program in the United States uh this session the house is looking to pass Universal school choice vouchers that would further increase
options for who or families to educate their children in the best environment that fits their individual needs at the federal level uh as we members of Congress should follow these steps I'm I'm proud to join my friend rep Adrien Smith and other distinguished colleagues on this
Committee in co-sponsoring the education choice for children act a bill that would provide K through2 scholarships to as many as two million students across the country to attend the school that best meets their needs Dr main Indiana is a leader in school choice reform uh
creating the largest V voucher program in the country and it's seen a 32% growth this past year now the state is looking to move Universal vouchers allowing parents to choose specialized programs that fit their CH children's needs or schools that align with their religious and moral values regardless of
their income level how would a federal Universal program like this fit into Milton Freedom's idea of a government government's role in education I I think it would be relatively well aligned with that as I as I mentioned Milton Friedman's idea which is often times caricatured to be a
sort of free-for-all of of schools um he thought that schools could be independently operated parents could freely choose between them uh but the state would play a role in financially supporting them which sounds like uh would be happening in that uh in that
bill okay thank you and just to clarify uh in Indiana to accept vouchers a school must submit to the same accountability standards as any other any of the public school uh as a followup to that Mr mshan do you think it is possible that giving Parents Choice to of what is best for their
option including vouchers Charters and unrestricted public to- public transfers could be bet lead to better outcomes for all students by creating competition yes I mean as I mentioned earlier there's a very strong empirical literature on the competitive effects of private school
vouchers it's a consistent finding metaanalyses studies of studies that put these together have found that result I have no reason to believe that it wouldn't continue into the future thank you Mr blanks one of the important aspects of Education choice for children Act is that it creates a Lifeline for
students trapped in local schools school districts or States that will likely never pass school choice policies for themselves it's vital that these students have access to educational options you live in a state that established a voucher program but not every student is so fortunate why do you think is important for students
Nationwide rather than just select state select states to have Choice yeah well well thank you for that question and it's it's absolutely vital because like you alluded to there are some states that have been slow to to pass uh school choice legislation at the state level and so the ecca would allow some of those families who have currently being
locked out of of options um to to tap into some of those some of those dollars and and now I live in Tennessee where the governor uh was Monumental and passing um the educational savings account for for the state and so for a state like ours when we're my wife and I are talking about you know where we're
going to send our son what is his educational bring up going to look like with the ecca on top of a state level you know program that means more resources more access more opportunities really for me as a father to be in the driver seat of my child's educ
thank you Mrs Clark uh there are many families in my district in indana who are affected by learning disorders like your children and need the benefit of choosing a program that will fit the needs of their child and learning disabilities uh Indiana implemented a similar program called the Indiana education scholarship account that
provides access to students with disabilities and their families access to education environment the best needs their needs as a parent how do you think these Ty types of programs can improve to further assist those that are public school system tend tend to leave behind well one of the best parts of the esa
programs and school choice programs for students with disabilities is all of the Innovation uh that happens because parents now have the funding and we can go online and find you know an incredible math AI tutor uh we can download those you know uh automated
flashcards we can do all these new and exciting things this whole new Arena of Education entrepreneurship uh has come out of giving parents control of their education dollars so a lot of the new things that our family has tried that have really helped our kids have been
because we have an Esa and because you know the public schools as big as they are they tend to not be able to move very quickly when it comes to addressing individual student needs okay thank you I yield back my time the uh representative from New York Mr Manion is recognized for five minutes
thank you chairman Kylie thank you to ranking member banamichi and thank you to our Witnesses for joining us here today I was a former uh public school teacher for almost 30 years teaching AP biology chemistry and 15 to1 living environment I'm also the husband of a
fellow educator I care deeply about ensuring that all students have access to a safe and supportive learning environment throughout my career in the classroom and then also in the state senate I work to strengthen public education and advocate for policies that
ensure that every child can succeed uh my father was on public assistance I came from a working class Blue Collar background and my parents chose to send me to a private Catholic
School my parents paid School tax dollars property tax dollars but they made the decision because they emphasized Catholic Education for me and others my wife the same to send me to a Catholic
School when my wife and I had our first child our plan was to send our children to Catholic schools till my son at 3 and A2 was diagnosed with diagnosed with autism he had speech levels of a 9-month-old at that point we made the
very difficult decision to send him through the public school cssea or excuse me CPS process we attempted to send him to a
private prek school and he was not accepted we knew that the only way that our son would receive the necessary intensive early intervention for him to be successful was to send him to a
public school then my two children younger than him also attended Public Schools they're all thriving including my oldest who is a college graduate lives independently drives his own vehicle which he
purchased voucher and voucher like proposals divert funds away from public schools and they will not address the needs of our educational system or improve student outcomes public schools
are exceptional public schools in central New York and across the country simply cannot afford an additional Financial strain by sending tax dollars other places and the federal government should not be in the business of subsidizing private
education I'm particularly concerned about the negative impacts that these proposals have on students with IEPs who rely on protections and services guaranteed to them in public schools on that subject I will ask uh my first
question to miss Levan Miss Levan when the individuals with disabilities and Education Act was enacted in 1975 it authorized Federal funding to cover 40% on average per pupil spending Nationwide to provide public education services 50 years later
Ida is funded at only 13 or 14% given the Congress has yet to fulfill its original commitment to fully fund idea what do you make of proposals to allocate federal funds to private school voucher programs instead of prioritizing support for students with
disabilities in public schools thank you it's a very misguided and dangerous policy the federal funding for idea has never reached more than 16 or 17% % versus that 40% promised which may not even be enough so um we are um funding a
second system um of schools with these proposals would fund a second system that uh doesn't even serve most students with disabilities in my district we have a very significant new American and Refugee population um what impact would
voucher proposals have on English language Learners most of whom depend on public schools for specialized instruction and supports that's not always provided in private schools so how might a private school voucher program affect English language Learners
and their access to educational resources the vast majority of those students would still depend upon public schools because very few private education options have the resources or the programs to serve their needs and now the public schools would have just a higher concentration of higher need
students and as a special education attorney and an attorney for many English Learners I've seen firsthand the importance of the Protections in the federal civil rights statutes that give them their rights in school thank you so much Mr Cher you old my time back the representative from Utah Mr
Owens is recognized for five minutes thank you uh first of all Mr chair this is a very very important perent conversation I I've noticed I have a couple things in common with some of the uh some of my Witnesses Mr blanks my my dad went to to Ohio State I was born in Columbus Ohio he was getting his PhD
there during that time and Miss liven uh you came from out out Oakland am I correct okay well I play with Oakland area yes I play with Oakland Raiders so um we have some things in common there I I have just a couple things um Mr Banks you you mentioned sorry Mr blanks you
mentioned earlier uh what do you say to those who believe that failing schools in time will be given given time will be able to turn things around and and uh be able to address the issues that you you mentioned you had coming growing up yeah well well in my experience more often than not um the the needs of the the
students are not met and so that instance with my mother happened almost 20 years ago and to to pull the current um the educational outcomes of that school uh 133% of the students are proficient in math uh and 34% are proficient in Reading in both of those
categories for the state of Ohio they the school is considered well below expectations almost 20 years ago and so for my for my mom who said we don't we don't have that kind of time but think over the last two decades how many students students have shuffled through this school and some of them have done
well I know one in particular that was in the same class I was is now playing for the Buffalo Bills doing very well so so the public education system was was great for him but it was simply was not for me and so I needed another option and so to tell my mom to wait 5 years
was um was not an acceptable answer good good for your mom that's called wisdom and uh by the way I've been hearing this for 40 50 years just give us time Meanwhile we're losing kids by by the drove so uh I have a uh Miss Miss lean I'm of course very impressed with your
your background um M uh Magna kada from corl uh Cornell University um university of Oxford and JD Kim K from uh Harvard Law School I'm going to guess that's because you had a remarkable Foundation you have parents to truly focus on your
education during that process am I correct that's was certainly a very important part of it okay would you have had the same same experience you think if you lived in the Baltimore area with 28 schools you have 2,000 seniors with zero proficiency of math or in in uh in
in in California study back in 2017 75% of the black boards cannot read pass reading reading writing test would you have succeeded in those kind of situations Public School System you think I think that we need to fully fund our public schools to make sure that all students have the opportunity and
education Law Center advocates for that across the country private school choice so did you go to a public school system no I went to a private school okay you went to head Royce school why I I I I I spent time in Oakland you had a choice in
Oakland to go to public schools also why didn't your parents do that for you well I I would remind you that children generally don't choose the school that they go your parents did your parents had a choice and your parents paid 30 to $50,000 a year for your choice what what
gets me is how people like yourself uh I I would say this across the board parents who have an option they can put their kids in the best school they know know that's that's an investment for their kids future and yet you you you you come here and say how well it doesn't work I want I just want to repeat I want to read this real quick in
reality students who use vouer experience experience worse educational outcomes than their public school peers obviously your parents didn't think that way because they put you in a private school in private schools they're subject to few if any quality and accountability standards
um I guess my my question is this if we had a system in which we were focused on the student versus the institution if parents had a choice like your your parents did had a choice and it did not come out of the out of the state funds
we have something called education choice to Children's act does not come now one RIS it comes out of the district out of local would you be okay with choice if that was the case if parents had a choice but it did not come out of public school which obviously have very you very focused on would you be okay
with that kind of choice no we oppose any type of private school choice program I I would know that I as an independent person have looked at the evidence and looked at policy and made my own independent judgment would you put would you put your would you put your children in the school system here in Baltimore that if you're stuck there
I if you didn't have the choice of of of what we're talking about everybody else would you be okay to leave your child in a school is failing 100 zero percent see of math I will absolutely put any children I have including the one I'm expecting into public schools as I said I come from this and these B Baltimore
Public Public Schools we're not talking about Good Public Schools we talking schools that are failing our kids would you be willing to put your child in a school that everybody else all these parents are trying to get their kids out of I don't believe that our public schools are failing I believe that that's a narrative created at the nation there's a lot of there there's a word
called huspa it's a lot of huspa when I sit down and you talk to people on your table here they'll deal dealing with this every single day and their kids are failing we've had too much of this I'm TI anyway that being said I'm excited about the fact that we're going to have a choice process and kids going to be able to get out and be successful in the
future so I look forward to that I your back thank you Mr Owens for that very revealing line of questioning uh Ms Adams uh from North Carolina is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman and uh thank you to the witnesses for your testimony and for being here uh I I know that we all want
uh what's best for students uh but let's be clear uh this isn't about Choice it's about privatization uh uh now I uh went to Public Schools my children went to Public Schools my grandchildren as well uh I taught 40 years at as a college
professor and uh prepared students to become teachers so I know a little bit about this but 84% of American kids are in public schools instead of of strengthening them uh this agenda pulls funding away sending taxpayer dollars to
private schools with little oversight and no accountability now I've always been about fairness Mr chairman and so I'm going to request that we hold a hearing on investing in public schools because Public Schools aren't failing they're being failed and if we care
about our kids we should be investing in in public education not undermining it so uh Miss LaVine uh my question to you uh we know that diverse schools benefit students in real measurable ways uh higher academic achievement better
College and Career outcome even higher lifetime earnings yet despite our country being more diverse than ever our Public Schools remain deeply segregated and the numbers are getting worse a 2022 GAO report found
that more than one in three public K through 12 students attends a racially segregated school and so my question is what impact do school choice and voucher programs have on segregation do they increase diversity and access or do they
just reinforce uh existing inequalities thank you for the question and I also thank you for focusing on the research and facts rather than add homonym attacks private school choice programs have been shown and re research continues to come out showing that they
increase segregative effects in public school systems and in private schools also think it's very important to note that these programs were popularized in the modern era not just by Milton Friedman but by segregationists who were trying to avoid the Integra ation mandate in Brown versus Board of Education and I think that we need a
very strong justification for continuing a policy that has those ugly Origins and we don't have it because those policies continue segregative effects today thank you so when Public Schools mismanage uh funds uh there's oversight there's accountability and there are
consequences but with private voucher schools we're seeing cases where taxpayer dollars are flowing to schools that that barely exist or in some cases don't exist at all uh I represent uh North Carolina's 12th District we had a school uh taking public money but the
state couldn't even confirm where it was physically located and so the state Bureau of Investigation had to step in so tell me what's stopping this kind of thing from happening more often and what safeguards should be in place to ensure that taxpayer dollars aren't being
misused in private voucher programs there's there's almost nothing stopping it uh and can tell you from having read hundreds of voucher bills over the years that they are having Le fewer and fewer accountability and transparency measures you this is a deliberate Choice by legislators because
they do know about the fraud abuse and waste that happens in many States including North Carolina uh there is no type of amendment or reform that can make a private school voucher program a good public policy not to mention constitutional under state law um but if
we are going to give money to to private schools we have to ask why are we not subjecting them to any of the accountability requirements that apply to public thank you so president Trump uh says that he had nothing to do with project 2025 but let's be clear the plan is right there in black and white a
10-year road mapap to completely dismantle the federal role in K12 education and so I'm here to stand up for our students but it alarmingly seems that President Trump has a different Vision one that puts low-income students and students with disabilities at severe
risk and so the secretary uh MC mayun uh she's already laying the groundwork to make that happen uh in federal K12 funding if it disappears funding that keeps the light on in classrooms and supports special education and ensures
low-income kids get the resources they need what does that actually look like for the schools and communities that rely on this support Miss LaVine cutting federal education funding would be devastating especially to districts that rely heavily on Title One funding for low-income students idea funding for
students with disabilities mckin vento funding and many others um it would mean that those districts would not have the resources they're already underresourced they would lose even further on essential Services thank you very much Mr chairman I asked a question earlier in the beginning I certainly hope you
would take it into consideration that we have a hearing that would address uh the the public education and the importance of that thank you very much I Y back thank you very much I'll now recognize my myself for five minutes uh so just understand position Miss L do you think
that private schools should be abolished no I do not okay because you referred to my colleagues line of questioning is an ad homin an attack but I think that totally misses the point you think that your parents are well within their rights to send you to a a private school that cost tens of thousands of dollars in tuition at their
own expense yes and you uh support the right of uh KLA Harris uh Gavin Newsome Joe Biden to send their child to private school I'm an attorney and the law supports their rights um and I support it as well okay so you support the right of families to choose
private schools if they can afford it is that right that's correct I do believe that public education though is the Cornerstone of our democracy and I as an individual firmly support it okay but do you see how that might rub some people the wrong way when you support school
choice for wealthy families but oppose efforts to extend that same uh opportunity to lower income families I because I believe that our public schools should be as well-funded and as wonderful as our private schools
um I think that that is something that the American people widely agree on but policy makers need to find the political will to finally fully fund our public schools and the evidence back programs that help all students in places that welcome all students so you talked about rural schools let's say that you are in
one of these uh rural communities that only has one public school and unfortunately it's not very good what would you tell the parents in that Community I would Advocate alongside them as we do for better Public Funding for their Public Schools okay uh and maybe that'll solve the problem maybe it won't meanwhile their child isn't being
taught to read you just tell them tough luck no I as an attorney would advocate for their rights under the law which I would note largely do not apply to private school students okay and you think that that's going to somehow instantly transform this school so that they're taught to read I think that
there's no chance of people's rights being enforced when they don't have them let's think about Arizona Miss Clark if you're a parent in that same situation so this is their sort of example that's come up again and again what about in a rural community if you are in this situation where there's really only one public school and you have access to an Esa what are your options then well we
have thousands of families in Arizona in rural communities who are utilizing our state's Esa program and they're utilizing it because it works uh they're not trapped by maybe one public school that isn't serving them well maybe isn't teaching their child to read uh they can launch a micro school they can create a
co-op they could hire a teacher and pull their Esa funds with other families which many of them have done uh they can do online schools there's thousands of incredible online schools they would have access to all of those things with an Esa what do you think Miss Levan might that get you better results in the
near term than writing a letter to your state legislature the research says that it would not the overwhelming research shows that online schools do not perform as well as brick and mortar schools particularly for our most well I don't know about that I mean Dr mcshain gave us a lot of research that says uh quite
the contrary but I mean you're from California uh and you've told told us again that the solution is just full funding uh California is pretty well funded how's California doing with education the solution to be clear is not just full funding full funding is a necessary though not a sufficient
condition for an adequate education okay what are the other things we need policy we need to fund policies that are evidence-backed and that work M like what uh like teacher preparation Like Preschool like sufficient services for students with disabilities and I'd be happy to provide the committee with much
more research-backed evidence so in California we're not doing well you didn't answer the question but that's the that's the truth so I guess even though we have all that funding we just don't have the right policies as in those other areas is that what it is well California has improved its public school funding that doesn't necessarily
mean that it has sufficient funding to serve the needs well of every student uh are you aware that California had the longest School shutdown in the country when it during covid I will take your word for it do you think that was a good thing or was that a mistake I believe that during a catastrophic early years
of a pandemic that is sometimes needed to stay close to protect both students especially students with disabilities support California's decision to stay uh have it schools closed longer than any state in the country I support the decision of each state and locality and making the choice that was right for
them okay interesting but you don't support that when it comes to issues like school choice when it comes to issues like school choice I support the policies that are going to benefit students not harm them and the evidence is overwhelming the evidence is overwhelming that school closures harmed
students that's not even really up for debate at this point you are a supporter of charter schools though is that right uh yes though they have to be like all public policy implemented well designed well and with safeguards to protect students rights okay so when President Biden tried to cut Federal Charter School Grants did you speak out
against that well one President Biden was a little more targeted than I think you're characterizing for example I do not support an education Law Center does not support for-profit Charter Schools they should not be funded with money and uh just for the record do federal civil
rights laws apply to private schools yes or no largely not federal civil rights laws you're saying do not apply to private schools largely not some Provisions do but many do not of idea title 6 the eeoa Title Nine some of them only apply many of them only apply to
schools that receive federal funding which is an increasing an increasingly low number of private schools especially high schools that's largely untrue there's a federal for any employer there are federal civil rights protections that don't depend on whether you're a public private employer but in any case uh I will now recognize the uh who's the next Democrat
witness Lee M Lee from Pennsylvania thank you Mr chair um public education is is is important to me right I am I am a product of public education from prek to through college um indeed including programs
like hit start um when we when I listen to our colleagues on the other side I'm always baffled by the conversation because uh I feel like sometimes it maybe intentionally misses the points we we we've talked and we will continue to talk about good Public Schools or or passing public schools versus failing
Public Schools instead of talking about failing public policy uh failing uh funding schemes um failing bureaucracy we know that we have a system of inequitably funded schools in this country where the quality of your education can largely be determined by your ZIP code or your family's wealth uh
in my home Commonwealth of Pennsylvania our funding scheme was so uh inequitable that the court said we needed to go back to the drawing board um Republicans would love to believe that the solution is dismantling the Department of Education to give us local choice but what they're actually giving us is the
responsibility of subsidizing Education to localities where people will pay higher property taxes to fund the Discrimination of children the burden of the federal government divesting from public education will be shouldered by firsttime home buyers for instance in in Pittsburgh where home ownership is already becoming unsustainable or by
seniors in my you know school home school district of won Hills those neighborhoods who are already strained and facing the loss of their social security benefits these additional tax dollars will help Charter and private schools hand select students that will improve school's outcomes while maximizing school's bottom line our tax
dollars won't help the children who will never be able to Avail themselves of discriminatory School choices our public education system serves the child who is unhoused or transient the child in the foster care system who doesn't have two well-connected parents to push for scholarships or the family facing the
the digital divide who will miss application deadlines reasonably the child who didn't have access to head start our preschool like me because we didn't invest in those and it's behind that child is behind in Reading we need to invest in public education because it's the only option for children that so-called parents rights movement has
decided are not worth investing in it's also no coincidence that the school Choice Movement is financed by billionaires like Jeffrey y from my Commonwealth who's trying to turn my State's education system into his own personal business but a business's priority is to a stakeholders and children have no stake in the economic
model of school choice Miss lvin I want to ask you about Charter Schools run by for-profit management companies as you ended in the last question line if a company is maximizing profit is not spending all public dollars on students especially students who require more resources which is why Charter Schools educate few students with disabilities
than traditional public schools in in your opinion Miss Lin are these for-profit Charter management companies maximizing profit at the cost of students and families yes related to moving education into the private sector one of the rationals for school choice is this free market idea
that school choice will force public schools to compete for funding thereby uh for public schools will improve because of that does evidence support this what does the research show it does not and neither does common sense there's a lot of school choice right now in the public school system so if
competition is good we're already creating and and getting those benefits but providing high quality education shouldn't be accomplished through through um Cutthroat competition it should be accomplished by giving every school the resources that it needs thank you according to the 2022 GAO report
over 30% of Pennsylvania Charters that receive federal charter schools program grant funding between 2006 and 2020 closed or never opened I request unanimous consent for the 2022 GAO report on federally funded charter school closures to be entered into the record without objection thank you I've
heard countless stories about charter schools closing because of Fraud mismanagement and voucher programs taking advantage of the fact that they have no fiscal uh accountability How concerned should we be about mismanagement fraud and Corruption if we expand Federal support and and funding for Charters and vouchers we should be
very concerned you're right that there are numerous reports throughout the country of both Charter and voucher schools um engaging in fraud waste and abuse of public dollars um it's unconscionable to send billions more in a federal voucher program to schools that have almost no accountability or
transparency requirements thank you U Miss liven it's clear that school choice the school choice fallacy we're talking about today just exacerbates the inequalities the inequities we already have wealthy white families will continue to have their choices subsidized by depriving largely black and brown and other marginalized
children of educational opportunities if school choic is going to work children and families do need real choices a for-profit charter school that closes a month after opening because of fraud mismanagement is not a real Choice a private school where tuition is twice as much as a child scholarship amount where
a child is not entitled to an IEP and where a child can be expelled for instance for having two moms is not a real Choice an underfunded neighborhood school with larger class sizes fewer books substandard wages for teachers and deteriorating infrastructure because everyone's increasing tax dollars are being used to subsidize charters in
private it's also not a real Choice families and children are owed fully funded highquality well-resourced public schools and we can accomplish that but not by giving away more handouts to billionaires that will discriminate against the most marginalized students to turn a profit uh I thank you all for your time and I Y back
thank you very much the representative from Guam Mr moand is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman Madame R ranking member and thank you for hosting this important hearing on expanding educational educational Choice school choice allows parents and families the freedom to choose the
schools that work best for them in my district of Guam people often work outside their Villages sometimes on the opposite side of the island situations like these sometimes make it difficult for parents who want to Ure sure that they are home for their young children
when they are out of school so expanding school choice across the board both private and public empowers families to choose what works giving needed flexibility and districts like my own my question is for Mrs Clark you
mentioned that your family had to jump through a variety of Hoops and before qualifying for educational savings account we all want want to make sure that the government funds are spent responsibly what ways if any can State
lawmakers SL red tape or redundant reporting requirements so that families can navigate the system more easily thank you for the question well the whole idea behind school choice and esas is parents rights we want to give control back into the hands of parents
so that they can direct the dollars and put them in the education environment that best meets their child needs uh so I advocate for really flexible Esa programs uh that are open immediately or what we call Universal to All Families it took us over 12 years to get that in
Arizona um and of course once we had Universal Esa the number of students on it just skyrocketed because we removed those barriers I also think requiring prior Public School attendance it's not good for the public school system and it's very difficult for families especially students with disabilities
who often uh you know would have to go enroll their child in a public school and then pull them out just to qualify and also what I mentioned earlier we don't want to burden public schools and so allowing families like Arizona has to use a private diagnosis of your student with a disability instead of having to
go through the public school system you can if you want to but you're no longer required to go through the public school system to prove your student has a disability those are three uh reforms and removal of red tape that I think other states should consider thank you I appreciate that my last question will be
for Mr blanks you mentioned that school choice nurtured your intellectual and academic potential can you elaborate further on how school choice programs can help create pipelines to meaningful well-paying jobs in rural remote
districts like mine yeah well the thank you for that question the and to go off of some of that I was supposed to be a statistic I was supposed to be in in prison or not even here today and if it weren't for school choice um there's there's no telling where where I would
be and so thinking about not just the academic portion that that school choice helps a child I always say that you may not be in the classroom but you're always a student and being able to to take those take advantage of those opportunities to to progress even after graduating high school or college or
whatever the case may be has been Monumental in my own in my own life I mean never in a million years would I imagine sitting before you all today and it was all because of my of my educational journey and we can stop a lot of the the criminal justice aspect
of of of middleaged people and people my age if if they have a great education and so I believe that when we're talking about school choice and we didn't hear a lot about why once again as I said earlier why families want to send their children to a different School in the first place or why are they not a part
of the conversation when we're talking about education I've seen up until this point a lot of protection for the bureaucracy and I'm here to fight for students I'm here to fight for parents and be that voice for them because even just looking in the room there's not too many of them here and so my perspective
is we give every single family school choice and allow parents to drive where they're they send their child to to school because that's the most important thing that a parent can do for their child continue the fight and we're here to support you thank you very much to the panel thank you Mr chairman uh thank
you I have about a minute here uh Dr uh McShan we've uh heard various uh claims regarding the data uh when it comes to uh school choice programs could you just take a moment to uh address what we've heard from the the minority witness we we we've certainly heard a
lot um School choices particularly private school choice has been studied an incredible amount over over a long period of time I have in my written testimony a summary of I think over 188 different studies across a variety of different indicators the overwhelming weight of those is positive that's not
to say that there aren't some studies in some places that have shown negative results but whether you're talking about student uh achievement those students that participate in the program and test scores talking about student attainment which is later life outcomes like high school graduation or college matriculation whether you're looking at actually there's been some discussion of
segregation my understanding that I think of the eight empirical studies that have been done seven of them showed positive results and only one showed negative results Civic Valu is a host of other accounts by and large the weight of the evidence is positive so it sounds like they're cherry-picking either poorly designed
programs or outlier examples to try to create a narrative this would be your your words uh not not and by the way we hear that there might be some Charters or private schools where there's ways Fraud and Abuse nothing like that ever happens in the traditional Public School System right I'm from Kansas City so uh
we were home to one of the most famous and long running School desegregation lawsuits uh that spent billions and billions upon dollars and and the the federal judge when he dismissed at the end basically put his hands up and said you know we spent so much money and so much of it was just
wasted uh pursuant to the previous order the chair declares the Committee in recess subject to the call of the chair we'll plan to reconvene promptly in 5 minutes at 11:50 thank you the committee now stands in recess e e
e e e e e e e e e e e
committee has reconvened uh the representative from Pennsylvania Mr McKenzie is recognized for five minutes well thank you Mr chairman and and appreciate the topic of this hearing today a great conversation to be had about how we can improve the lives and
education of students all across this country and what I'd like to talk about I'd like to give just a little background my experience in Pennsylvania is that we have a system where Charter Schools coexist with traditional public schools and because they are all public
schools in Pennsylvania that's how they are characterized in our state law and that's how they should be viewed is all being equal public schools and so what I see is that all too often in America today the wealthy have an unlimited set
of choices they can go to private school they can go to parochial school they can uh do whatever they want uh because they have that access to resources As you move down that socioeconomic ladder often the number of choices narrow and
uh oddly though maybe the middle class uh face the worst or least set of choices because there are scholarships uh for lower inome individuals and that's wonderful I'm not uh saying that that that's a bad thing but ultimately those middle class families who uh don't
have the wealth and opportunity to go to uh the school of their choice and they don't qualify for uh resources that are and scholarships that are available for low-income students they're left in a situation where they have the least number of choices possibly and so uh
this is more just a broad conversation that I want to have about how we can expand choice for everybody across the Spectrum uh but at the same time reduce the hostility that I see for choice because we see that in Pennsylvania
these schools coexist they are both Public Schools that's what they are but for some reason there are folks that want to demonize the choice of a family that is going outside of the traditional
public school system and so what we see all too often is that it is pitted one against another which is this really odd thing I think to do when you were talking about the education of children demonizing the alternative educational
system is not helping a child that is not helping them get a better education and so but all too often we see it as a one zero uh uh you win we lose scenario so I would just like to hear from our
panelists about what we can do to bring down the negative rhetoric that is demonizing the alternative the hatred that is out there that is existing in the hearts of so many people that want to restrain choice and restrain options how can we have these systems coexist
and what can we do to encourage choice and opportunity for everybody as opposed to demonizing the Alternatives I'll start uh and I've got good news for you so I run a Facebook group of over 11,000 Arizona Esa families and they span political
spectrums socioeconomic spectrums uh their life and their Lifestyles look very very different and there's one thing they all have in common they're on Arizona's Esa program and so a lot of the rhetoric that we hear uh is perpetuated by large special interest
groups that are mo more focused on propping up feeling systems then they are focused on students and parents and their rights uh so the good news is that at the very ground most Grassroots most basic level uh families love school choice programs um and they uh are doing
everything they can to make sure that their voices are heard and that their voices surpass the special interest rhetoric that we hear from the other side and I would I would jump right behind what what Mrs Clark said keeping the conversation student Centric is will
be far more beneficial not just from checking the temperature on it but also actually creating meaningful policy because at the end of the day that's the purpose of Education not just public education education as a whole is to ensure that our future is secured through educating our children and so
when that's the focus and those are the conversations it doesn't it doesn't really matter if it's a private school or charter school or homeschooling or whatever the case may be the end goal is to ensure that children are actually being educated and similar to what Mrs Clark said there are a lot of political interests that that have power and and
are are navigating things across the board but when it comes down to how the children are doing it's it's pretty simple and and this conversation is a great example of that we've heard the vouchers don't work or that vouchers don't uh help the the lower income minority Community that's me I am that
student that was low-income minority and didn't have any other options and so when the conversation is framed that way it's it's really hard to to jack up the temperature and some people will try and I've had a lot of experience in that but at the end of the day if we're helping children that should be our our main goal and our main priority well I want
to thank you for that I think we do need to elevate and raise up these voices of individuals that have succeeded through school choice because we know uh all across the country there are good and bad scenarios in both traditional and Charter or other alternative school
systems we want to elevate those wonderful outcomes and experiences that are being had across the Spectrum regardless of where they are and ultimately leave that choice to the families and the parents because they are the ones that are going to best determine the situation and the setting
that is going to be benefit their child and their educational outcome so I just want to thank all of you for being here to raise up these voices and we want to continue this conversation thank you the uh ranking member of the full committee Mr Scott is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chairman Mr
chairman I've always been intrigued by the strategy of dealing with totally dysfunctional schools by helping a handful of people with a voucher get away and leaving the vast majority still stuck behind in the failing school
system did nothing for the vast majority of students uh except give them less resources than they had to begin with um M 11 um do um Can the private schools charge
more than the voucher amount yes and they often do they also have been shown to raise their prices when vouchers come to their state and who pays the difference between the voucher amount and the tuition that's on the backs of families as well as other non-tuition expenses
making them only accessible to the wealthy um now when these voucher programs start off is there any explosion in private school
seats yes there's often um Fly by Night private schools in STP malls and other places that aren't suitable that rise up to take advantage of the funds now have that that's that quality been assessed for the new schools yes they're often low quality and they often close um I
believe about research shows that about 20% of schools close within a few years in Florida it's 30% um so that um when they um actually get there they don't have any better
opportunity than they had to begin with that's correct and they also don't have rights well and well we'll get to the rights in just a second then do the schools have their own admission standards they do and voucher laws are written to explicitly allow them to keep those standards even if they're
discriminatory now Mr Banks indicated that he's an example of that he said he was denied twice to the school he applied to uh what oversight is there on admissions policies there's basically none
um is there any guarantee that the um those who get a voucher can get into a private school there is not and I've spoken with many families that may have started with High Hopes especially for students with disabilities and then found that there was no school that would accept their child and then what
happens to them then they remain in public schools which now have fewer resources to serve them um do schools set their own discipline standards they do and in most places private schools are not subject to anti-bullying laws like public schools
are uh can they expel students they can for things like their sexual orientation their disability their academic achievement ability their English language ability and many other things that would not be allowed in public schools and what happens to those students those students depend on public
schools which again now have fewer resources and tell me about the Civil Rights protection you said even if discriminatory that's right civil rights protections are um substantially lower for private school students than public school students uh I know employment law was mentioned which is different than
the rights for students now you mentioned title six um disparate impact cases can only be brought by the Department of Education are title six cases brought against private schools title six only applies to um schools that receive federal financial
assistance and that is an a increasingly low number of private schools is um acceptance of a voucher fund Federal funding isn't that a question about whether or not they're even subject to um any of the civil rights laws like
title six correct um private school students do not enjoy the protections of many federal civil rights statutes including title six unless there's Federal funding um you mentioned um segregation uh I
recall the um um as youve suggested the battlecry of segreg aist was give a states rights uh how does states rights help enforce civil rights well states can enact civil rights laws that go beyond federal law again the largely um
such as special education laws wouldn't apply to students who take a voucher um what oversight is there for private to be able to ter for for us to determine whether or not they're good schools or bad schools I imagine there's a great deal of uh
variability very very little and again decreasing with each passing year and that's a deliberate choice and we know why it's because the results are not good um are they subject to the nape tests uh most private school voucher programs have very little or no testing
requirements thank you Mr chairman Mr Allen uh or uh M Miller uh the representative from Illinois is recognized for 5 minutes thankk you chairman and thank you to all of our Witnesses this is such an important hearing our children are the future of our country so first of all uh ranking
member Scott just said how concerned he was that students are leaving the public schools and that it would leave a vast majority of students behind in a failing school system exactly this is the point and whether they're leaving or escaping
I'm not sure um they're also concerned that there's mismanagement fraud and corruption in um Al you know alternative schools or in how the money would be used but I want to remind everybody that the Chicago public schools are spending
$29,000 a year per student um it's a 97% increase since 2012 um they're reading under 30% at the grade level probably substantially below that um math their proficiency is under
20% this is these results are dismal and the focus should be what's best for the students and empowering the parents so Mrs Clark thank you so much for your testimony it seems like Arizona's education savings account program has
been truly transformational for your family I'm hopeful that other state legislators will hear your stories and stories like yours and consider establishing or expanding Esa programs what would you say to state legislators
who are on the fence about whether the program is worthwhile thank you for the question well I'm a public school graduate uh preschool all the way through college so let me say that up front and never did I imagine that my local public school uh would not meet my own children's needs I
was given the esa as the only option for my students with a disability and so the message I have for others state legislators is look at States like Arizona like Florida and the 13 plus other states that have passed programs the demand is there because the public school system does not work for every
child we spoke earlier that uh families have different needs and goals and interests for their children and passing school choice programs allows those families who are stuck in failing Public Schools an option out thank you Mrs Clark Dr M mcshain my
colleagues on the other side keep saying that school choice doesn't work what do you think is the disconnect between what the research shows and the perceptions of school choice among its opponents um look I think that research
in its best form is supposed to be a flashlight and not a sledgehammer it's supposed to help us better understand the world better understand our policies figure out ways to make them better see where they're not working learn from them it's not supposed to be something that you use to sort of bludgeon the
people who think differently in uh than you into submission I think we saw a fair amount of that during the co pandemic for example someone waving around well this study shows and then suddenly we're all supposed to sort of change our Behavior as a result of that we need to draw from multiple different Wells when it comes to figuring out what
the best course of action is research is one of those Wells but our values is one of those Wells the the experiences of the people who participate in programs our religious Traditions ethics morality we're supposed to draw from all those and I one of the beautiful things about being American is that different people
draw from those Wells differently and one of the beautiful things about school choice is it allows a system where they can have institutions that reflect those different values absolutely and decades ago I took my children out of public school to home educate them so that I could give them a Christian education
and use Christian curriculum and I'm so thankful for the uh freedom to do that and you know insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results the most I've been saying for a long time the most racist
thing going on in our country is forcing children in inner city schools black and brown children to to be forced to stay in failing schools and this has got to end thank you so much for our Witnesses and I yield back uh thank you very much
uh M 11 just out of curiosity who are the major funders of your organization thank you we receive relatively small grants from a number of charitable and other organizations okay like the American Federation teachers teachers need any funding from there yes we do receive small grants from them and
uh and such organizations they generally lose money uh the more students enroll in private schools and Charter Schools is that correct I wouldn't draw a direct line no no when you have uh more students educated in charter schools and private
schools you don't think that causes the uh the teachers union to lose money I think the teachers union is not concerned so much with its bottom line as with its mission of educ didn't answer my question I think that that is something worth disclosing the next time uh that you you testify before the
committee uh let's see we have I believe one more uh Miss Wilson from Florida on the Democrat side thank thank you Mr chair um public schools have to educate
everyone the gifted the disabled the wheelchair bound the mentally challenged the sick the orphan the ungovernable everyone Charter and private schools
cherry pick and refuse entry to any child they do not want they can do that but Public Schools cannot and that's wrong with less
funding they have to handle everyone it is unfair and it's an insane ploy to destroy public education and leave it in shambles and I implore you to stop
supporting charter schools and support our one wonderful Public Schools I am from Florida and I have seen what happens when we do this Miss Levan in your statement
you state that many schools around the nation face chronic and severe underfunding diverting much needed funding from public education to pay for private school vouchers exacerbate the
lack of resources I hearken back to a two 2009 Miami D school district report that questioned whether some Public Schools were attempting to select High
performing students for enrollment the report found that advanced students were nearly twice as lucky to transfer to select public to select private private schools as to continue in their home
schools however this selective enrollment is not unique to Miami across the country this is creating a new segregated public school system if the private schools are cherry-picking the
best students diverting funds and not subject to the same oversight of course they would have an advantage how do we ensure that this does not happen we ensure this doesn't happen by
not funding voucher programs that have all the flaws that you've just articulated and furthermore by fully funding Public Schools where of course there are huge challenges but where there are mechanisms and laws and also the will of most of the people in this
country to make things better I I do want to go back for one moment to the idea of demonizing families and individuals because that is what you do when you don't have reasoned and evidence-backed arguments education Law Center and the scores of public education supporters around the country
engage in respectful opposition to policies that in our considered judgment would hurt far more students than would help them and we also oppose policy makers who support those policies who should know better and and just to be clear I'm proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Educators
across the country who are fighting for the same things thank you I you back the representative from Georgia Mr Allen is recognized for five minutes uh thank you Mr chairman U I have 14 beautiful
grandchildren and boy they're different you know God created every child with unique um characteristics and guess what uh they deserve the best the best school for every child and uh it might not be the best
school for another now let's be clear uh we don't want to lose one child in this country all of us are sick of that and it's creating uh real
problems uh but at the same time how do we change the direction uh we know we're going in the wrong direction I mean 70% of the country said this country is going in the wrong direction a lot of it starts right there in
education um I have I bring you good news um to feel the need uh for young students who are struggling in public schools uh we establish Heritage Academy and we give lowincome single moms a choice for their child's
education uh these children are are receiving a faith-based education and every child has thrived these children these moms send these children to Heritage Academy because basically they're told they're losers in the public school system they are growing both
academically and spiritually and most I think all of them are wed a full scholarship to any private school they want to go to in uh in in my uh District that's the good news uh
so and again in my state uh school choice is an 80% issue uh uh Miss Clark one common argument we hear about school choice and ESC esas in particular is that they defund traditional Public Schools or
otherwise degrade the quality of public education have you seen that in Arizona absolutely not in fact not a single public school has closed in Arizona in the over 12 plus years that we've had the esa program in our state okay well I
got to speak up for my daughters uh I have one daughter this sending her children to a faith-based private school where she attended we we sent our children because we wanted them to get a faith-based education but I have another daughter uh who is sending hers to
public school and she has gotten in there and gotten involved in that public school and you know the parents have and it's it's beginning to thrive now it took a lot to do that and uh I applaud uh my wife did the same thing when our children were in high school Dr michine
I have reviewed the data you presented in your testimony I'm impressed by how overwhelming the research base favoring school choice which again we you know in Georgia is an 80% positive issue what would uh what would help make the public more aware of the results you've offered
us here today well research is boring um uh I noticed when I was uh I saw on the lineup that I was going to have to open for for Jenny and Walter I felt like a you know a band that has to open for two significantly better better bands um and
you're just going to kind of get the doors blown off you there but um it does highlight an important point that ultimately the research that I do the research that others do the data points that we collect are real human beings that are trying to do right by their children or our children themselves and
so I think doing as much as we can to tell the stories underneath those data because research ultimately look we we do averages right we take all the voucher kids on this side and all the non-voucher kids on this side we look at what they are at the average but we know under averages are big bell curves right there are some people that are doing better there are some that are doing
worse so trying to tell those actual stories and learning from them is important right I understand Mr Banks thank you for coming and and testifying today your story is uh I mean Ben Carson's a good friend of mine he had a
similar story and uh um we like I said you know we want every child to have the same opportunity you had thanks for being here and thank you for speaking out for every young person in
America because it's important thank you for that and I just want to be very clear that I'm not the only one there are thousands of students across the country who have benefited from similar programs are thriving and are doing great work there is an army coming up behind me I could I could introduce you
to to hundreds of families um and to quote uh coach Prime I ain't too hard to find I'm going to continue this work because I believe in it it and I've and I've benefited from it and I've seen the results and I believe that every child should have the same experience that I did well that's what has made America
the great country it is today thank you thanks to all of you and I yield back thank you very much and thank you to all of our Witnesses uh for your time and uh and testimony today uh I now recognize the ranking member for closing remarks uh thank you uh Mr chairman uh before I
turn to my closing I want to clarify that public opinion does not support private school vouchers when people were asked to is part of a recent poll whether they preefer increasing Federal funding to support Public Schools or providing funding to support private school vouchers the majority of Voters
on both sides of the aisle chose Public Schools regardless of their age gender race political views education level or the state that they live in in fact 68% of Voters chose Public Schools while only 24% chose V vouchers and that number was even higher for parents of
school AG kids this includes two-thirds of all voters in Alabama Louisiana Oklahoma and West Virginia all states that have uh private voucher programs and I might add that overwhelmingly supported president Trump voucher proposals failed on all three state
ballots where they appeared in November Colorado Nebraska and Kentucky in fact voters across the country have rejected every ballot measure proposing a voucher scheme since 1967 a total of 17 times so I'd like to Ender to the record a document entitled the public wants
Public Schools not vouchers by Al for ED without objection and then I would also like to enter into the record uh the following documents a letter from Americans United for separation of church and state opposing School vouchers a letter from the Consortium for constituents with disabilities
education task force opposing the educational choice for children act a letter from the Center for Learning learner Equity opposing the educational choice for children act a letter from the National Coalition from public education opposing the educational choice for children act and two articles
from prua about Arizona's voucher program the first is school vouchers were supposed to save taxpayer money instead they blew a massive hole in Arizona's budget and the second in a state with school vouchers for all lowincome vouchers aren't low income uh
voters are not choosing uh to use them primarily because they can't afford the additional cost like tuition balance and cost of Transportation without objection uh thank you Mr chairman um I'm not an educator like my colleagues uh Representatives Wilson and Hayes and
Manion uh but I'm a parent and I spent years and hundreds of hours if not thousands of hours uh as a volunteer in public schools and I was fortunate to be able to do that uh but I always thought about all of the kids at one point my son said Mom do you have to be at school
all the time I thought about all of the students who did not have involved parents and as as ranking member Scott was saying what about all the rest of the children who don't have maybe an involved parent like Mr blanks who's speaking for them that is our responsibility to think about all of the
students in public schools and I also want to follow up on representative McKenzie's comment because he seemed to be only focused on public charter schools and we are as I said in my opening as Democrats we we are pro-choice in the in the public school
system uh so I I I just he said how do we turn down the the the level of the debate and and make the discussion calmer it it's pretty simple we support Choice within the public school system because we know public education in this country has been chronically underfunded
for decades students are suffering because of it and we know that the majority of funding comes from state and local sources but that Federal funding piece it's critical and it's especially critical for lowincome students and students with disabilities but instead of fully funding public education to
improve outcomes to meet the needs of students with disabilities and to close those opportunity gaps the Trump admin Administration is threatening to dismantle the Department of Education what a terrible message to send to families to students to Educators to Business Leaders that need an educated
Workforce and to our Global allies and competitors who are making education a priority and now Republicans are touting voucher schemes as a solution but vouchers take funding away from public schools and give it to families often wealthy families to subsidize sending
their kids to private school the evidence does not show that School vouchers improve academic outcomes in fact the research on voucher programs in Indiana Louisiana and Ohio found negative effects on student achievement after leaving the public school system
vouchers also Empower private schools to discriminate against disadvantaged students increasing SE segregation and they lack transparency and accountability and they are a misuse of of uh American tax dollars of course we have work to do to improve the public
education system so it fully meets the needs of all students and inspires them to be successful creative critical thinkers with a love of learning but it will always be the foundation on which we build our country's future so we need to make those long-term Federal Investments to get students back up to
speed to make schools safe by addressing gun violence by fixing crumbling School infrastructure so every child regardless of their background or income can have a bright future the answer is to strengthen not privatize public education and before I close Mr chairman
uh I must say that I continue to be surprised by the topics of the committee's hearings given the ongoing attack on public education and the Department of Education and even education research last week secretary McMahon sent out a memo detailing the department of education's final mission
and president Trump walked back a plan Planned executive order to dismantle the department after widespread public outcry so Mr chair I sincerely appreciate our conversation about priorities for the subcommittee this session and I know you care about students in the future of education so
can we uh engage in a very brief colloquy Mr chairman uh well I'm not sure as as to the rules on Coles but uh if you'd like to pose a question i' be happy to address it to my Clos thank you Mr chairman are you do you share concerns about the department of government
efficiency and Elon musk's ongoing efforts to disrupt idea to eliminate funding for Rule and low-income schools and access students and fam sensitive personal data uh and also if you could also answer I expect that the majority will call Secretary McMahon to the
committee soon but across the country people are asking what doge is doing can we work together so our subcommittee has both oversight and input into the reshaping of our country's public school system by bringing in as well as secretary McMahon Elon Musk who's the leader of Doge either before the full
committee or the subcommittee uh well I have not uh heard anything about many of the items uh that you mentioned but use the word disrupt and uh I do agree that our public education system is in need of disruption uh we have seen our
results fail uh our kids for too long and they've gotten worse and worse and worse year after year even though we're spending more and more money uh but the good news is that we see examples throughout the country uh where this sort of positive disruption is occurring
in a way that lifts up uh all students and has gotten amazing results for students we've seen some good examples in DC we saw it in New Orleans after Katrina where they became an all Charter uh Network Florida was mentioned from one of the representatives from Florida as somehow a bad example Florida leads
the nation in education outcomes it usually ranks first uh or close to it on the other hand uh my state California which has done everything possible to restrict school choice ranks among the worst in the country uh even though it spends uh a lot and has added tens of
billions of dollars to the education budget in fact uh in 2019 uh California was second worst in the entire country for educ outcomes for kids on free reduce lunch and then of course during uh CO as I mentioned before California had the longest School shutdown of any
state in the entire country uh although not everyone was kept out of school uh for example Gavin Nome the governor who ordered the school shutdown he sent his kids to in-person private school uh during that time and I think that just underlines a theme that comes out of
today's hearing is that we already have Universal school choice in this country uh for people of means those who can afford it um I'm glad that uh the Democrat witness got a great opportunity uh growing up to go to an outstanding uh private school um I'm glad that Gavin
Newsome's kids get to go to a great school and that Joe Biden's and that KLA Harris's kids but what I don't like is when those very politicians or Advocates uh who CH make one choice for their own families then seek to deny that choice use their power to deny that choice to
those who are less fortunate I think that that uh tension is what we're trying to resolve here and we're trying to expand that sort of opportunity so you know we've heard a lot of uh railing against uh any form of voucher or scholarship or
education savings uh account today but the reality is that those who are making these arguments by and large don't just oppose vouchers or particular voucher programs they oppose school choice in general in fact we saw that pivot even happen in the midst of this hearing where they start off by saying we
support charter schools and then suddenly we hear spurious arguments about for-profit Charters 90% of Charters are are nonprofit or we hear things like Charters can turn away students absolutely untrue uh Charters are open to all uh and are tuition free
so that is the troubling theme that comes out of this is that the opposition is really to anything that disrupts the business model of keeping kids trapped in failing schools and it's that business model that has led to this
education decline uh in our country so what I think we need uh and what we're seeing emerge is a new model where the Money Follows the student this is what extends opportunities to families who have another options and it's what catalyzes systemwide change and I will
say In fairness and I I think that the ranking member uh is sincere on this that the Democrat party has been divided on the issue of Charters we see some who are clearly anti- Charter School uh but there are some that have been supportive like when President President Biden tried to cut Charter School Grants uh several Democrats including uh governor
polus in uh Colorado uh came out uh against that and we have seen bipartisan support for great Charters like Success Academy and Kip I mean Success Academy the number one performing School in the entire state of New York but nevertheless and I've seen this firsthand in my own State there has been
a war against all forms of school choice uh despite the manifold benefits that we've seen for students so what I'm hoping is that those who are actually interested in getting positive education outcomes for kids we'll move past the talking point that we just need to put more money in there since that's
obviously uh a theory that's been falsified of course we need to adequately fund education but the notion that more money will produce better results without actual reform has been proven false time and again but if we can find those who are genuinely interested in I'm willing to partner with uh the ranking member and anyone
else on this side of the aisle to support those forms of school choice that you can get behind so despite the vast differences of opinion we've seen today I'm hopeful that we'll find some common ground going forward and I really think we do have an opportunity uh to catalyze uh reforms that will benefit
millions of kids millions of families across this country and uh set our country on a much more promising path going forward I I haven't yielded back but I appreciate appreciate the remarks just a just a couple of comments I was going to address in my closing statement yeah yes but but I didn't yield back um
a couple of things uh Mr chairman you you mentioned the the addressing the need of students trapped in a failing school uh I don't want to just address the students who feel like they need to escape a school I need we need to address all of the students meaning when
somebody says a school first of all a a school is a building uh what is happening to students in that school do they need smaller class sizes do they need Arts education do they need uh is is their lead in the water do they need Behavioral Health Care there are many
reasons why uh we shouldn't ignore everybody who's in what you're calling a failing school and also with regard to success if you're using the nape scores to measure success we understand that a uh as I mentioned Mr chairman the score
is one way to to assess a student but when you adjust by income it is truly the lowincome students who are are really struggling I also note Mr chairman that you did not um address whether we could uh expect to hear from secretary McMahon or Elon Musk or someone from from Doge so I I hope you
will do that in your closing and I look forward to continuing the the conversation and now I yield back well that was by closing uh I don't think we usually yield back and forth on uh closing statements but I do appreciate the conversation look forward to continuing it I'd like to thank our Witnesses again for taking the time to testify before the subcommittee today
without objection there being no further business the sub subcommittee stands adjourned for