[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
AT 65: A PROMISE UNFULFILLED
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND LABOR
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 30, 2019
----------
Serial No. 116-19
----------
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
Available via the: https://edlabor.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION AT 65: A PROMISE UNFULFILLED
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
AT 65: A PROMISE UNFULFILLED
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND LABOR
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 30, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-19
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the: https://edlabor.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-594 WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman
Susan A. Davis, California Virginia Foxx, North Carolina,
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Ranking Member
Joe Courtney, Connecticut David P. Roe, Tennessee
Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Tim Walberg, Michigan
Northern Mariana Islands Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Bradley Byrne, Alabama
Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Mark Takano, California Elise M. Stefanik, New York
Alma S. Adams, North Carolina Rick W. Allen, Georgia
Mark DeSaulnier, California Francis Rooney, Florida
Donald Norcross, New Jersey Lloyd Smucker, Pennsylvania
Pramila Jayapal, Washington Jim Banks, Indiana
Joseph D. Morelle, New York Mark Walker, North Carolina
Susan Wild, Pennsylvania James Comer, Kentucky
Josh Harder, California Ben Cline, Virginia
Lucy McBath, Georgia Russ Fulcher, Idaho
Kim Schrier, Washington Van Taylor, Texas
Lauren Underwood, Illinois Steve Watkins, Kansas
Jahana Hayes, Connecticut Ron Wright, Texas
Donna E. Shalala, Florida Daniel Meuser, Pennsylvania
Andy Levin, Michigan* William R. Timmons, IV, South
Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Carolina
David J. Trone, Maryland Dusty Johnson, South Dakota
Haley M. Stevens, Michigan
Susie Lee, Nevada
Lori Trahan, Massachusetts
Joaquin Castro, Texas
* Vice-Chair
Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director
Brandon Renz, Minority Staff Director
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 30, 2019................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor........................................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Foxx, Hon. Virginia, Ranking Member, Committee on Education
and Labor.................................................. 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
Statement of Witnesses:
Brittain, Mr. John C., Professor of Law, University of the
District of Columbia Law School............................ 11
Prepared statement of.................................... 13
Darling-Hammond, Ms. Linda, ED.D., President and CEO,
Learning Policy Institute.................................. 21
Prepared statement of.................................... 23
Carranza, Mr. Richard A., New York City Schools Chancellor,
New York City Department of Education...................... 80
Prepared statement of.................................... 83
Losen, Mr. Daniel J., M.ED., J.D., Director, Center for Civil
Rights Remedies, The Civil Rights Project At UCLA.......... 51
Prepared statement of.................................... 53
Pierre, Mr. Dion J., Research Associate, National Association
of Scholars................................................ 75
Prepared statement of.................................... 77
White, Ms. Maritza, Parent Avocate........................... 46
Prepared statement of.................................... 48
Additional Submissions:
Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Connecticut:
Article: Desegregated Differently........................ 129
Chairman Scott:
The Federal Role and School Integration.................. 144
A Bold Agenda for School Integration..................... 185
Prepared statement from the Advancement Project's
National Office........................................ 204
Prepared statement from ASCD............................. 210
23 Billion............................................... 214
Fractured The Accelerating Breakdown Of America's School
Districts 2019 Update.................................. 226
Lost Instruction......................................... 272
Link: United States Government Accountability Office
(GAO) Report April 2016................................ 310
Link: United States Government Accountability Office
(GAO) Report March 2018................................ 310
Link: Long-Run Impacts Of School Desegregation and School
Quality On Adult Attainments........................... 311
Questions submitted for the record by:
Fulcher, Hon. Russ, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Idaho
Omar, Hon. Ilhan, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Minnesota
Chairman Scott
Stevens, Hon. Haley M., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Michigan.................................. 315
Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
Mr. Brittain............................................. 322
Mr. Carranza............................................. 338
Ms. Darling-Hammond...................................... 342
Mr. Losen................................................ 349
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
AT 65: A PROMISE UNFULFILLED
----------
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
House of Representatives,
Committee on Education and Labor,
Washington, D.C.
----------
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:17 a.m., in Room
2175, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Robert C.
``Bobby''Scott [chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Scott, Davis, Courtney, Fudge,
Sablan, Wilson, Bonamici, Takano, Adams, DeSaulnier, Norcross,
Jayapal, Wild, Harder, McBath, Schrier, Underwood, Hayes, Omar,
Trone, Stevens, Lee, Trahan, Foxx, Roe, Walberg, Guthrie,
Grothman, Stefanik, Allen, Smucker, Banks, Walker, Cline,
Fulcher, Taylor, Watkins, Wright, Meuser, Timmons, and Johnson.
Staff Present: Nekea Brown, Deputy Clerk; Emma Eatman,
Press Aide; Christian Haines, General Counsel ; Ariel Jona,
Staff Assistant; Stephanie Lalle, Deputy Communications
Director; Andre Lindsay, Staff Assistant; Kota Mitzutani, Staff
Writer; Max Moore, Office Aid; Jacque Mosely, Director of
Education; Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director; Lakeisha Steele,
Professional Staff; Loredana Valtierra, Education Policy
Fellow; Banyon Vassar, Deputy Director of Information
Technology; Adrienne Rolie Webb, Education Policy Fellow; Cyrus
Artz, Minority Parliamentarian, Marty Boughton, Minority Press
Secretary; Courtney Butcher, Minority Director of Coalitions
and Members Services; Bridget Handy, Minority Legislative
Assistant; Blake Johnson, Minority Staff Assistant; Amy Raaf
Jones, Minority Director of Education and Human Resources
Policy; Hannah Matesic, Minority Director of Operations; Kelley
McNabb, Minority Communications Director; Jake Middlebrooks,
Minority Professional Staff Member; Brandon Renz, Minority
Staff Director; Mandy Schaumburg, Minority Chief Counsel and
Deputy Director of Education Policy; Meredith Schellin,
Minority Deputy Press Secretary and Digital Advisor; and Brad
Thomas, Minority Senior Education Policy Advisor.
Chairman SCOTT. Good morning. The Committee on Education
and Labor will come to order. Welcome everyone. I note a quorum
is present and the Committee is meeting today in a legislative
hearing to hear testimony on ``Brown v. Board of Education at
65: A Promise Unfilled''.
Today, we are here to discuss our responsibility to fulfill
the promise of educational equity, which was ordered 65 years
ago in the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board
of Education.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the
doctrine of separate but equal and struck down lawful school
segregation in America. In the Court's opinion, Chief Justice
Earl Warren wrote the following: ``In these days, it is
doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed
in life if denied the opportunity of an education. Such an
opportunity, where the State has undertaken to provide it, is a
right which must be made available to all on equal terms''.
He went on to say that ``in the field of public education,
the doctrine of `separate but equal' has no place. Separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal.''
But the Court's historic ruling was not the end of school
segregation, it was the beginning of a long and difficult
struggle to unwind centuries of systemic inequality that have
influenced every aspect of American life. Today's inequity in
education, housing, economic opportunity, criminal justice, and
other areas are the legacy of our history. Rather than seeking
to forget the wounds of the past, we must confront them. The
Federal Government actually contributed to racial segregation
and inequity, so the Federal Government must be part of the
solution.
Evidence and experience demonstrate that when we accept our
responsibility to desegregate schools, we have the power to do
so. The passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, paired with strong Federal enforcement
of the Supreme Court's mandate to desegregate schools, produced
a period of sustained progress from the late 1960s through the
1980s. The share of Black students attending majority white
schools jumped from roughly 0 percent to more than 40 percent.
Segregation does not just isolate people, it isolates
opportunity. A recent report found that there is currently a
$23 billion dollar racial funding gap between school districts
serving students of color and school districts serving
predominantly white students.
The relationship between integration and resources is often
overlooked, but cannot be overstated. Court-ordered
desegregation not only substantially reduced racial
segregation, it also led to a dramatic increase in per-pupil
spending, an average increase of more than 20 percent per
student. As a result, tests score for Black students improved
and the achievement gap narrowed. Integration does not work
because children of color are incapable of achieving without
peers, integration works because it impacts school spending and
school practices.
Even Stanford Professor Dr. Eric Hanushek, a consistent
critic of Federal investment as a solution to challenges in
education, found that the period of Federal investment, coupled
with strong enforcement of desegregation, produced impressive
learning gains for children of color without adversely
affecting white students. But just as we have demonstrated the
power to fix this problem, we have the demonstrated power to
make it worse. The election of President Nixon started a steady
retreat from Federal enforcement of school desegregation, which
was continued by Presidents Reagan and first President Bush.
More importantly, conservatives recognized that the same
institution that started the movement toward school
desegregation could be used to stop it.
Starting in 1969, Republican Presidents appointed the next
11 Supreme Court justices. In fact, all but 4 of the last 19
Supreme Court judges since 1969 have been appointed by
Republicans. They have been able to form a block of
conservatives who questioned the constitutionality of
desegregation, chipping away at the Federal Government's
ability to compel bold and meaningful strategies to fully
integrate schools. For example, a few years ago, when districts
in Kentucky and Washington State wanted to voluntarily
desegregate their schools, the Supreme Court said no.
Rather than standing firmly in support of school diversity,
Members of Congress in both parties bowed to political pressure
and passed legislation that was intended to undermine school
desegregation. One example was the appropriations rider that
started in the 1970s that prohibited the use of Federal funds
for transportation of students for the purpose of school
integration. That rider was just removed last year.
After four decades without Federal support for
desegregation, we are right back where we started. A 2016 GAO
report found that public schools had grown more segregated by
race and class than at any time since 1960. According to the
GAO, high-poverty schools where 75-100 percent of the students
were low-income and Black or Latino increased from 9 percent of
public schools in 2000, to 16 percent in 2013. That's 16
percent of public schools where students were both low-income
and Black and or Hispanic. At least 75 percent of those
students are Black and Hispanic and low income. And they said
it's getting worse. It's not surprising the report also found
that segregated schools offered demonstrably worse opportunity
for a quality education.
Unfortunately, the key ingredients that combined to unwind
our progress towards educational equity are still in place
today. We have a conservative Supreme Court that is likely to
strike down school diversity policies as to approve them and an
Administration that does not promote diversity and equity in
education.
One of Secretary DeVos' first actions as Secretary of
Education was to eliminate the grant program called Opening
Doors, Expanding Opportunities grant program, a voluntary
program to support school districts in creating locally driven
strategies to increase school diversity and improve student
achievement and equity of educational opportunity for
disadvantaged students. That program would have helped local
jurisdictions develop desegregation plans that could withstand
constitutional challenges.
In the two and a half years since, the Department of
Education has rescinded an Obama guidance that provided
recommendations to schools seeking to boost diversity in
classrooms and campuses, tried to delay the implementation of a
long-overdue rule designed to address racial disparities in the
identification, placement, and discipline of children of color
with disabilities--a recent court decision found that attempt
to be illegal--dismissed more than 1,200 civil rights
investigations that were started under the Obama
Administration, produced a final School Safety Report that
cited bogus ``research'' and blamed Federal civil rights
enforcement, without evidence, for school shootings, and
eliminated a 2014 guidance package that was issued to help
schools address the clear evidence that Black boys and students
with disabilities received harsher treatments than their
classmates in punishments, they received harsher punishments.
And the guidance showed how you could reduce those disparities
without jeopardizing school safety.
As the White House and the Courts continue to push us in
the wrong direction, Congress cannot sit on the sidelines. The
stakes are too high. Beneath all of the slogans and sound
bites, there is the simple fact that desegregating schools is
the most powerful tool we have to improve the lives of children
of color and their families. Evidence shows that the racial
achievement gap can be virtually eliminated just by exposing
Black students to desegregated schooling. One report,
considered the most rigorous and comprehensive to date, showed
that Black students who attended desegregated schools
throughout their K-12 career were more likely to graduate from
high school, attend college, attend a more selective school,
and complete college.
The benefits are not merely limited to academics. Just five
years of attending court-ordered desegregated schools
significantly increased Black workers' earnings and
significantly reduced their likelihood of experiencing poverty.
Attending desegregated schools starting in elementary
school is highly correlated with reduced chances of adult
incarceration. These statistics reveal both the incredible
value of desegregating schools and the tragic reality that we
have failed to do so. Just how many children have been
disadvantaged because of our failure to desegregate the
schools? How many adults have been incarcerated, how many
families have been impoverished just because we have failed to
uphold a Supreme Court decision rendered 65 years ago? How many
more will we lose until that promise is kept?
As our witnesses today will discuss, the work of
desegregating schools and protecting students' civil rights
will not be easy. Addressing America's legacy of racial
discrimination is uncomfortable and complicated. And, as if we
don't have enough to deter members of this institution, it can
be unpopular. But the civil rights movement has shown that we
can change public opinion rather than just waiting for it to
change. Today, 85 percent of Americans say that Martin Luther
King made things better for Black Americans. But, in 1966, a
Gallup survey showed that two-thirds of Americans had an
unfavorable opinion of Dr. King. Two years later, in the
immediate aftermath of his assassination, another survey found
that 31 percent of Americans felt that he had brought it on
himself. If our approach is to wait until it is popular and
easy, we will never do what is right, and generations of
students and communities will be robbed of the opportunity to
reach their full potential.
Today, we can and will discuss the benefits and trade-offs
of various proposals for achieving educational equity. But the
premise of this discussion is not open to debate. Public
education is not a private commodity, it is a public good. The
Federal Government is obligated to ensure, just as Justice
Warren wrote, that it is made available to all on equal terms.
And I yield to the Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx, for the
purpose of an opening statement.
[The statement of Chairman Scott follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor
Today, we are here to discuss our responsibility to fulfill the
promise of educational equity, which was ordered 65 years ago in the
Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the
doctrine of separate but equal and struck down lawful school
segregation in America. In the Court's opinion, Chief Justice Earl
Warren wrote the following:
``In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be
expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an
education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to
provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal
terms.''
He went to say that ``in the field of public education, the
doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational
facilities are inherently unequal.''
But the Court's historic ruling was not the end of school
segregation, it was the beginning of a long and difficult struggle to
unwind centuries of systemic inequality that have influenced every
aspect of American life.
Today's inequity in education, housing, economic opportunity,
criminal justice, and other policy areas are the legacy of our history.
Rather than seeking to forget the wounds in our past, we must confront
them. The federal government contributed to racial segregation and
inequality, so the federal government must be part of the solution.
Evidence and experience demonstrate that when we accept our
responsibility to desegregate schools, we have the power to do so. The
passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act - paired with strong federal enforcement of the Supreme
Court's mandate to desegregate schools - produced a period of sustained
progress from the late 1960s through the 1980s. The share of Black
students attending majority white schools jumped from roughly zero
percent to more than 40 percent.
Segregation does not just isolate people, it isolates opportunity.
A recent report found that there is currently a $23 billion racial
funding gap between school districts serving students of color and
school districts serving predominantly white students.
The relationship between integration and resources is often
overlooked, but cannot be overstated. Court-ordered desegregation not
only substantially reduced racial segregation, it also led to a
dramatic increase in per-pupil spending - an average increase of more
than 20 percent per student.
As a result, tests score for Black students improved and the
achievement gap narrowed. Integration does not work because children of
color are incapable of achieving without white peers. Integration works
because it impacts school spending and school practices.
Even Stanford Professor Dr. Eric Hanushek, a consistent critic of
federal investment as a solution to challenges in education, found that
the period of federal investment coupled with strong enforcement of
desegregation produced impressive learning gains for children of color
without adversely affecting white students.
But just as we have demonstrated the power to fix this problem, we
have the demonstrated power to make it worse.
The election of President Nixon started a steady retreat from
federal enforcement of school desegregation, which was continued by
Presidents Reagan and first President Bush. More importantly,
conservatives recognized that the same institution that started the
movement toward school desegregation could be used to stop it.
Starting in 1969, Republican presidents appointed the next 11
Supreme Court justices. In fact, all but four of the last 19 Supreme
Court justices since 1969 have been appointed by Republicans. They have
been able to form a bloc of conservatives who questioned the
constitutionality of desegregation, chipping away at the federal
government's ability to compel bold and meaningful strategies to fully
integrate schools.
For example, a fear years ago, when districts in Kentucky and
Washington State wanted to voluntarily desegregate their schools, the
Supreme Court said no.
Rather than standing firm in support of school diversity, Member of
Congress in both parties bowed to political pressure and passed
legislation that was intended to undermine school desegregation.
One example was the appropriations rider that started in the 1970s
that prohibited the use of federal funds for transportation of students
for the purpose of school integration. That rider was just removed last
year.
After four decades without federal support for desegregation, we
are right back where we started. A 2016 GAO report found that public
schools had grown more segregated by race and class than at any time
since 1960. According to GAO, high-poverty schools where 75-100 percent
of the students were low-income and Black or Latino increased from 9
percent of public schools in 2000, to 16 percent in 2013.
That's 16 percent of public schools where students were both low-
income and Black or Hispanic. And they said it's getting worse. It's
not surprising the report also fund that segregated schools offered
demonstrably worse opportunity for a quality education.
Unfortunately, the key ingredients that combined to unwind our
progress towards educational equity are once again in place today. We
have a conservative Supreme Court that is likely to strike down school
diversity policies rather than approve them and an Administration that
does not accept its responsibility to promote diversity and equity in
education.
One of Secretary DeVos' first actions as Secretary of Education was
to eliminate the Opening Doors, Expanding Opportunities grant program,
a voluntary program to support school districts in creating locally
driven strategies to increase school diversity and improve student
achievement and equity of educational opportunity for disadvantaged
students. That program would have helped local jurisdiction develop
desegregation plans that could withstand constitutional challenges.
In the two-and-a-half years since, the Department of Education has:
- Rescinded an Obama-era guidance that provided recommendations to
schools seeking to boost diversity in classrooms and campuses;
- Tried to delay the implementation of a long-overdue rule designed
to address racial disparities in the identification, placement, and
discipline of children of color with disabilities. A recent court
decision found that attempt to be illegal;
- Dismissed more than 1,200 civil rights investigations that were
started under the Obama Administration;
- Produced a final School Safety report that cited bogus
``research'' and blamed federal civil rights enforcement - without
evidence - for school shootings; and
- Eliminated a 2014 guidance package that was issued to help
schools address the clear evidence that Black boys and students with
disabilities receive harsher treatments than their classmates in
punishments. The guidance showed how you could reduce those disparities
without jeopardizing school safety.
As the White House and the courts continue to push us in the wrong
direction, Congress cannot sit on the sidelines. The stakes are too
high.
Beneath all of the slogans and soundbites, there is the simple fact
that desegregating schools is the most powerful tool we have to improve
the lives of children of color and their families.
Evidence shows that the racial achievement gap can be virtually
eliminated just by exposing Black students to desegregated schooling.
One report - considered the most rigorous and comprehensive to date
- showed that Black students who attended desegregated schools
throughout their K-12 career were more likely to graduate from high
school, attend college, attend a more selective school, and complete
college.
The benefits are not merely limited to academics. Just five years
of attending court-ordered desegregated schools significantly increased
Black workers' earnings and significantly reduced their likelihood of
experiencing poverty.
Attending desegregated schools starting in elementary school is
highly correlated with reduced chances of adult incarceration.
These statistics reveal both the incredible value of desegregating
schools and the tragic reality that we have failed to do so.
How many children have been disadvantaged because of our failure to
desegregate schools? How many adults have been impoverished just
because we have failed to uphold a Supreme Court decision rendered 65
years ago?
How many more will we lose until that promise is kept?
As our witnesses today will discuss, the work of desegregating
schools and protecting students' civil rights will not be easy.
Addressing America's legacy of racial discrimination is uncomfortable
and complicated. And, as if we don't have enough to deter Members of
this institution, it can be unpopular.
But the civil rights movement has always moved public opinion,
rather than just waiting for it change. Today, 85 percent of Americans
say Dr. Martin Luther King made things better for Black Americans.
But, in 1966, a Gallup survey found that two-thirds of Americans
had an unfavorable opinion of Dr. King. Two years later, in the
immediate aftermath of his assassination, another survey found that 31
percent of Americans felt that he brought it on himself.
If our approach is to wait until it is popular and easy, we will
never do what is right, and generations students and communities of
color will be robbed of the opportunity to reach their potential.
Today, we can and will discuss the benefits and trade-offs of
various proposals for achieving educational equity. But the premise of
this discussion is not open to debate.
Public education is not a private commodity. It is a public good.
The federal government is obligated to ensure - just as Justice Warren
wrote - that it is made available to all on equal terms.
Now I will yield to Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx, for the purpose of an
opening statement.
______
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for
yielding.
It is clear that in your--as a result of your very long
opening statement that you care passionately about this issue,
and I will tell you I care passionately about it also.
Thank you for convening today's hearing to talk about the
Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of
Education. The issue of segregation in schools deserves our
full attention and I welcome this opportunity to discuss how
the turning point of Brown v. Board has shaped the last 65
years for students across the United States.
Thanks to the relentless courage of Linda Brown, her
parents, and civil rights leaders, the abhorrent segregationist
policy of ``separate but equal'' was recognized for what it
was, inherently unequal. With the Supreme Court's decision, the
Nation took a first step toward greater equality and
opportunity for all people.
Unfortunately, a first step does not equate to overnight
change. We know from history that even after Brown v. Board the
majority of segregated schools did not integrate until many
years later. Even with the legal barriers to equal education
broken, achieving true equality for all students has followed a
steep and arduous path.
My Democrat colleagues have largely been critical of the
Department of Education's enforcement of civil rights law, but
the reality is Secretary DeVos is following the letter and
spirit of the law and regulations. The Secretary is thoroughly
investigating discrimination claims and acting swiftly when
these claims are found to be true. Not only is discrimination
in state-sanctioned segregation repugnant and illegal, it also
prevents growth and success for all children. Studies have
shown that integrated schools promote greater understanding and
tolerance and result in improved educational outcomes,
particularly for students of color.
As a former educator and lifelong learner, I believe in my
whole heart that an excellent education is the key to lifelong
success. It is the path out of poverty for millions and
provides students with the tools and skills they need to build
a successful life. All students, regardless of zip code,
deserve access to greater educational opportunities.
The legacy of Brown v. Board of Education should be to
empower parents with the ability to choose the right school for
their child and eliminate the ability of the State to consign
children to low performing schools with no means of escape.
School choice gives parents and families the opportunity to
break the cycle of poverty and enroll their child in an
institution that challenges them, develops their skills and
intellect, and encourages them to reach higher. Studies show
that when students are given the freedom to attend school in a
learning environment best suited to their abilities, they
graduate from high school and pursue post secondary education
at higher rates. We will hear today about the power of choice
to transform lives.
In the 65 years since Brown v. Board we have not yet
achieved true equality. We continue to strive towards a future
where all students, regardless of race or color, have the
chance to succeed. But while there is more work to be done, we
have seen some encouraging trends.
Between 2010-2011 and 2016-2017 the high school graduation
rate for Black students increased by 11 percent, more than any
other demographic. Additionally, dropout rates for Black
students declined between 2000 and 2016, while Black enrollment
and attendance at postsecondary institutions rose over the same
period.
Change is slow. Change is too slow. The progress we've made
should be understood if it's going to continue.
I thank the witnesses before the Committee today and I look
forward to our discussion about how we can keep working to
secure greater equality and even greater opportunity for
America's students.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mrs. Foxx follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx, Ranking Member, Committee on
Education and Labor
Thank you for yielding.
And thank you for convening today's hearing to talk about the
Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The
issue of segregation in schools deserves our full attention, and I
welcome this opportunity to discuss how the turning point of Brown v.
Board has shaped the last 65 years for students across the United
States.
Thanks to the relentless courage of Linda Brown, her parents, and
civil rights leaders, the abhorrent segregationist policy of ``separate
but equal'' was recognized for what it was: inherently unequal. With
the Supreme Court's decision, the nation took a first step toward
greater equality and opportunity for all people.
Unfortunately, a first step does not equate to overnight change. We
know from history that even after Brown v. Board, the majority of
segregated schools did not integrate until many years later. Even with
the legal barriers to equal education broken, achieving true equality
for all students has followed a steep and arduous path.
My Democrat colleagues have largely been critical of the Department
of Education's enforcement of civil rights law, but the reality is
Secretary DeVos is following the letter and spirit of the law and
regulations; the Secretary is thoroughly investigating discrimination
claims and acting swiftly when those claims are found to be true. Not
only is discrimination and state-sanctioned segregation repugnant and
illegal, it also prevents growth and success for all children. Studies
have shown that integrated schools promote greater understanding and
tolerance, and result in improved educational outcomes, particularly
for students of color.
As a former educator and a lifelong learner, I believe with my
whole heart that an excellent education is the key to lifelong success.
It is the path out of poverty for millions and provides students with
the tools and skills they need to build a successful life. All
students, regardless of zip code, deserve access to greater educational
opportunities.
The legacy of Brown v. Board of Education should be to empower
parents with the ability to choose the right school for their child and
eliminate the ability of the state to consign children to low-
performing schools with no means of escape. School choice gives parents
and families the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty and enroll
their child in an institution that challenges them, develops their
skills and intellect, and encourages them to reach higher. Studies show
that when students are given the freedom to attend school in a learning
environment best suited to their abilities, they graduate from high
school and pursue postsecondary education at higher rates. We will hear
today about the power of choice to transform lives.
In the 65 years since Brown v. Board, we have not yet achieved true
equality. We continue to strive towards a future where all students,
regardless of race or color, have the chance to succeed. But while
there's more work to be done, we have seen some encouraging trends.
Between 2010-2011 and 2016-2017, the high school graduation rate for
Black students increased by 11 percent, more than any other
demographic. Additionally, dropout rates for Black students declined
between 2000 and 2016, while Black enrollment and attendance at
postsecondary institutions rose over the same period.
Change is slow. Change is too slow. The progress we have made
should be understood if it's going to continue. I thank the witnesses
before the committee today, and I look forward to our discussion about
how we can keep working to secure greater equality, and even greater
opportunity, for America's students.
______
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Without objection, all other
Members who wish to insert written statements in the record may
do so by submitting them to the Committee Clerk electronically
in Microsoft Word format by 5:00 p.m. on May 14.
I will now introduce our witnesses.
John C. Brittain was appointed Acting Dean of the
University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke Law
School on July 2018. He joined the UDC faculty in 2009 as a
tenured professor. He has previously served as Dean of the
Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Texas Southern University in
Houston, is a tenured professor at the University of
Connecticut School of Law for 22 years, and Chief Counsel,
Senior Deputy Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil
Rights under the Law in Washington, D.C.
He writes and litigates on issues in civil and human
rights, especially educational law.
Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor
of Education Emeritus at the Stanford University and Founding
President of the Learning Policy Institute, created to provide
high quality research for policies that enable equitable and
empowering education for each and every child.
She is the past President of the American Education
Research Association, author of more than 30 books and 600
other publications on education quality and equity, including
the award-winning book ``The Flat World and Education: How
American's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future''.
In 2008 she directed the Education Policy Transition Team
for President Obama and she was recently appointed President of
the California State Board of Education.
Ms. Maritza White has worked at Cornerstone Schools of
Washington, D.C. since 2014 as business manager. Before that
she served as a facilitator and office manager for the
Community family Life Services here in D.C. for 4 years. Prior
to that she was field operations supervisor with the U.S.
Census Bureau where she managed, recruited, and developed field
staff and analyzed special reports.
She also worked for Prince George County's public school
system as a program developer and substitute teacher for almost
a decade.
She received her BS in organization management from
Columbia Union College, now Washington Adventist.
She enrolled her son in a D.C. private school through the
D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
Daniel Losen is the Director of the Center for Civil rights
Remedies at UCLA's Civil Rights Project, where his work is
focused on racial disproportionality in special education,
graduation rates, and school discipline since 1999.
Included among his edited books of scholarly research are
``Racial Inequity in Special Education'' and ``Closing the
School Discipline Gap: Equitable Remedies for Excessive
Exclusion''.
The organization's award-winning report, Are We Closing the
School Discipline Gap, describes school districts that are
making the most progress, as well as those with the most
serious and persistent disparities along the lines of race,
gender, and disability status.
Mr. Dion Pierre is a researcher with the National
Association of Scholars in New York City. He has been a
researcher at the National Association of Scholars for 2 years
where he researches racial self-segregation on American college
campuses.
He was previously a Fellow at the Public Interest
Fellowship, and he received his bachelor's degree in political
science in 2016 from Hofstra University. He co-sponsored an
article for Minding the Campus, a higher education website that
advocates for campus free speech, entitled ``What Damore's Memo
Taught Google'', in which he argues that diversity initiatives
in STEM field earth hurt Asian students.
Richard A. Carranza is chancellor of New York City
Department of Education, the largest school system in the
Nation. He is responsible for educating 1.1 million students in
over 1,800 schools.
Prior to New York City he was superintendent of the Houston
Independent School District, the largest School District in
Texas and the seventh largest in the United States. Before that
he served the San Francisco Unified School District, first as
deputy superintendent, then as superintendent. Before moving to
San Francisco he was a Northwest Region Superintendent for
Clark County School District in Las Vegas.
He began his career as a high school bilingual social
studies and music teacher, then as principal, both in Tucson in
Arizona.
He is the son of a sheet metal worker and hairdresser and a
grandson of Mexican immigrants. He credits his public school
education for putting him on the path to college and a
successful career.
We appreciate all of our witnesses for being with us today.
Let me remind you that your written statements will appear
in full in the hearing record pursuant to Committee Rule 7d and
Committee practice. We ask you to limit your oral presentation
to a 5 minute summary.
I also want to remind the witnesses that pursuant to Title
18 U.S. Code, Section 1001, it is illegal to knowingly and
willfully falsify any statement, representation, writing
document, or material fact presented to Congress or otherwise
conceal or cover up a material fact.
Before you begin your testimony, I would ask you to make
sure that you press the button on the microphone in front of
you so that the Members can hear you. As you begin to speak the
light in front of you will turn green, after 4 minutes it will
turn yellow signifying 1 minute remaining, and when the light
turns red, we ask you to please wrap up.
We will let the entire panel make their presentations
before we move to Member's questions. And when answering a
question, remember again to press the button to put your
microphone on.
We will first recognize Dean Brittain.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN C. BRITTAIN, PROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL
Mr. BRITTAIN. Good morning, Chairman Scott, Ranking Member
Dr. Foxx, and other Members of this Committee.
My name is John Brittain, and I am a professor at the David
A. Clarke School of Law at the University of the District of
Columbia. I appear today as an expert on educational equity
with 50 years of experience, in theory and in practice, in the
pursuit of educational equity.
In preparation for this testimony and report, I sought the
collaboration with the National Conference of School Diversity
and the Poverty & Race Action Council, and more.
The social science research clearly demonstrates the
benefits of school diversity and integration. Students
attending social, economically and racial diverse schools have
better test scores and higher college attendance rates than
peers in more economically and racially segregated schools.
Racial diversity in schools also carries long-term benefits.
These include subsequent reduced segregation in neighborhoods,
college, and workplaces, higher levels of social cohesion, and
reduced likelihood of racial prejudice.
Despite these benefits, 25 percent of public school
students attend schools in which there are more than 75 percent
of the students eligible for free and reduced price lunch. And
in urban areas nearly half of all students attend high poverty
schools. These trends have been getting worse over the past
decade. The Government Accounting Office recently found that
the percentage of K-12 public schools with high poverty and
African American and Hispanic students increased, up by 9
percent in 2000-2001, and 16 percent in 2013-2014.
The Stronger Together School Diversity Act of 2016 would
empower communities to counter the encroaching re-segregation
we are facing. As a result of these research findings, the
National Coalition for School Diversity supported the Stronger
Together School Diversity Act of 2016.
All policies in pursuit of racial and ethnic equality in
education are completely voluntary today. The fact is, school
assignment plans designed to promote diversity and integration
in education are double voluntary. School authorities
voluntarily create plans and parents, with mutual acquiescence
by their children, voluntarily participate in these diversity
plans. We must confront, in this 21st century, the twin social
policy issues of poverty and inequality, especially in
education. Segregation in education is harming our future.
Thus I applaud the Committee for remembering the history of
Brown in this hearing.
Since President Donald Trump's inauguration in 2017, his
Administration has suspended vital gains in civil rights, in
education, and housing, to name a few. In the field of
education, as you mentioned, the Secretary of Education Betsy
DeVos withdrew the policy on school diversity and integration,
developed by the Obama Administration, to the combined efforts
of the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Education
Office for Civil Rights.
The preceding Administration of President George W. Bush
has erroneously interpreted a Supreme Court case in 2007 named
``Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist.
No. 1''.
While the Trump Administration's termination of the School
Diversity Guidance Policy may create a chilling effect on
school districts that want to voluntarily diversify and pursue
integration, the policy established by the Supreme Court in
2007 remains good law.
As this Nation currently enters the last 6 years to the
first quarter of the 21st century with hyper racial segregation
in many sectors of society and reductionist school enforcement
and educational policies by the Federal Government, the Courts,
and the Executive Branch, the question to ask is, is the Nation
approaching the end of the Second Reconstruction?
In closing, a majority of the Supreme Court in a 1996
landmark case called Sheff v. O'Neill, a majority of the
Justices said this, although the Constitutional basis for the
plaintiff's claims to the deprivation that they themselves are
suffering, that deprivation potentially has impact on the
entire State and its economy, not only at social and cultural
fabric, but on the material wellbeing, on its jobs, industry,
and business.
Economic and business leaders say that our State's economic
wellbeing is dependent on more skilled workers, technically
proficient workers, literate and well educated citizens. So it
is not just that their future depends on the State, the State's
future depends on them. Finding a way to cross the racial and
ethnic divide has never been more important than it is today.
[The statement of Mr. Brittain follows:]
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Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
Dr. Hammond.
TESTIMONY OF LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND, ED.D., PRESIDENT AND CEO,
LEARNING POLICY INSTITUTE
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx,
Members of the Committee, thank you for your invitation to
participate in this hearing. I am honored to be here today to
discuss the Federal role in fulfilling the promise of Brown v.
Board of Education.
I will make three points in my brief comments and offer
recommendations about what the Federal Government can do to
fulfill the promise of Brown.
First, a large body of research has found that diverse
schools make a positive difference in a wide range of student
outcomes. I am one of more than 550 scholars who signed onto a
social science report filed in the Parents Involved lawsuit
that demonstrated the benefits of integrated schools include
gains in math, science, and reading achievement and graduation
rates. It also included greater cross-cultural understanding,
reduced prejudice, improved critical thinking skills, and
increased likelihood that students will live and work in
integrated settings as adults.
In a recent study looking at the effective court-ordered
desegregation, economist Rucker Johnson found that Black
students' graduation rates climbed by 2 percentage points for
every year the student attended an integrated school, and they
also experienced an increase in wages and a decrease in poverty
as adults. Meanwhile, White students experienced no declines in
outcomes. These gains were tied to the fact that integrated
schools had higher per people spending and smaller student-
teacher ratios, among other resources.
Second, the Federal role in this domain has made a positive
difference when it is well used and a negative difference when
it is poorly used. During the 1960s and '70s Federal support
for desegregation led to a dramatic decline in segregation.
This, combined with Federal efforts to equalize educational
opportunity, cut the achievement gap between Whites and Blacks
by more than half in reading and a third in math between 1971
and 1988.
Had we stayed on course with these initiatives there would
have been no Black-White achievement gap by the year 2000.
Unfortunately, nearly all of these policies were eliminated
during the 1980s and have not been reinstated. The achievement
gap today is 30 percent larger in reading and math than it was
30 years ago.
In addition, as some administrations sought to get
desegregation orders lifted, resegregation occurred--as you can
see in the chart that is about to go up--desegregation orders
produced a sharp decline in segregation, but typically an even
sharper increase in resegregation when they were lifted. Today,
about half as many Black students experience desegregated
schools, as was true 30 years ago.
To address these trends, as well as confusion about
appropriate policy strategies for advancing integration, the
Obama Administration's voluntary guidance for states and
districts, consistent with the Court's decision, assisted many
districts I described, some of them in my written testimony,
that have demonstrated how integration can be successfully
pursued in ways that honor parent and student choice and expand
opportunities.
These include choice based plans in San Antonio, Texas,
Hartford, Connecticut--which John Brittain had a lot to do with
bringing about--and Omaha, Nebraska, among others.
The Federal Government can work to advance these efforts by
first of all reestablishing Federal grant programs that support
voluntary efforts to create more diverse schools, expanding
innovative programs to attract diverse students, revising
boundaries, training diverse educators. Many of these types of
policies are described in the Strength in Diversity Act.
Second, the Federal Government can eliminate the
legislative prohibition against district use of Federal funds
for bussing that remains in the General Education Provisions
Act, so that funds can be used for transportation.
Third, we could increase funding under ESSA in support of
school diversity, including funding for magnet schools, which
has been flat for many years. Those schools have been shown to
increase both integration and student achievement--as well as
Title I funds for school improvement
Fourth, we can encourage greater diversity in charter
schools, which are in general more segregated than other public
schools, by setting expectations for fair and open admissions
and recruitment, like those laid out by the Century Foundation
in a recent publication.
Fifth, we can ensure that states enforce ESSA's Integrative
Student Assignment policies, which required districts to
minimize segregation and assign these students to schools and
classrooms.
Sixth, we can encourage states, districts, and schools to
report on opportunity indicators required by ESSA, including
the degree of integration, school funding, and teacher
qualifications.
And, finally, we could reestablish the Department of
Education's guidance on school diversity to inform state and
local efforts to create more diverse schools.
Sixty-five years after the highest Court declared that
separate but equal has no place in our Nation's public school
system, we still have considerable work to do.
Thank you for your focus on this issue.
I am happy to answer any questions the Members may have.
[The statement of Ms. Darling-Hammond follows:]
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Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
Ms. White.
TESTIMONY OF MARITZA WHITE, PARENT ADVOCATE
Ms. WHITE. It is most fitting that I would be charged with
examining the fulfillment of Brown v. Board of Education, now
on its 65th anniversary, as this is also the year of my 65th
birthday.
I was born 3 months after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court
decision, which stated that separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal. The decision, however, did not stipulate or
suggest how this interracial segregation would be implemented.
States were only ordered to desegregate with all deliberate
speed.
This is the era in which I was born. Inherent in the
Court's decision was the intention that all children through
desegregation would have equal opportunity to quality
education. Was the mandate fulfilled or was this a platitude of
well meaning words? Did desegregation produce the achievements
that were inherently promised? Through my own life experience I
would soon find out.
I speak to you today not as a learned scientist regarding
the accumulated data on this subject, but instead I speak to
you from the heart and experiences of a parent who has had the
opportunity and sometimes distress of finding ways to
accomplish the major responsibility of my life, which is to
assist my son, Michael, to succeed in the world. I didn't have
all the data, nor did I have preconceived ideas about what was
best for Michael. I, as a parent, had to be empowered to make
the best decision for my son.
Although the initial step to desegregate schools may have
seemed successful, the desired outcomes were not obtained.
Although Black schools achieved some tangible improvements,
they were not to the extent of their White counterparts. And
with the Blacks being marginalized into all Black
neighborhoods, Black students didn't have the real educational
opportunities that their White counterparts had.
Two years after Michael was born we were in a tragic car
accident that left my husband unable to work. With a
constrained budget we had to look for alternative for schooling
for Michael. We recognized that education was one of the ways,
if not the only way, to escape the ravages of the inner city.
Brown v. Board intended to empower parents to make the best
educational choice for their children. This intended parental
empowerment was not real if my child had no opportunity to
attend the best or better school. For our family, that changed
50 years after the Brown v. Board decision in 2004 with a
proactive program. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program,
was implemented. It allowed our family to choose among public,
charter, and private schools for our son to attend. We were
open to exploring all options.
My research indicated that school choice had led to
improving all three types of school through competition that
required all three school types to increase innovative
programming, increase school accountability, increases in
parental engagement, and providing options for low income
students of color.
Michael attended public school from Head Start through
first grade. We applied for that D.C. Opportunity Scholarship
and received it. This opened our options, so Michael
transferred to NHB, which was a private school, for the second
grade.
Michael was not able to return to NHB for the third grade
because the class was full. And although I was sad, we had no
problem with Michael returning to public school. Michael was
reenrolled in a public school, but several weeks into the
school year Michael was bullied at school and was in a fight
with three other boys, resulting with him having a bloody lip
and other lacerations.
I was less concerned about Michael's bloody lip than I was
concerned about the school's poor handling of the situation. I
was never advised about the fight by the school. The school's
excuses were not good enough for me. Michael needed to be in a
safe place and this public school was not it. So I vowed that
he would never return to an unsafe school. I called D.C. OSP
and they advised that the scholarship was still available to
Michael.
After a few days of researching our alternatives we found
Cornerstone Schools of Washington, D.C. I walked in and it was
a totally different environment than the public school that he
had attended. The class size was half the size of that of the
public school, the students appeared eager and ready to learn,
the academic training was rigorous, and oh yes, he felt safe,
and I felt safe for him.
Michael was a student at Cornerstone from third to seventh
grade. We continually evaluated our educational choices and in
the eighth grade Michael transferred to a charter school. He
returned to Cornerstone in the 9th grade and graduated as
salutatorian in 2016. He received several scholarships and
matriculated at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Our family is able to speak to the effectiveness of school
choice because we have been privileged to have experienced
public, private, and charter schools.
Through our varied educational experiences we can truly say
that education is not a one size fits all experience. We can
truly say that our family has, and other families have the
right to decide throughout their child's education what is best
for their child to succeed. But without school choice many
families do not have the option for their child to receive the
equal education promise.
I shudder to think of where our son, Michael, would be if
he did not have school choice available to him. No, indeed,
Brown v. Board of Education mandate has not been fulfilled. But
school choice is a step in the right direction in reaching the
mandated outcome.
Today, Michael White is a successful example of how school
choice in all three arenas of public, private, and charter
school can be utilized for the successful education of low
income statements.
To close, middle and upper income students have choice
already by virtue of their income and social status. School
choice allows low income families to participate in the
American dream afforded by equal education.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. White follows:]
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Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
Mr. Losen.
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL J. LOSEN, M.ED, J.D.,DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
CIVIL RIGHTS REMEDIES, THE CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT AT UCLA
Mr. LOSEN. I would like to thank Chairman Scott and the
Members of the House Committee on Education and Labor for
inviting me to testify on this important topic.
I am Dan Losen, the Director of the Center for Civil Rights
Remedies at UCLA's Civil Rights Project, which is dedicated to
highlighting concerns about racial inequity in our public
schools and to bringing the best research to bear on remedies.
I consider Brown's promise to be the equitable opportunity
to learn. The focus of my presentation is how the disparate
impact of unjustified school discipline policies contributes to
racial differences in the days of lost instruction, and thereby
to inequities in the opportunity to learn. Stopping the
disparate impact from unjustified discipline is critically
important, therefore, to fulfilling Brown's promise.
The first slide shows data from 2015-16 and the racial gap
for secondary students in terms of days of lost instruction for
100 enrolled due to out of school suspensions. While the gaps
within the districts are disturbing, so too are the differences
between the districts. Compare Richmond City, Virginia, where
Black students lost nearly 500 days per 100 Black students
enrolled. The Black-White gap there of 446 days is 12 times
larger than the Black-White gap in Virginia Beach. These
districts have different discipline policies. The racial
discipline gap is greatest in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but both
Blacks and Whites are losing too many days from out of school
suspensions.
If I were elected to the Grand Rapids School Board I would
call for a review of their discipline policies. And if I found
that most of the lost instruction and racial disparities were
due to suspensions for dress code violations or getting tough
on tardy students or truancy, or some no excuses policy, I
would insist on replacing those harsh punitive responses with
educationally justified ones.
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration recently eliminated
the Federal Title VI guidance on school discipline. Its
disparate impact section prompted school districts to review
justification of discipline policies that produced the kind of
impact we see in Grand Rapids, Richmond City, and Anson County,
North Carolina, all where Blacks lost over 300 days of
instruction more than Whites due to out of school suspensions.
This next slide is from our California report, and it is
about a particular policy of suspending students for minor
behaviors, lumped together under the category of disruption or
defiance. It shows how the share of days of lost instruction
caused by that one policy from causing 49 percent of all lost
instruction in 2011-12 to only 20 percent in 2015-16. In other
words, as districts found better ways of responding to minor
behaviors than simply kicking kids out of school, not only was
there a decline in the total days lost, there was no major
uptick in suspensions for more serious misbehaviors.
The next slide shows what happened to the days of
instruction per 100 for each racial group due to suspensions
for all reasons during the same period. Many districts, like
Los Angeles, ban suspensions for disruption or defiance for K-
12. And there was a statewide ban for grades K-3. Black
students experienced the largest drop in days of lost
instruction due to discipline, from 64 days to 39 days. And the
Black-White gap narrowed from a difference of 47 to a
difference of 29.
The evidence suggests that the policy of suspension for
minor offenses contributed to the large racial gap in
California, and eliminating that policy has helped reduce the
disparity.
This final slide, I will conclude by summarizing, is from
the research of Dr. Russell Rumberger, one of the Nation's
leading experts on why students drop out of school. After
controlling for the main reasons that students drop out, his
analysis determined that getting suspended predicted a decrease
in the graduation rate by as much as 15 percentage points. He
then estimated the economic costs from the lowering of the
graduation rate that was due to suspension and found that
suspensions cost our Nation $35 billion just from 1 year's
cohort. These economic losses hurt all members of our society,
but undoubtedly harm communities of color more than others.
I argue that it makes good economic sense to invest in
alternatives designed to reduce suspensions and keep more kids
in school. Keeping kids safe is of course of paramount
importance, but safety includes protecting our children from
injustice. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has signaled
that it will no longer protect children of color from the
disparate harm that is caused by unjustified policies.
Therefore, I encourage Congress to act by passing Chairman
Scott's Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act, which would
restore a private right of action so parents and civil rights
advocates could bring disparate impact claims to court.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Losen follows:]
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Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
Mr. Pierre.
TESTIMONY OF DION J. PIERRE, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS
Mr. PIERRE. I grew up in New York City, where I attended
public schools between 2000-2012, interrupted by brief periods
in other cities as my parents moved around. The brief sojourns
in schools outside New York City opened my eyes. Schools in
America are by no means equal, but the sources of inequality
differ from what most people think.
I learned from schools in Binghamton, New York and Winston-
Salem, North Carolina that parents and teachers can work
together to help students behave properly and succeed
academically.
Most of the time, however, I attended schools beset by
disciplinary problems. When I acted out in schools in
Binghamton and Winston-Salem the teachers called my parents and
I settled down. Nothing like that happened in the other
schools. But by grade nine I had my own ideas about what school
was good for. I wanted to learn and learning was always more
difficult when disruption ruled.
In September 2008, I arrived with my stepfather at John
Adams High School in South Ozone Park, Queens to complete my
registration for fall classes. Several hours later I watched
from a table at the perimeter of the cafeteria as members of
the Crip Gang pounced a young man sporting the colors of the
rival Blood Gang. I had just received my lunch.
Incidents like these were common at John Adams where,
according to the New York State Education Department, only 64
percent of students graduate in 4 years, just 2 percent more
graduate in 6 years. Violence, gang activity, and classroom
disruptions were the John Adams experience. The high school was
something like a poorly run prison where the inmates intimidate
the guards. Every morning we walked through metal detectors, at
the end of which stood a New York City public safety officer,
wand in hand, waiting to scan us again. It was annoying, but
plainly necessary.
Classes could be disrupted at any moment by late arriving
students who paid no price for tardiness. Students dipped into
classes into which they weren't registered to escape our Vice
Principal's infamous hall sweeps. Hall sweeps collected late
students, quarantining them in a lecture room on the third
floor to avoid more classroom disruptions. Class clowns heckled
instructors incessantly and others laced their jeering with
threats of physical harm and racial epithets. When the
situation got seriously out of control, the teachers called
public safety officers and school administrators, but their
arrival escalated the situation, usually by giving the student
occasion to put on a show for his friends. By the time the
student was hauled off and the flipped desks set right, the
bell signaling the end of class rang. So much for instruction.
I recall these anecdotes every time I hear people decry
Black and Latino students' alarmingly high suspension and
expulsion rates. In 2015 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
issued rules requiring school officials to receive permission
from the New York City Education Department to suspend
students. Recently, the California Senate passed a measure
forbidding public schools from suspending students in grades
four through eight who willfully defy school staff. The bill
was supported by legislators, alarmed that although Black
students account for 5 1/2 percent of California students, they
receive 20 percent of all suspensions in the State. Similar
measures trailed the Obama Administration's 2014 guidelines
seeking to curb racial disparities in school disciplinary
proceedings. Proponents of these measures argued that because
Black students are disparately impacted by school suspension,
our Nation's school systems are hotbeds of racial
discrimination.
But this disparate impact theory is a fantasy. Violence and
lack of order in underserved schools deprives all students of
their rightful educational opportunities. Catering to the
disruptors by keeping them in classrooms or halls, cafeterias,
or wherever they choose to hang out, is a terrible idea.
The Obama era guidelines aren't social justice, it is
state-mandated foolishness. Keeping teen predators in schools
so that they can continue preying on vulnerable students
doesn't bring educational opportunity to anyone, but that is
what the campaign to undermine school discipline in minority
communities has come to.
Why do urban schools tend to have more disciplinary
problems than other schools? I don't have all the answers, but
I know that the problem feeds on itself. In many cases students
are influenced by mainstream culture, which often encourages
minority youth towards transgressive behavior, lets students
feel they can get away with anything, and some will try to find
out just how far they can go. And when nothing happens to them,
other students will misbehave as well.
These problems are aggravated, of course, in communities
with high rates of family dysfunction and other social
problems. The root problem here is not racism.
But even in the most afflicted communities, schools can
still be beacons of hope, the fertile fields of potential from
which the leaders of tomorrow will sprout and grow into the
next generation of great Americans. Turning them into
sanctuaries for bullies, early career criminals, and gangs is
unwise public policy and will stymie progress.
[The statement of Mr. Pierre follows:]
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Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
Mr. Carranza.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD A. CARRANZA, NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS
CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. CARRANZA. Good morning, Chairman Scott, Ranking Member
Dr. Foxx, and all the Members of the Committee here today. On
behalf of Mayor de Blasio and the New York City Department of
Education, I am honored to be here today.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify at this important
hearing and thank you for your support for our 1.1 million New
York City public school students.
Now, I know, just as the Mayor knows, just as everyone in
this chamber knows, that public education is an investment in
the future. From my own experience as a student, a teacher, a
principal, and now Chancellor of the largest school system in
the Nation, I can tell you that a public school education can
change lives. Unfortunately, this scourge of school segregation
robs many students of color and those living in poverty of the
high quality education they deserve.
Sixty-five years after the decision, I humbly say to you
schools systems nationwide have not fulfilled the mandate of
the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.
Decades of history have taught us that segregation is
inherently unequal. For too long we have been afraid to
confront this reality, but we can no longer allow such a system
to persist just because the problem is hard to fix.
As Chancellor it is my overarching goal to advance equity--
not yesterday, not maybe in the future, but advance equity now.
So we are confronting this problem head on by increasing
diversity in some of our most segregated school districts.
After a community-driven process, we have approved diversity
plans put forward in three school districts in New York,
Districts 1 and 3 in Manhattan and District 15 in Brooklyn.
In District 15, due in part to a long-standing academic
screens for admissions, many middle schools have long served
very low numbers of low income Black and Latino students.
Others basically served only low income Black and Latino
students. District 15's diversity planning process brought
everyone to the table, community members, parents, and
students, advocates, and school staff from across the District.
And they had tough but necessary conversations, conversations
grounded in data and occurring in different languages. The
result was a grassroots driven comprehensive plan that
eliminated all academic screens in favor of a lottery. District
15 middle schools will now prioritize approximately half of
their seats for students from low income families, English
language learners, and students in temporary housing.
These efforts to increased diversity in District 15
inspired our $2 million grant program to support school
districts to develop locally driven diversity plans in
communities across New York City. This program is supported by
Federal Title IV funding.
Now, I wanted to turn to the well-known issue of our most
selective schools in the City, the specialized high schools.
New York State law mandates that admission be based solely on
results from a single test. No other institution in the country
uses such a process with one single test. What outcomes has
this led to? This year, Black and Latino students received only
10 percent of admission offers in a school system that is
nearly 70 percent Black and Latino students. This is unfair, it
is unacceptable. Unfortunately it is the status quo.
As the Mayor has put forward a proposal to change New York
State law to eliminate the single test and expand admissions
criteria to include a proven combination of grades and state
test scores. If we are to advance equity, now we must eliminate
the single test for specialized high schools now.
However, integration is not just about giving Black and
Latino students access to predominantly White schools, it is
much more complicated than that. It is also about priming our
school communities for this change by creating classroom
cultures that respect and celebrate diversity, it is about
implementing our sweeping equity and excellence for all agenda
based upon the premise that whether students attend a school
with mostly White peers or mostly Black and Brown peers, they
all deserve an excellent education, the opportunity to develop
invaluable life skills and the social capital that helps to
open doors.
And meaningful integration is about ensuring that all
125,000 people who work with our students in the New York City
system address their implicit biases that may create different
expectations for different students. We are delivering
important anti-bias training to each and every one as a central
part of our advancing equity now.
Now, briefly, I would like to turn to some ways in which
the Federal Government can support the work that is elaborated
on further in my written testimony. Number one, reinstate
Federal guidance to support diversity in schools. The prior
guidance on racial diversity in K-12 schools provided that
support by explaining how school systems can voluntarily
consider race to achieve diversity and avoid social racial
isolation in schools. The current Administration has rescinded
that guidance and has failed to issue any alternative policies.
Number two, reinstate Federal guidance to support equity in
discipline. Prior school discipline guidance supported school
systems by describing how those systems can administer student
discipline without discriminating against students on the basis
of race, color, or national origin.
Number three, increase and protect Title IV resources. The
Administration's proposed budget includes elimination of Title
IV, an important resource, that as I noted, we are currently
using to fund our $2 million diversity grant program.
And, number four, pass Strength in Diversity Act. This Act
authorizes $120 million to provide planning implementation
grants to support voluntary local efforts to increase social
economic diversity in our schools.
The goal of New York City's diversity agenda is to build a
future that is not bound by history, by demographics, or by
income. We believe we can create a system that reflects the
best of our diverse, inspiring, and innovative city. We must
continue to engage in the additional hard work necessary to
disrupt the status quo, to desegregate our schools, and advance
equity now.
We are grateful to this Committee's Focus on integration
and the advancement of equity, and I thank you for your time,
and would be happy to answer questions from the Committee.
[The statement of Mr. Carranza follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
We will begin with Member questions. I will first call on
the gentlelady from California, Ms. Davis.
Ms. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
to all of you for being here and for being really helpful to us
today.
I want to turn first to Dr. Darling-Hammond. And thank you
for your in depth work and focus over the years. I wanted you
to just answer for us, so what is the importance of resource
equity in combating segregation?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, the original theory of action in
Brown v. Board of Education, the cases that were consolidated
into it, was both one about resources and one about
desegregation, because there has been historically very
disparate resources allocated to schools were experiencing de
jure segregation. And even today, there are disparities in
funding that are associated with segregation. Segregation and
poverty and inadequate resources typically go hand in hand.
There was a recent study by the Education Trust which found
that nationally districts serving the most students of color
receive about $1,800 per pupil less than districts that serve
the fewest students of color. In many states there is a much
bigger divide. You will see that in, you know, Lower Marion,
Pennsylvania will spend twice as much as Philadelphia, New
Trier spends twice as much as Chicago, Scarsdale used to spend
twice as much as New York City, and it is probably still close
to that; considerable differential. One study from EdBuild
found that predominantly non-White districts receive about $23
billion less than predominantly White districts. So these two
things go hand in hand and it is very hard to adjust the
resource needs and also meet the resource needs in high poverty
districts without also tackling desegregation.
Ms. DAVIS. Mm-hmm. We see that some school districts,
despite their best intentions really at trying to get at some
of these issues, it is not sufficient. So what is it
additionally--and I think you have all talked about some of the
harmful policies as well as beneficial policies at the Federal
level. How do we help the school districts who are trying to do
this, good intentions, but not sufficient?
And if I might, turn to the Chancellor in a minute to ask
about San Francisco, because that is one example where I think
again, good intentions, but not sufficient. How would you
respond?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, in my written testimony, I talk
about several districts that have inter district desegregation
plans and intra district desegregation plans that require
investing in schools, so that you have equitable funding, so
you can build high quality choices in every community. I was
very sympathetic to Ms. White's testimony about the lack of
such schools in some communities, but it takes an investment.
You need transportation funds to allow kids to get to the
schools that will meet their needs and choices, as is going on
in Hartford and San Antonio and you need fair and open
admissions policies. So there are a number of things that the
guidance on diversity in the Obama Administration offered as
strategies that actually have worked in a number of districts,
but they do require, you know, investment, and they require
opportunity to leverage the choice for equity. Because without
that set of bumper guards, it will sometimes produce inequity
and more segregation.
Ms. DAVIS. Thank you.
And turning to the Chancellor, if you could--obviously as
one of the recent articles in the New York Times stated, the
program in San Francisco did not live up to the expectations.
Some would call it a failure perhaps. You may feel differently
that there were some strengths. But so what is it with best
intentions, not sufficient? What happened?
Mr. CARRANZA. Well, as Professor Darling-Hammond has
stated, you can't have choice if you don't really fund the
choice. So if you don't have transportation, if you are not
creating programs that are geographically distributed in the
city--and this is a phenomenon that I saw not only as
superintendent in San Francisco, but as superintendent in
Houston, same thing. If you have choice without the appropriate
undergirding of programmatic opportunities, of distributed
opportunities across a city, and a mechanism for informing
parents and students of what those choices are, you really
don't have choice. And I think that was one of the issues that
plagued us in San Francisco, was how do you create those kinds
of programs with the appropriate funding streams in
geographically distributed areas across the city.
Ms. DAVIS. Thank you very much. And my time is up. I return
my time. Thank you.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
Dr. Foxx.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pierre, you reached out to us asking to testify today,
is that correct?
Mr. PIERRE. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. FOXX. Okay. Why was it so important for you to have
the chance to share your perspective?
Mr. PIERRE. I think it is important to talk about these
issues honestly and in a way that actually takes minority
communities seriously. I think the Obama era guidelines are an
abdication rather than an assertive effort to cure the ills in
minority communities.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you.
Ms. White, what does the promise of Brown v. Board of
Education mean to you and how do you think that decision helped
your son reach his potential?
Ms. WHITE. That decision helped my son reach his potential
in that he now had choices. He had a choice to either go to the
local school, local neighborhood school, and he had the option
then to attend either a private school or a charter. So he had
the ability to choose among three different types of learning
environments.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you. Ms. White, you talked about this in
your testimony, but I want to follow up on it. Your son
attended a traditional public school, a public charter school,
and a private school throughout his education. Why did you
change schools and was it easy to do so?
Ms. WHITE. I changed schools initially because of--I
explained earlier that there was an altercation at the school
and the school did not utilize the--in the inner city we know
that some schools have issues with behavior. And so this was an
obvious behavior problem that was not addressed, and so I felt
that it was necessary then to move him. And we continually
looked at the options and decided that we needed to move
further. And we continued to evaluate it. It was not a one
time, you know, he attends one school. We evaluated it
continually.
And, no, the transition was not easy, but I as a parent
made it easier for my son, explaining the transition, and
giving him any additional support he needed to do that.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you very much.
Mr. Pierre, did you see other students at your high school
become discouraged in the way that you did? What was the impact
on those students?
Mr. PIERRE. Oh, absolutely. At John Adams High School, if
you cooperated with teachers and did your lessons, the students
would make fun of you, they would say that you are acting
White. And that of course puts tons of pressure on minority
students who are just trying to get by. The idea that
disruptive behavior and failing is somehow tied to Black
identity is one of the most destructive ideas in our country
today. President Obama probably never had any experience with
that because he went to high school in Hawaii, I went to high
school in New York City.
Mrs. FOXX. Mr. Pierre, do you think having greater freedom
to choose the right educational option would have benefitted
you or changed the dynamics you observed?
Mr. PIERRE. Hmm, well, I guess I ended up here, so I think
that I had a family that was able to instill good values and
work ethic in me. And I survived. But for other students, for
whom languishing in a New York City public school was
detrimental, I would absolutely support their right to seek out
school districts where they will have a better education and a
better learning environment. It is just cruel to keep well
performing minority students in classes with disruptive
students.
Mrs. FOXX. Mr. Pierre, when you visited your old school in
2016, did you have the chance to talk to any teachers or other
staff?
Mr. PIERRE. Yeah, absolutely. And they were demoralized.
They can't do anything. When I was in high school we weren't
allowed to have cell phones in class. Students were bringing
their cell phones to staircases, reeked of marijuana, which
would have never happened with the Vice Principal that was
there when I was there, and I said well, what happened. They
said well, we can't suspend anyone. Shortly after that visit I
read a New York Post article about the John Adams High School
Principal refusing to suspend a student who--a senior student
who made a sex tape with a freshman, and the word around school
was that he wanted to keep the numbers down.
Mrs. FOXX. Thank you very much. I want to thank our
witnesses again for being here today.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.
Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
taking the time to focus on Brown v. Board of Education in
terms of again the period that we have experienced in terms of
ups and downs.
One place where I would argue there was some progress was
referred to by Professor Brittain in his remarks when he read
from the holding of Sheff v. O'Neill, a case that those of us
from Connecticut are very familiar with. He was the lead
counsel for the plaintiff in that case. It took almost 8 years
to get from filing the lawsuit to the final judgment in 1996,
which ruled again that segregation under the State constitution
in fact was a violation of State law. And that triggered a
whole other process in terms of trying to find the resources to
implement a system of breaking down those barriers.
Again, I just think that Professor Brittain's leadership
and advocacy--again, persisting to go back to the courts, to
force the State legislature to come up with the resources for a
segregation plan, has resulted in some positive outcomes.
Mr. Chairman, I have an article from The American Prospect,
``Desegregated Differently'', which describes again the Sheff
v. O'Neill case, which I would like to ask that to be admitted
to the record.
Chairman SCOTT. Without objection
Mr. COURTNEY. And it states very clearly in the first
paragraph that nearly half of the public school students in the
City of Hartford now attend desegregated schools. Included in
that sort of plan is a Sheff school, as it is called, in East
Hartford, Connecticut, the IB Academy, which my daughter,
Elizabeth, attended and graduated in 2013. Again, it was rated
by the U.S. News & World Report as the fifth best high school
in the State of Connecticut. Again, totally diverse student
body where students from Hartford, Connecticut are transported
every day, along with kids from other suburban areas. And
again, it has shown that in fact diversity and quality are just
not incompatible, but in fact work together to produce great
outcomes for students.
So, again, Professor Brittain, based on your experience in,
you know, dealing with again the resource issue in the wake of
the court's decision, I mean to some degree that is really the
mission that we should really be focused on in terms of trying
to get the benefits that you described in your testimony. Is
that correct?
Mr. BRITTAIN. That is correct.
Mr. COURTNEY. And the Strength in Diversity Act, which my
friend Congresswoman Fudge--would open the door to expanding
those resources, as well as the magnet school grants, which the
Chancellor referred to, which have really kind of not been out
there for communities. That would help, don't you think, based
on your experience, in terms of breaking down resistance to
really enhancing these types of program?
Mr. BRITTAIN. Absolutely, I agree with both the Chancellor
and my colleague, Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond.
Mr. COURTNEY. Because, you know, what we are seeing is that
again you hit that about 50 percent mark in terms of kids
attending desegregated schools, but it has somewhat stalled
because of budget issues in Connecticut, and also some
resistance in terms of local communities funding issues like
transportation. If the Federal Government were to step in and
really provide a new infusion of resources, I mean that would
really turbo charge and jump start, you know, these models that
we know are actually working, isn't that correct?
Mr. BRITTAIN. That is correct.
Mr. COURTNEY. And, Chancellor, I don't know if you want to
just sort of chime in, but you know that would get to the heart
of some of the other criticisms that we have heard here. I mean
I don't want to speak ill of the New York City school system,
but frankly it is highly segregated. And if we had programs
which, again, we are able to diversify student bodies, I think
frankly you would see improvement all across the board.
And I was wondering if you could comment on that.
Mr. CARRANZA. Yes, sir. So it would be a game changer. And,
again, resources--as public school systems we don't have the
ability to charge more for our product. We don't sell products,
we educate souls. So we are dependent upon the funding that we
get to be good public stewards of that funding.
So additional resources gives us the opportunity to create
programs, to distribute those programs through an equity lens
in communities that have historically been underfunded. It also
allows us to provide mechanisms for parents in the traditional
public schools to access those programs and students to access
those programs.
As you mentioned, a culinary arts programs, we know that
students have lots of varying interests. So as we work to
modernize what that curriculum looks like and give students a
portfolio of options, the funding becomes central to that.
Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. And, again, that really should be
our focus in terms of next steps.
Again, I just want to publicly thank Professor Britain for
his amazing work in the State of Connecticut. My family got a
firsthand view of the benefits and it was just--you are a giant
in the history of our State.
Mr. BRITTAIN. Thank you, sir. You are much too kind.
Chairman SCOTT. The gentleman yields back.
Dr. Roe.
Mr. ROE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank all the panel
for being here. It is an extremely important topic.
And I may be the only person sitting up here that graduated
from high school in the segregated school system in the rural
South. And the first African American student I went to school
with was college and then medical school, and then on. And I
certainly know that was wrong and certainly had a very
detrimental effect.
I want a couple of questions--I would like a couple of
questions answered.
Ms. White, I live a block from a charter school here in
D.C. I go by it every single day. We just had a huge debate in
Tennessee on charter schools, should tuitions be used--and you
made a very eloquent case for that. And I don't see how you can
ask a parent in a failing school to keep their--that is the
only chance that child has. And we know if you go through one
or two grades in a failing school, your child gets way behind.
And so I would like for you to answer a couple of
questions. One, what would you say to someone who suggests that
you should only have a public school choice, that the charter
schools or private schools reduce resources to public ones?
That is a common denominator that we hear.
Ms. WHITE. What I found was that is contrary to the truth
in that competition allows schools to work better together. Not
just to work better together, but competition allows them to
work to do the best work possible that they can. When you are
in any competitive arena, you do better when you have
competition. And so we have found that instead of it taking
resources away from the public school, it increases the public
schools' ability to do better work as they are competing with
the charter and then private schools.
Mr. ROE. Well, one of the things I wanted to--thank you.
And one of the things I want to do is the basically the
discipline part. Discipline was not a problem in my public high
school because my principal was a Marine, a World War II
Marine, so it was not a problem obeying him, let me tell you.
Mr. Thompson--I will never forget him as long as I live.
And, to Mr. Pierre, I want you to talk and I want Mr. Losen
or the Chancellor to--and, Chancellor, you have a huge chore in
front of you, over a million students, but how do you answer
what he said? I know in my community at home we have an
alternative school. You don't get lucky and get kicked out and
don't go to school. You then go to alternative school where you
can continue your education. You don't get to stop, but you get
the disruptive student out of the class.
What do you say to this good student sitting here when his
education is disrupted by disruptive students? Either one of
you.
Mr. CARRANZA. So it is the job of every teacher, every
principal, every Chancellor to ensure that there are
environments in schools that are supportive, that are
academically rigorous. That should be happening in every
school.
What has been described here is not what anybody wants,
however, it has been my experience in almost 30 years as an
educator, that when you build capacity for teachers, for
administrators to be able to work with students in a different
way, to be able to apply different strategies to work with
students, you get better results. And, you know, a surgeon
doesn't just go for the scalpel, there are different things
that you diagnose and different treatments that you apply based
on what the circumstances are. The end result is you want the
patient to be well.
So what we are doing in New York City is building capacity
for teachers and principals to use different types of
strategies to meet the needs of students. In some cases we have
to connect students with resources and services that have to do
with some of the personal challenges that they are facing. That
makes a big difference.
Mr. ROE. Let me interrupt you.
Mr. CARRANZA. Sure.
Mr. ROE. Because my time is going to expire. I want Mr.
Pierre to respond to that.
Mr. PIERRE. I mean we would hear this kind of stuff from
the many Chancellors I had when I was in high school. There was
a brief period of lots of overturn. You know, a lot of it just
sounds academic and, you know, tons of abstract nouns thrown
together, equities, strategies. We never saw any strategies, we
saw disruptive students, we saw teachers encouraging us to lie
on surveys when state or city inspectors came. It was just a
disaster, the idea that any Chancellor in New York City has
made things better in minority serving schools the past 5
years, 10 years, 20 years, is just not speaking to the reality
that is on the ground.
Mr. ROE. Do you recommend that--and he has a tough job--but
do you recommend that maybe he do the sort of the boss that is
hiding out that day and they don't know who he is and he goes
and talks to the students there?
Mr. PIERRE. Absolutely. If the administrators don't know
the State is coming, the students will be really honest I
think. We were told to lie.
Mr. ROE. Mr. Chairman, thank you, sir. I yield back.
Mr. LOSEN. Yes, if I could also respond. I think it is
important on page 12 of our written testimony to note that in
Los Angeles, where they eliminated the policy of suspending
kids for this catch all category of disruption or willful
defiance, there was a dramatic, dramatic decrease in the loss
of instruction. And during that same period, Los Angeles had
the largest increase in improvement in graduation rates that it
has ever experienced. And at the same time, in a two year
period, where they were tracking test scores, the achievement
went up not down. And other studies have found the same thing.
But it makes sense, if you reduce the amount of the loss of
instruction for these kind of minor offenses--I am not talking
about kids committing serious crimes or anything like that,
there was just massive numbers of kids losing instructional
time because of these minor offenses due to these sort of
policies that kick kids out right and left.
So I think it is really important to keep that in
perspective.
Thank you.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
The young lady from Ohio, Ms. Fudge.
Ms. FUDGE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
all so much for being here.
Just for somebody watching from not in this room, so we
won't be confused, we are not talking about a choice bill here
today. Brown v. Board is a civil rights bill that speaks to
equity, equality, and desegregation. It has absolutely nothing
to do with choice. I just wanted to make that clear up front.
But I do believe that 65 years after Brown, that a quality
education, one that is equitable, is still the civil rights
issue of our time, as only those who are wealthy are guaranteed
to have a good education. And we also know that it is obvious
that racism is not just going to die here, so we have to
continue to be sure that we enforce things like Brown v. Board.
And I am really impressed that a Ranking Member talks about
the Secretary, who she believed believes in the letter and the
spirit of the law, but I promise you it was not the law that
had her dismiss 1,200 civil rights actions that she didn't even
read. And it really wasn't the law that instructed her to start
to dismantle the division of civil rights within her
Department. So I don't know what law she is following. And it
doesn't sound like she cares very much either.
Let me just ask a question of Mr. Carranza. Mr.
Superintendent, tell me how funneling of public dollars to
private and religious schools impacts your ability to serve
your students.
Mr. CARRANZA. It siphons the lifeblood of programming, it
siphons the opportunities. We know that students that have
opportunities for enrichment. For example--one of many
examples--students who get to go to the opera, they get to go
to a museum, they get to go on a trip and experience new
things, we know that students in economically depressed
communities don't have those kinds of opportunities. We use
every penny of our funding to keep the lights on and to keep
the water running. So additional resources that we could have
that then get siphoned elsewhere detract from the ability to
provide those kinds of opportunities, which many people would
say is the definition of a well-rounded education.
So it is critically important to us.
Ms. FUDGE. Thank you.
Dr. Darling-Hammond, you participated in a funding formula
in your State, am I right? Can you just tell me how that
formula really just counters the disparate impact of
resegregation in our schools today?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, we have just redesigned the
funding formula in California so that it actually is associated
with attending to pupil needs. So districts get an equal amount
of money to start and then they get more money for each child
in poverty who is an English learner or who is in foster care
or homeless. And those concentrations of funding are giving the
districts that serve students with the greatest needs the
opportunity to provide the stronger programming, which
ultimately will also support desegregation and integration in
some of the cities where you have got a population that will
stay in the schools when they improve. So that is already
beginning to happen.
Ms. FUDGE. So it has nothing to do with property taxes?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, the money now goes to the--there
is property tax money, there is other money, it all goes to--
Ms. FUDGE. But there is money on top of that, right?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Yeah. And the State adds to that--
Ms. FUDGE. So the people who live in poor communities won't
always be poor in their education?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Exactly. So now we are redistributing
that money in a way that is attendant to pupil's needs. And
that is a critical part of the process.
We have had a lot of conversation here about what kinds of
investments are needed. One is to get states to be equitable in
their funding. And there have been efforts to encourage states
in that regard in past administrations.
Another is to then make those investments in things like
magnet schools. Right now we are spending $107 million and $440
million on charters. We should try to spend as much on schools
that are high quality magnets as we do on schools that are--
Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. And we all know that charters are
not--have yet to be proven better than any other school.
Professor Brittain, if you would like to make some comment.
I know you were trying to get in before, and since you are a
law professor and I am a lawyer, I yield the balance of my time
to you, sir.
Mr. BRITTAIN. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Fudge.
I just wanted to say that the question we face is where
will we be 50 years from now in terms of looking at Brown. We
have come 65 years so far. Ups and downs, peaks and valleys,
and we have about 35 more years to go for the 100th anniversary
of Brown. Unless we come together to look at the question of
race, particularly in education, but in housing, in criminal
justice, in all fields, we will never reach the equality that
was set forth in Brown.
Ms. FUDGE. Thank you so much.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg.
Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to the
panel for being here.
So I thank you for being part of the panel, too. It is
great to have one who is identified--I know others are--but
identified specifically as a parent. I think in Brown v. Board
of Education, in seeing that worked out to the best of its
capabilities, I think it mandates that parents are returned to
their proper responsibility with their children--their
children--their children. And parents who understand that and
truly care--which I think are the majority of parents--not all,
but the majority--are integral and most important in making
sure that the Brown v. and other attempts at making sure that
we have quality education for all is there.
So thank you.
Ms. White, I imagine you and your family have become
resources for other families facing similar challenges for
educating their own kids. What advice do you give to other
families looking for educational options for their children?
Ms. WHITE. I always share with parents that life is a
situation where you are going to either pay now or pay later.
And so it is a lot less--it is a lot easier when we pay now and
taking the time out to be very intentional about checking into
what the options are for our children's education. And so I ask
them to invest as much time, and I help them invest as much
time as possible to check into all of the possibilities
available to them.
Mr. WALBERG. And you checked into, for your children, as I
understand it, traditional public schools, public charter
schools, as well as private schools?
Ms. WHITE. Correct.
Mr. WALBERG. Did you find common traits in the schools that
you felt were effective in educating your children? And,
second, were those traits exclusive to any single type of
school?
Ms. WHITE. One of the major traits that I saw was in the
area of parental engagement. So where there was parental
engagement in the school, the students performed better. And
that was across the line, whether they were in a public school,
private school, or a charter school. And the amount of
dollars--I don't know all of the data in that regard, but I
know that if you give parents enough information and you get
them engaged and understanding what their responsibility is,
the students will do better.
Mr. WALBERG. Was this engagement by parents at a specific
economic strata?
Ms. WHITE. No.
Mr. WALBERG. Specific communities?
Ms. WHITE. No. There had to be intentional parental
engagement. So where the parental engagement was found, whether
it was a higher socioeconomic group or lower, students
performed better.
Mr. WALBERG. Were the schools helpful in bringing about
that engagement?
Ms. WHITE. I have worked with a public school in the
District and five in Prince George's County public schools
where there was substantial parental engagement and they did
excellently.
Mr. WALBERG. Okay. You talked in your testimony about
needing to be empowered as a parent. What is the effect on
families when parents feel disempowered with respect to their
children's education?
Ms. WHITE. The effect on the families?
Mr. WALBERG. The effect specifically on families when
parents feel disempowered.
Ms. WHITE. When parents feel disempowered, they are just
not motivated to make the changes that need to be made. So we
have to empower them and make them understand that they have a
right and a responsibility to make decisions for their
children.
Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Pierre, could you comment on that as well,
in your studies and involvement about parents being empowered
or disempowered, what the impact is?
Mr. PIERRE. I agree, but I caution against putting so much
emphasis on, you know, which programs are available for
parents. Much of this starts when people have children for the
first time. At my high school most students who were South
Asian or Latino had two parent households, married, sort of
decided to have kids, were invested in them. This is often not
the case in Black American communities and it creates an
environment where a lot of children don't have responsible
parents around them.
And I am sure a lot of people if they knew that school
choice was available would jump on it, but many people don't.
They have kids too young, when they are 17 or 18, and they
aren't aware of these things and life just goes on.
Mr. WALBERG. Thank you.
I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you.
The gentleman from the Northern Mariana Islands, Mr.
Sablan.
Mr. SABLAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
today's hearing. And I welcome to all the panelists. Thank you
for joining us.
Let me start, Mr. Losen, with you. Mr. Losen, I got that
right? Thank you.
So on December 21, 2018, Secretary DeVos rescinded the
school discipline guidance created by the Obama Administration
to ensure that students of color aren't disciplined more
harshly than their peers. Now, according to the Data Quality
Campaign, only 26 states are collecting data on school
discipline in their State plans.
Can you explain the effects of rescinding the guidance and
the importance of school districts having support from the
Federal Government to reform discipline policies to reduce
disparities while keeping schools safe? Something that Mr.
Pierre would understand.
Mr. LOSEN. Yes. I think there are a number of--first of all
when Secretary DeVos and the Trump Administration withdrew the
guidance, it sent a signal to all the districts across the
Nation that they no longer had to concern themselves when they
were suspending kids right and left and even if it had profound
disparate impact on one group or another. And I have pointed
out that this is good, common sense policy because of the
impact on graduation rates. Because of the impact on loss
instruction.
In general, moreover, her justification I want to point out
cited a study that has been discredited and was discredited at
the time. So there was a study that claimed that Black students
were not discriminated against when you compared Black and
White students who were similarly situated.
In fact, another very conservative researcher with the same
data set totally debunked that study and found that in fact
Black students compared to similarly situated White students
were 60 percent more likely to be suspended.
So it just boggles the mind that they would rely on such
discredited research when there is study after study after
study that shows that Black students are treated differently.
So they are punished more harshly.
Mr. SABLAN. Okay. Thank you for and on two occasions that
we had the Secretary here, it was just impossible, worse than
pulling molar teeth than getting an answer from her. Chancellor
Carranza, the student population of New York City public
schools is majority minority like my district in the Northern
Marianas.
So could you speak to why diversifying the teaching
profession is critical to the success of students of color and
what more should we at the Federal level do to better recruit
and retain highly qualified minority teachers?
Mr. CARRANZA. So it's important that students see their
education and their educational environment reflect who they
are; not only in the curriculum and what they study, and how
they study, and what they celebrate, but also in the people
that are in front of them. And for many students, particularly
students of color, and I'm a student of color myself. I'm an
English language learner. It was important for me to see role
models that were my teachers, that were my principals, that
were a superintendent. So that becomes very, very important on
that perspective.
But it's also important in that students that have teachers
of color, especially teachers that come from their background--
Mr. SABLAN. Yes.
Mr. CARRANZA.--there's a cultural competence that comes
with that. When you walk into a classroom and you're an English
language learner, a Latino student and the teacher says
(speaking Spanish) hey, have a seat or I'm going to call your
grandma or (speaking Spanish), there is a certain cultural
competence that connects that student with their culture.
Mr. SABLAN. I got a lot of that in school. Thank you. And
Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, I know you were pointing at the
Chairman probably trying to add on to Mr. Losen's but in your
testimony and report, the Federal role on school integration
rounds promise and present challenges.
You discussed the importance of the Federal role in
promoting school diversity and access to opportunity. Again, in
July 2018, Secretary DeVos rescinded the voluntary diversity
guidance to help school districts improve diversity in K-12.
What effect has the rescinding had on school districts
seeking to improve diversity and what message does this send
from the Federal Government? You have 25 seconds.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, it sends the message that the
Federal Government is not forward looking about helping
districts, you know, create more diversity and it also raises
confusion.
In the wake of the Parents Involved case about what are the
legitimate ways to support diversity and the ways that
Chancellor Carranza is doing in New York City. There are
guidance about specific strategies that districts have taken up
that have been successful that is now not easily accessible to
districts across the country.
Mr. SABLAN. Yes. I see my time is up. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Allen.
Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the panel
for your input today on this critical subject in our country as
the professor said. The--we have been at this a long time and
we need to figure this out.
Because just a couple things that I would remind my
colleagues and the panel is that the U.S. currently spends the
most on education of any country in the world. It's about
$160,000 to educate students publically and 1 in 5 of our
graduates is functionally illiterate.
We are also although we spend the most in education, we are
currently ranked 34th in science and I believe--no, 34th in
math and 24th in science out of 72 developed nations. So
obviously the--whatever model we are using is not working. Our
students are challenged.
I know that to get in college today it is very, very
difficult, certain colleges in my district. But at the same
time, we have some examples of some schools in my district that
are making tremendous progress. We have a school system, inner
city school system in the largest city in my district that has
the number one high school in the country. Davidson Fine Arts
is the magnet school.
We also have in that county, a school that is supported by
a Presbyterian Church and this school is for those students who
are basically told they're losers in the public education
system. And these parents have no other place to turn. And they
have to pay a little something, but it is largely supported by
the business community and others. It is a faith-based school,
and it is amazing the results that they're getting. I mean,
these kids are stars. In fact, they're pretty much offered full
rides to any private school they want to go to when they get
out of that school.
And then I have an example of an inner city school in
Dublin, Georgia where they, I mean, they finally just took the
three schools and they made them theme schools. One is an arts,
one is a STEM and the other one is a leadership. Parents got up
at five o'clock in the morning to start signing up their
children at eight o'clock in the morning for which school they
were going to go to. We have a 95 percent graduation rate in
that city school system right now.
So, I'm saying that we are getting the job done locally,
but somehow the Federal Government is messing all this up. It
is really, I mean, this one size fits all--like you said, LA,
there's some good things happening out there. Meaning that LA,
New York, obviously very, very different. And so that's where
we are missing it on the Federal level. In other words, the
Federal Government says you should--you have to do this. They
throw a lot of money at it, it doesn't work for each school
district.
Mr. Pierre, the thing that I, that occurred to me when you
were speaking, and we have it at home is the gang problem. What
in your mind is causing these young people to migrate to these
gangs and creating like I said disruptions in not only
educational systems, but in society as a whole?
Mr. PIERRE. Well, it's interesting. This is something a lot
of rappers talk about as they get older. The absence of fathers
in the Black community leads a lot of young men to turn to
other male figures in the community who seem to have authority.
And gangs can be a source of protection, friendship,
fraternity, so that happens a lot.
Mr. ALLEN. Yes. Well, we know the family has been under
attack in this country for a long time. I know my family was
largely responsible for my success as far as education goes.
Mr. Pierre, I mean, Ms. White, thank you for being here
today and one of the criticisms we hear about school choice is
the--and the public charter schools or private schools lack of
accountability. But it seems to me that a system where you have
real options the accountability rests with parents. And what
reaction do you have when you hear arguments that parents can't
be trusted to make the right decision for their children?
Ms. WHITE. I slightly laugh like I just did because we are
all of--many of us in this room are parents and we are
intelligent and we want the best for our children and families.
So what parents are you saying can' t be trusted? That's the
question.
Mr. ALLEN. Yes, exactly. Mr. Pierre, in your testimony you
said you--oops, I am out of time. I'm sorry. Okay. I yield
back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Thank you. Gentleman's time has
expired. Gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Wilson.
Ms. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member Foxx
for holding this hearing. The importance of today's hearing
cannot be overstated. There has not been one single education
Committee hearing focused on the issue of school denigration in
30 years since 1989 so welcome to this hearing. The landmark
Brown v. Board decision led to gains for African American
students in the academic achievement gap by more than half in
two decades of public school integration.
During the time of integration, I was the principal in
Miami Dade County at a school called Skyway Elementary. It was
known as the Little United Nations. It was one third White and
one third Hispanic and one third African American.
It was so successful both academically and socially that
former President Bush sent Education Secretary Lamar Alexander
to the school to award the school the American 2000 award for
elementary schools. He visited to witness the spectacular
results firsthand.
My students flourished and learned so much from each other
which benefitted the entire community. The school is now named
Dr. Frederica S. Wilson Elementary School. Unfortunately, many
parents failed to understand that attending public schools with
diverse enrollment greatly broadens the horizons of all
students irrespective of race. Yet since the 1990's, the number
of segregated schools has more than tripled reaching levels not
seen since the Jim Crow Era.
One of the chief factors in the movement toward
resegregation is the increased use of private school vouchers.
The concept of school vouchers arose in the 1950's as a way for
White families to resegregate schools and avoid sending their
children to racially integrated schools while still receiving
tax payer funding.
The first and perhaps most famous example of voucher usage
was a tuition grant program in Prince Edward County Virginia in
the 50's when this rural community chose to provide White
students with vouchers rather that comply with civil rights
laws.
In 1999, my home State of Florida established the Florida
Opportunity Scholarship Program. It is no coincidence that
since then, that the same year in 1999 Governor Bush also ended
affirmative action in education admissions. Higher education
admissions.
The expansion of vouchers in Florida and other locations
across the Nation further increases socioeconomic and racial
segregation. It is evident that the current Administrations
complete disregard for civil rights and this glaring education
budget which contains 5 billion per year in funding for school
choice programs is another giant step toward resegregating
America's schools. And I'm certain that Congress will step in
again and deny appropriating this funding.
My first question goes to Ms. Darling-Hammond. Ms. Darling-
Hammond, how do you think the proliferation of school choice
throughout the Nation has affected diversity in our public
schools?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, there are a variety of kinds of
school choice but in the charter element, charters are more
segregated than other public schools both predominately Black
and Latino charters in some places but also White charters
which are being used in the way that segregation academies were
once used in some states. So we see that increasing
segregation.
That may also be the case with the tuition vouchers and so
on. I don't think that has been studied as well as the charter
experience.
So choice also exists however within traditional district
run public schools and is typically managed to increase
integration in those cases as in the Hartford case, as in the
work that's going on in San Antonio and elsewhere.
So for choice to--within the public school system to end up
creating an opportunity for integration it has to be managed
and the investments have to be available everywhere.
Congresswoman Fudge made the important comment which you are
reinforcing that equality is not about choice, it's a
requirement for every school. Every school in every
neighborhood has to be worth choosing and that's about
investment in the quality of the education.
And then given our segregated housing patterns, both we
have to address those. There's the delay in the regulations on
the affirmatively addressing fair housing rule as well to worry
about but we need them, the transportation and other mechanisms
that allow kids to get to the schools that allow them to have
the experience that you had.
If I might, could I also address the comment about the
discipline guidance that was made earlier? The, you know, as I
was listening to Mr. Pierre's testimony and that of Ms. White,
it occurred to me that it really demonstrates how important it
is actually to restore the discipline guidance which offered
resources for evidence-based practices to replace suspensions.
You can still suspend students under that guidance as is
needed but what was valuable about it was that it gave schools
a whole variety of ways through restorative practices, through
social emotional learning which have been supported as making
schools safer in many, many studies in reducing the bullying
that Ms. White's child experienced and the kind of disorder
that Mr. Pierre experienced.
And we have evidence about that. There are of course other
schools in New York City, one of which I just did a study on in
Bronx, in the Bronx, Bronx Dale high school which had all of
the characteristics that Mr. Pierre described of being, you
know, very unmanaged at a moment in time but that wasn't
because of the discipline era guidance.
They in fact put in place the restorative practices, the
social emotional learning, the wrap around services that the
Obama era guidance suggested and became a much safer school and
now a higher achieving school. We see this nationwide as that
guidance was in effect.
All across the country, the Federal data show that the
percentage of public schools recording one or more incidents of
violence, theft or crimes was lower in 2015, '16, the most
recent year, than ever before. And we have seen it in
California where we have had a very assertive approach to
reducing unnecessary suspensions and replacing them with
guidance around social emotional learning, anti-bullying
practices, restorative practices and we are now a much safer
State.
We used to be way above the national average in weapons,
fighting, bullying, and now we are way below the national
average as we have replaced a tool that was not very successful
with tools that are much more successful.
When kids are suspended, they often become more badly
behaved when they return because they have gotten behind in
their academics, they're resentful, they're out of sync and
then you get more disruption in the school.
So I just want to make it clear that the evidence is very
strong that you can address these needs in a way that is safer
for kids.
Ms. WILSON. Thank you so much.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Smucker.
Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been listening
carefully to the testimony. I find interesting the discussion
in regards to integration talking about that alongside school
choice options.
I first want to talk about school funding. Dr. Darling-
Hammond, you have mentioned being from Pennsylvania. You
specifically mentioned a situation that I have talked about in
Pennsylvania regards to how we fund our schools and that is
Lower Marion which is a wealthy suburban school. They're
spending about $28,000 per student as compared to the school
district of Philadelphia spending about 14,000 so you are
absolutely correct.
It's about a two to one ratio or at least it was a few
years ago when I was Chair of the education Committee in
Pennsylvania State Senate. We did a lot of work because that is
inequitable and every child should have the opportunity for a
world class education regardless of the zip code that they
happen to have been born in or reside in.
We spent a lot of time with the basic education funding
commission looking at the factors of need that create the need
for additional funding, not less and we ended up with a new
formula distributing the State portion of the dollars based on
needs such as poverty, such as the number of English language
learners and so on and added factors to our funding that
directed more money to those schools rather than less. And
there are some, they are traditionally sometimes are urban
schools that have the highest need.
We have applied that funding to all new dollars going into
the system so it's a change that will take place over a long
period of time but every year in Pennsylvania right now, we are
seeing more equitable funding as a result of a new formula
that's put in place. There are folks including myself who would
like to see that happen faster but it is very difficult to take
funding from one school to another.
And another big problem we have in Pennsylvania is there is
a heavy reliance on local tax dollars and so you have the
ability with the Lower Marion school district, you have that
tax base and you don't as much in Philadelphia. That, you know,
can generate those local dollars that is needed so it is one of
the problems that we are addressing.
We have an actual formula or a criteria within the formula
that allows for that and helps it be more equitable. So I agree
with that. We should ensure that the resources--resources is a
big portion of this issue. We also know that segregation helps
to improve outcomes.
So policies in place that not only provide for the right
resources are important but the policies that ensure that
segregation or the--yes, the segregation is occurring is also
important.
Now, here is where I differ from some of the discussion
that is going on. All of that exists and is not affected by
honest discussions around school choice. And, Ms. White, I have
talked to so many parents like yourself who felt trapped in a
school, much as we are trying to improve and ensure that our
public school system is working effectively for every student,
sometimes additional options, additional choices in that system
can improve everything and I understand there is a funding
component of this that can be talked about but I think it is
important that we have choices available for parents and for
students who today cannot access a great education.
You know, we have schools, charter schools in Philadelphia
area where there are thousands of parents waiting for an
opportunity for their student. And I have spoken to some of
those parents who were just overjoyed when they came out on the
right side of that lottery and had an opportunity for their
kid. So the two are not principles that need to compete with
one another and in fact, when we are talking to parents, its,
they don't really care about the political debate around school
choice.
And speaking of, maybe I'll do it in the form of a
question. In speaking to other parents who made similar
decisions in regards to the decisions that you did around your
son's schooling, I mean, do you think any of them do care about
the political debates surrounding school choice or did they
just want to have options to make the best decision for their
kids?
Ms. WHITE. Parents just want to have the options available.
But they also recognize that if they don't advocate for their
children, then their choice will be nil. So they need to
advocate and they also are looking that they might have
grandchildren coming up who they want to have better educations
so they need to advocate on another level and it will often
mean that we have to get involved politically.
Mr. SMUCKER. Thank you. I see my time has run out.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from Oregon, Ms.
Bonamici.
Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. We know about the Federal role in
education and we know that's equity and on this 65th
anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board of Education
Decision we have to acknowledge that we have not as a country
fulfilled the promise of this landmark case.
We saw of course progress in the 70's and 80's through
strong Federal support to integrate schools, but today we are
seeing the resegregation of schools, a rise in racially and
socioeconomically isolated schools. This is all in that 2016
GAO report, thank you now Chairman Scott, for requesting that.
Now the Obama Administration was taking steps to address school
segregation and forced civil rights protections, but
unfortunately the Trump Administration is showing hostility
towards those efforts seeking to remove the use of disparate
impact regulations. They have rolled back critical guidance
that's protected student's civil rights.
I'm extremely concerned about the proposal for what they're
calling education freedom scholarships which are essentially
vouchers that would exacerbate inequality and drain important
public resources. We must reaffirm our commitment to Brown by
holding the administration accountable and enforcing the civil
rights laws.
I wanted, Dr. Darling-Hammond, to follow up on
Representative to Davis's question. A recent report by Ed Build
found that there is a $23 billion racial funding gap between
school districts serving students of color and school districts
serving predominantly White students. That's a pretty serious
gap and we know that funding is one piece of the challenge
here. And my colleague from Pennsylvania was talking about
changes at the State level.
What are the best ways to address that funding gap and how
would addressing it begin to solve the goals of inequality and
I thank you.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. First of all, I want to say how
pleased I was to hear Congressman Smucker talk about what is
going on in Pennsylvania. I did my dissertation in 1978 on
school finance in Pennsylvania so we have been waiting a long
time and I'm glad that's underway.
I think that only about a dozen states in the country right
now are organizing their financing of schools so that there's
an equal playing field and some consideration of a little bit
more for kids living in higher need situations.
The other states are all--have not yet redesigned their
school finance systems to allow for that. It strikes me that in
the ESSA and in the ESEA over the years, we now ask states to
demonstrate how they're going to make progress in academic
achievement and outcomes for students across districts in
schools. I think we ought to ask them as well as they receive
Federal funding to make progress in equal educational
opportunity also.
Ms. BONAMICI. That's great. And I do want to get in a
couple more questions. I appreciate that. Chancellor Carranza,
you stated in your district that you leverage Federal Title IV
funding under Every Student Succeeds Act. For diversity grant
program, thank you for bringing that up, Dr. Darling-Hammond.
And when Secretary DeVos recently testified before this
Committee I expressed serious concern about the proposed
elimination of Title IV grant funding. Fortunately just
yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee announced it's
included $1.3 billion for this program in this proposed bill
which I will fight to pass into law.
Can you say more about how these funds support integration
efforts in your district and what a reduced Federal investment
in Title IV would mean to this work adding to what Dr. Darling-
Hammond said?
Mr. CARRANZA. Absolutely. So they're critical funds that we
use to support the efforts that are at the ground level. So
District 15 is a great example of that. This is a community
driven, parent-led, parent-voice level. We don't only want to
engage our parents, we want to empower parents. And when you
empower parents with a voice, and then you give them a
mechanism through which they can not only have a process, but
what comes from that process gets funded and gets implemented,
you have now empowered parents to actually be able to advocate
for their children which is what we all want. These funds allow
us to be able to do that, to seed the funding, to have
facilitation, to bring people together, have childcare, have
food for parents that have worked all day. So they really are
what we would call the equity innovation funding in our system.
Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific, thank you. and, Mr. Losen, last
year I wrote to Secretary DeVos opposing the department's
decision to delay the equity and IDEA regulation which aimed to
address widespread disparities between White students and
students of color with disabilities. And I was glad to see that
the district court in the District of Columbia vacated the
department's delay of the rule.
Unfortunately during her testimony before this Committee,
the Secretary refused to commit to implementing the rule. Can
you describe how enforcement of this regulation would encourage
equity in education?
Mr. LOSEN. Yes. So, the regulation requires that every
state look at districts for racial disparities and
identification for kids with special education as well as
placement as well as discipline.
And in fact, the leading reason why states currently
identify their districts is for racial disparities and
discipline. But that rescinding those regulations that they
have since been restored because a Federal court said the
reasoning was arbitrary and capricious. And it was all based on
this fear of quotas that had no there, there.
There is no evidence that they were able to cite to support
that argument and I would point out they raise the same kinds
of fear of quotas as well as the discredited research in
reaching the--in removing the discipline guidance.
Ms. BONAMICI. Okay. I--
Mr. LOSEN. So it's really very disturbing.
Ms. BONAMICI.--see my time has expired. I yield back, thank
you.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. I understand the gentleman from
Virginia wants to go next. Is that because you have a conflict?
Mr. CLINE. It is, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. If you could send my regrets because I
don't think I'm going to be able to make it.
Mr. CLINE. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. CLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
leadership on this issue and I am thankful that as a Committee
we are remembering the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board.
This court case holds significance for me because of the
heroics of a young lady and fellow Virginian named Barbara Rose
Johns. At the age of 16, Ms. Johns led a walk out of Moten High
School, located in Prince Edward County, and she embodies the
leadership and bravery that we should instill in current and
future students.
Her walk out was one of the five cases, the Davis v. County
Board of Prince Edward County that was rolled into Brown v.
Board but it held the distinction of being the only student
initiated case and it's significant because her attorney, one
of her attorneys, Oliver Hill, his childhood home was in
Roanoke in my district.
She is a shining example of the importance of ensuring that
all students have access to a quality education and the very
significance of that fight. And for her contributions and many
others, I will continue to fight to protect opportunities for
all students.
So given that, Ms. White, you talked in your testimony
about the need to be empowered as a parent who is trying to
give the best opportunities to your children. What is the
effect on parents when they feel disempowered and left with no
choices with respect to their children's education?
Ms. WHITE. When one feels disempowered, there, the
motivations to go on sometimes is lacking and so that's why it
is extremely important for parents to feel empowered.
At the school where I work currently, one of the things
that we say is that old adage that children who are loved at
home come to school to learn, and children who aren't come to
school to be loved. And so we are creating environments or need
to create environments for families not only to feel empowered
in their educational choices, but to feel empowered as human
beings so that they treat their families better so that their
children when they come to school are better able to learn.
Mr. CLINE. You mentioned that Brown v. Board was intended
to empower parents. How can we as legislators fight to protect
what others like Barbara Rose Johns have fought for and
continue to expand opportunities for all families?
Ms. WHITE. I'm sorry, I don't want to take away your time
but I need to hear that again.
Mr. CLINE. How can we as legislators help fight to protect
what others like Barbara Rose Johns have fought for and
continue to expand those opportunities for all families?
Ms. WHITE. I have heard several examples of things that
have been working in various forms in order to desegregate
schools and legislators need to know that it hasn't worked
thus--some of the things haven't worked thus far and the only
reason that I mentioned school choice is that it seems to like
be a transition or something to use in the interim until we get
to that ideal place where there, regardless of where a student
goes that they receive that excellent education.
Mr. CLINE. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back
the balance of my time.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentleman from California, Mr.
Takano.
Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Chairman Scott, for this very
important and timely hearing of this landmark case. Brown v.
Board of Education is very important to me as a person of color
and as a former teacher. My goal every day that I was in the
classroom was to prepare my students for success. Immediately
following the Brown decision we saw immediate results in the
shrinking of the achievement gap as integration continued.
Unfortunately, we are getting further away from that goal
because of intentional attacks on civil rights by various
administrations.
Chancellor Carranza, New York City was--is one of the
largest school systems in the country. It is also one of the
most segregated systems and I say that not as a criticism, it
is just a statement of fact and it is reflective of what we are
seeing across the country. So I'm not singling out New York
City.
How do you suggest that we reverse the trend of
resegregation that we are currently seeing in the schools
across the country? Specifically what roles should the Federal
Government take?
Mr. CARRANZA. Thank you, sir. No offense taken. Yes, it is
true so we are taking it on head on. The role of the Federal
Government as I have mentioned in my testimony is we have to
have the guidance in place, the guidance and the rules by which
we are looking at who we serve is critically important. In a
system like New York City where 70 percent of the students are
Black and Latino students, the systems, the structures, the
policies that tend to either uplift students, those particular
students, all students, but the systems policies and protocols
that we have in place that tend to not support those students
we need to look at.
And we know that in admissions policies, we know that in
disciplinary policies, we know that when you have a propensity
to suspend certain types of students disproportionally or to
identify a disproportionate numbers of students for specialized
programs like students with disabilities, et cetera, you have
to look at the protocols and systems that generate those kinds
of results.
The role of the Federal Government is critical in keeping
us accountable, keeping states accountable. This can't be a one
by one effort. It has to be a systemic effort and the role of
the Federal Government is critically important in my opinion.
Mr. TAKANO. Well, we also know that as the Federal
Government has stopped enforcing civil rights, the progress
that was made to shrink the achievement gap stalled. In
California, high achievement gaps still remain between African
American and White students as well as Latino and White
students.
Chancellor, what do you think--do you think it is possible
to make progress on the achievement gap without addressing
school segregation?
Mr. CARRANZA. I think they are inextricably linked because
schools are microcosms of society and students walk through the
threshold of our schools and they bring with them their
experiences that are learned and lived experiences where they
come from so they are inextricably linked.
What we do have in the school system is the ability to
create empowering environments, uplifting environments. So you
can't separate the two.
Mr. TAKANO. What does it mean for children of color who
suffer the repercussions of widening achievement and
opportunity gaps?
Mr. CARRANZA. We are robbing the very future of this
country of future talent. So the implications are literally a
matter of life and death and as the research has shown that
when you exclude a student from an educational environment when
the first option is to kick them out of school, you set them on
a path that many have referred to as a school to prison
pipeline.
Instead of funneling kids into the school to prison
pipeline, why don't we keep students in school and continue to
educate? That's really the genesis of what we are talking
about.
Mr. TAKANO. I recently saw some statistics put forward by
Professor Chetti of Harvard and he--his data would seem to
imply. He uses data and seemed to imply that this was--that
segregation, the segregated neighborhoods also means a
reduction of income mobility. It's not just the school to
prison pipeline but income mobility is also ample. Would you
agree with that?
Mr. CARRANZA. I would.
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Brittain, in your testimony you stated that
housing policy can also play a role in integrating schools. We
noticed high rent prices across this country ultimately forcing
low income students and families into concentrated poverty. We
also see in that concentrated poverty segregated schools. What
can the Federal Government do to reduce discriminatory
practices that consequently lead to segregated schools?
Mr. BRITTAIN. The Federal Government can first reinstate
those new regulations that would affirmatively further
integration in fair housing that was developed coincidentally
related though to the Obama Administration.
It took 50 years from the 1968 Fair Housing Act to 2018 to
pass those regulations.
Housing is the number one cause of racial segregation in
schools. Because most schools are designed to create student
assignment plans base upon neighborhood lines. That's why among
other things, we who seek to pursue greater integration in
quality education move those lines to choice, the kind of
choice that Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond mentioned such as in
magnet schools. And the kind of choice such as I mentioned in
creating voluntary integrated school assignment plans for
quality education and reduced racial isolation. So yes, we must
link housing integration inextricably with educational
integration.
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry I went over, I yield
back.
Chairman SCOTT. From Kansas, Mr. Watkins.
Mr. WATKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to be
here today to remember, recognize, and celebrate the 65th
anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education
decision.
May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court decision ruled legal
segregation unconstitutional on the grounds that separating--
separate educational facilities based on race are anything but
equal.
Mr. Chairman, I am honored today specifically because by
this hearing's own title, we are remembering icons of the civil
rights in the United States who call Topeka, Kansas home, just
as my family and I do.
Linda Brown was just 9 years old in 1950 when her father
Oliver Brown enrolled her into the all-White Sumner Elementary
School which afterwards she was denied access. This bold and
defying action as well as the actions of many others from
around the country are why Linda Brown and her family because
the namesake of a ruling so instrumental to the tearing down of
barriers of state-sanctioned segregation.
In place of repugnant and blatantly immoral segregation
laws, this ruling would seek to usher in a new atmosphere of
opinions, integration in communities of understanding. Linda
Brown's legacy as well as the legacies of those courageous
individuals who joined the Browns, families and students from
Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of
Columbia represent the very best that our Nation has to offer.
It is therefore with great reverence and respect that we should
also remember Linda Brown today, as nearly one year ago on
March 27, 2018, she passed away in my hometown of Topeka,
Kansas. She will be loved, she will be most assuredly missed.
However, her legacy should not be in vain and continuing to
build on her work of equal education options for all is an
honor I'm proud to work towards.
So Ms. White, in your testimony you stated that Brown v.
Board of Education, the decision was meant to empower parents
like Oliver Brown sought to be in 1950 by enrolling Linda into
the Sumner Elementary Schools. Could you elaborate on your
points more please, ma'am?
Ms. WHITE. Certainly. As we think about Brown v. Board of
Education, we--many of us recognize that it is the most
important civil rights issue of this era. And there are various
ways to come to this. I mentioned that there was not a one size
fits all for all jurisdictions, for all districts but
empowering parents to make the choices that they have available
at that time goes a long way to having equality in education.
Mr. WATKINS. Thank you so much and thank you, Mr. Chairman,
I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from North
Carolina, Ms. Adams.
Ms. ADAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
Ranking Member as well for holding this hearing and to the
witnesses for your testimony. Thank you for being here today. I
do want to acknowledge the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board
of Education, not a happy birthday I think but I do want to
acknowledge it and to speak to the frustration that I feel due
to its unfulfilled promise.
Many of you may know I am from Greensboro, North Carolina
and I lived there for a number of years. Taught as a professor
at Bennett College, raised my children there. They all went to
public schools, did quite well.
It's also the home of the Greensboro Four and the Nation's
first sit-ins. I'm a product of that movement and of Brown v.
Board and myself and our Nation I believe are better off for
it.
The problem I see is that policy makers have lost what
Brown v. Board means, it's emphasis on data-driven research,
its recognition that separate can never be equal. Its challenge
to policy makers to ensure that all Americans regardless of
race have equal access to one of our greatest civil rights,
education. A right that W.E. B. Dubois talked about when he
said of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled
and fought for 500 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the
most fundamental.
After the Board v.--the Brown v. the Board of Education of
1954, there was massive resistance to school desegregation in
the South including county base school districts breaking off
from their larger school districts to resist integration.
We currently see this happening across the country
including unfortunately in my own Congressional district in
Charlotte Mecklenburg, a district that were pioneers in school
integration efforts.
Ms. Darling-Hammond, can you describe for us the racial and
the economic impact of school secession?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. I was thinking about that before you
said it because it is occurring in North Carolina and other
places where in a county school district, a little enclave will
seek to secede, usually a small White enclave resegregating the
schools and taking greater wealth which accrues to the property
taxes in that arena with them. So it is a problem both for
economic equality for the quality of schools in that county and
for integration.
Ms. ADAMS. Okay. Yes, I heard the word choice used and I
wonder if you would just comment briefly about that in terms of
Brown v. Board of Education and its intent.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, I think I just made the comment
a few moments ago that reinforced Congresswoman Fudge's point
that quality is not about choice. It's about a requirement for
every single school so the goal has to be that every school is
worth choosing.
That is to say every neighborhood school which is the most
popular choice for parents is invested in a way that the
question is perhaps if you have a different philosophy or
something, you might in New York City among the district run
public schools go to the arts magnet or something like that but
that, there is a good neighborhood school in every
neighborhood, that is the plot promise--
Ms. ADAMS. Right, thank you.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND.--of Brown.
Ms. ADAMS. Let me move on, I'm running out of time. To
Chancellor Carranza, thank you for what you do to address the
issue in our Nation's largest public school system. A major
contributor to racial segregation in public schools has been
decades of White flight. The movement of White families from
urban centers to suburbs where the schools are better.
So can you--can local and State leaders or how can we
overcome this challenge to achieve more racially diverse
schools and can you tell us a little bit about what you are
doing in New York?
Mr. CARRANZA. Thank you, yes. So the issue of parents
wanting a good school, I want to emphasize what Professor
Darling-Hammond has just said about every school in every
neighborhood should be a school worth choosing.
By that we mean there is programing that is not only
supported but desired by the community. We are investing in
that kind of programming in our school system.
In the New York City Department of Education where we have
over 1800 school choices, talk about choice. There is choice
for pretty much anything you want to do. The issue then becomes
how do students and parents know what those choices are? How do
we provide them with the ability to avail themselves of the
choices as they make those particular choices.
For policy makers both at the local, State and Federal
level, it's incredibly important that in the spirit of Brown v.
Board of Education we are tackling the issue of segregation.
And unfortunately there are policies that are promulgated and
lack of guidance that is not put forth that contribute to that
resegregation of schools.
Ms. ADAMS. Right, okay. Well, thank you very much. I'm
about to run out of time so, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentleman from Wisconsin,
Mr. Grothman.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you. Mr. Pierre, thanks for being here.
You got some kind of guts in here, you are mentioning things
that aren't mentioned by some of the other witnesses. And I
will comment on a couple of them here.
In your testimony, you say these problems are aggravated of
course in communities with high rates of family dysfunction.
Could you elaborate on that a little bit?
Mr. PIERRE. If you were to visit predominantly--some
predominately minority communities in New York City, certainly
not all, you would find I think that there is a correlation
between students--there is a correlation between behavioral
problems and broken families.
Someone here I think it was Ms. White who said that if
students who don't have love at home they come to school in a
very bad mood and I think that's likely true.
Mr. GROTHMAN. We have a lot of people, other people here
who are experts. Has anybody--Mr. Pierre thinks that maybe some
of the problems for some of these kids at school are due to the
families they are from, the family structure. Are there any
studies on that to show if that's a big--if that could be a
cause of gap between test scores or graduation or whatever?
Mr. PIERRE. If I can just say many studies have shown for
years that students who come from two parent households do
better with the social of the--agenda of the Democratic Party
forbids them from promoting two parent households.
Mr. GROTHMAN. I know we have a lot of programs out there
kind of discouraging forming a two parent families. Why do you
think with all the people asking questions here that topic
never comes up?
Mr. PIERRE. I have no clue. I'll be 25 in July. I have
spent my entire life wondering why progressives, Democrats,
don't speak more about the dissolution of the Black family.
This is something that has been going on since 1963, it's
something that is now happening in many White families. It just
doesn't make sense to me that you could tell an entire
community that 70 percent of births out of wedlock is
acceptable. It's not.
Mr. GROTHMAN. And you think that can result in the children
then not doing as well in school.
Mr. PIERRE. Absolutely. And I think that as a country we
take, we don't take Black Americans seriously if we allow some
of these cultural problems to persist.
As I said earlier, I mean, someone like Barack Obama went
to a private school in Hawaii. His Black experience is totally
different than mine. My mother gave birth to me just months
after her 18th birthday and she did an okay job but she didn't
always have all the answers.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Well, it is interesting. You have been
in a variety of New York schools, a variety of schools in North
Carolina so you are certainly qualified and I, like I say it is
a mystery to me not only on this topic but other topics why
that's not brought up by people who purport to claim that they
want to solve some problems here.
You say something else. In many cases, students are
influenced by mainstream culture which often encourages
minority youth towards transgressive behavior. Do you want to
elaborate on that a little bit?
Mr. PIERRE. Yes. Henry Gates Lewis Jr., a prominent African
American studies scholar from Harvard University once observed
that at some point in the 60's it became fashionable for
members of the Black and upper class and middle class to aspire
to a more authentic idea of Blackness which in the 60's became
urban, rebellious against the 1960's.
Gates saw how terrible this was for the Black community and
he said, you know, by the 1990's you have Tommy Hilfiger
pushing the thug life and the gangster life. Rap music of
course for years is starting to be a bit more female friendly
but for years it encouraged poor treatment of women, it
encouraged secular values, not going to church, an emphasis on
material things. I mean, yes.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Wow.
Mr. PIERRE. If--
Mr. GROTHMAN. I wonder why these artists are promoted then
in the popular culture like some geniuses who should be
followed around? Can you guess why the popular culture, the
people who decide who is going to be on the cover of the big
magazines keep promoting these people? I mean, is there?
Mr. PIERRE. It's what sells. I don't think they take Black
Americans seriously. It's embarrassing to me when I hear people
say that Black students can only get a good education in a
White school.
It seems to me that Black Americans who have a noble
history in this country should have some role in making our
communities attractive so that people want to come to us.
Mr. GROTHMAN. One more question. I am sorry they only give
me 5 minutes. Just playing around looking at the numbers, it
appears as though the District of Columbia if it were a State,
would have I think the fourth or fifth highest spending per
pupil in the country. Their test scores are the lowest in the
country.
If money is the answer to education, how do you explain the
Washington, D.C. schools? And we will give it to, I don't know,
Dr. Darling?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. It's what happens when Congress tries
to run a school system.
Mr. PIERRE. We agree.
Mr. LOSEN. If I could also respond to your earlier
question?
Mr. GROTHMAN. That is okay, I am out of time.
Chairman SCOTT. Go ahead.
Mr. LOSEN. Yes. So I think it's--we do see a pattern that
racially isolated schools tend to adopt much harsher discipline
policies, including some charter schools that have embraced
this broken windows philosophy that's very--it's racially
oppressive.
We know about it from Ferguson and the problem with that is
it--you're just kicking kids out of school right and left for
all of these minor offenses. And treating kids as if you
believe they are your future criminals.
And there have been charter schools like Achievement First
that have been investigated by OCR and settled and have changed
their policies. They've said themselves that was a misguided
approach.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Losen, you are not talking about what Mr.
Pierre talked about at all.
Mr. LOSEN. So on--
Mr. GROTHMAN. You are trying to change--
Mr. LOSEN. So on dysfunctional families though, there are--
their children will come from who have been exposed to domestic
abuse. We need to take all comers. Schools need to have trauma-
informed responses.
I don't see how it makes any sense if you think that the
problems in the home either because of domestic abuse or kids
who are in dysfunctional homes how is sending more kids home
out of school going to solve that problem?
Mr. PIERRE. I guess my only response to that is that it
starts with a cultural change at the bottom and not just
through institutions and government.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Keep swinging, Mr. Pierre. Thanks.
Chairman SCOTT. Gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Wild.
Ms. WILD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just note that
the testimony of Mr. Pierre at age 25 fails to note that a
better education has been closely correlated to increased
stability in families.
Having said that, I am also from Pennsylvania as was one of
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who asked two
questions. And this is for Professor Brittain.
Ed Build a nonprofit organization that you are undoubtedly
familiar with, focuses on common sense and fairness in the way
states fund public schools. And it has produced a report
finding a $23 billion dollar racial funding gap between school
districts serving students of color and school districts
serving predominantly White students.
In my district is the city of Allentown. It is the third
largest city in Pennsylvania, and it is surrounded by school--
suburban school districts--the Allentown school district is
surrounded by suburban school districts that are predominantly
Caucasian and have a robust property tax base. Allentown, on
the other hand, the fourth largest school district in
Pennsylvania is 71 percent Hispanic, 15 percent Black, 10
percent White. It is currently facing a $28 million dollar
deficit for 2019/20.
It has stated, the school board has stated that it may not
be able to meet payroll. And they have a $60 million charter
school bill and of course rising costs of English language
learning predominantly because of an influx of students from
Puerto Rico following the hurricane and of course special
education.
So with that as the backdrop, I would ask you, Professor
Brittain, if you could describe some of the disparities that we
see between the experiences of students attending schools that
are primarily White compared to the experiences of students
attending school, that are primarily comprised of minority
students.
And if you could in your answer, address the differences in
outcomes for these students after they leave school. Thank you.
Mr. BRITTAIN. Congresswoman Wild, I would say that what you
articulated is the 21st century form of what Brown v. Board of
Education was 65 years ago. Brown dealt with the question of
race and it was primarily White and Black.
Today in the 21st century, we are dealing with concentrated
poverty and class and just as de jure segregation, that is by
law for Whites to attend White schools, non-Whites to attend
non-White schools, today that barrier is the district boundary
line.
And what you described in Allentown and its surrounding
districts is what Connecticut through its supreme court case in
the 1996 Sheff v. O'Neill said was the boundary line between
urban and suburban between some integrated and affluent and
achieving and some poor and some highly racially isolated
school districts and that was the cause of the inequality
education. Therefore that must be the remedy. And that is where
we are today.
Linda, did you have a few more statistics on those
disparities? By the way, I have always said I know where my
legal expertise on educational equality ends and my ignorance
on sound basic educational policy begins. And therefore I've
always surrounded myself in my pursuit for legal equality in
education with intellectual scholars like Linda Darling-
Hammond.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. That's very kind. Just in a word, the
outcomes of that segregated experience are that we know that
children who have been to integrated schools which typically
also do have greater resources have much better graduation
rates, much better achievement and higher wages later in life
and lower poverty rates. So we have a lot of evidence about
that.
My colleague, Dr. Rucker Johnson, just did a book, Children
of the Dream, I recommend it to you and it really lays out that
whole set of--
Ms. WILD. And can we assume that during their in school
experience, that students in these school districts that are
suffering financially and have become de facto segregated are
having fewer elective courses, lower rates of teacher
satisfaction?
I mean, I just mentioned that the city of Allentown may not
be able to meet payroll. One can only imagine how that affects
the ability of teachers to teach.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Cancelled courses, larger class sizes,
greater number of unqualified teachers which gets back to the
D.C. question that was asked earlier. High, high proportions in
D.C. of teachers who are not trained. Same thing in schools
like the ones that you are describing in Pennsylvania.
Ms. WILD. Older text books, fewer field trips.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. All of that.
Ms. WILD. All of those kind of things.
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. And that's been documented over and
over again.
Ms. WILD. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentlelady from Washington, Dr.
Schrier.
Ms. SCHRIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
of our witnesses today. Thank you for coming.
I am a child in the 1970's and it was during my elementary
school years that this great experiment in busing began and so
my elementary school leader became a magnet school in some of
the ways that we talked about all in hopes of integrating our
schools, in giving every child a shot at their best possible
life.
You know, I also saw some of the backlash to this. The so-
called White flight, many of my fellow students left to go to
private schools and so I saw both sides of this.
And one of the reasons that I joined this Committee on
education and labor is that kids don't get to pick their
parents, they don't get to pick the number of parents they
have, they don't get to pick the color of their skin, or their
zip code, or their income level.
And as a pediatrician, I take care of kids from all walks
of life, and we all know that giftedness does not know
economics. Giftedness does not know the color of your skin but
what does make a difference in your ultimate outcome is whether
you can use that giftedness and whether you get the education
that will really launch you into success.
And so I consider it my job here to make sure that every
child gets his or her best chance and early childhood education
is part of that, but integrating our schools is also part of
that, and your testimonies were incredibly compelling in laying
out what a difference that makes and how it lifts all ships.
And so, Chancellor Carranza, I wanted to ask if you could
discuss why school integration is the appropriate strategy but
also what you see as today's modern day barriers to achieving
real school diversity.
Mr. CARRANZA. Thank you. I would also just say I agree with
you that high quality early childhood education is a game
changer in many, many communities. In New York we have
universal pre-K. We've added 3-K. And it's, and we are seeing
how that is changing the game.
You know, it's interesting because many folks that I will
talk to will say I am all about integrating our schools. I want
integrated schools but they stop when it means that their
children go to school with other kids of color. So the
political will that I've talked about is incredibly important.
We can't just say we are for it and yet we won't go to that
diverse school, we won't go to that school in that quote
unquote neighborhood.
So this is critically important. And as we look from an
equity perspective in investing our resources in developing
programs and good options in neighborhood schools, we are
looking at historically underinvested neighborhoods that we're
making those investments in because it is critically important
that local school becomes a hub for that community that is a
good choice in that community.
So they're inextricably linked but they are incredibly,
incredibly tied to the notion that you can't just say you want
to have integrated schools, you have to also make that a
reality.
Ms. SCHRIER. Thank you. I also wanted to ask Dr. Darling-
Hammond about the segregation that we see now based on
economics that some say that segregation persists today because
of individual choice, people choose where to live, people self-
segregate and that people of color will choose not to live or
learn alongside White neighbors. Could you please comment about
this being a so-called choice?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. There is a lot to say about this as
well, but the history of segregation and housing policy is very
extensive. It still goes on today. And in fact we are waiting
still on rules to correct some of the lack of fair housing
building as well as segregation in sales processes of housing
and so on. So I don't think that's a choice. People live where
they can live and then they go to the schools that are
available to them.
And one of the things that will encourage greater
integration within that context in addition to housing policy,
is building and investing in good schools in every neighborhood
so that it will be easy for those people that Chancellor talked
about that to want to go to a school that is going to be a high
quality school perhaps in a neighborhood other than the one
that they live in.
Ms. SCHRIER. And I, it looks like I have just a few seconds
left so I thought I would comment just for a moment about
blaming education on social ills, looking for an excuse to not
integrate classrooms by looking at social ills or the number of
parents in a household.
We all want stable households. We all want parents who
support and love their children. There is no question there.
But what we do know is the kids don't get to pick their
background, and that the best thing that we can do for them is
put them in a school where they can have positive peers,
positive role models, and teachers.
One adult in a child's life who loves them and guides them
is the remedy and that will then parlay them into the future
that they really need to break the cycle.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. The gentlelady from Connecticut,
Ms. Hayes.
Ms. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I would like to thank
all the witnesses for being here today. In my Congressional
office, I have a Norman Rockwell painting hanging and it's the
problems we all live with. We all live with. And it is a
portrait of Ruby Bridges walking to school just six years after
the Brown v. Board of Education decision. I look at this
painting every day to remember why I'm here. I remember that
while this painting depicts something that happened 60 years
ago, it could truly talk about what we are going through today.
Inequity in education still exists.
And we further promote division with comments like keep
swinging in a hearing where we are looking for solutions to the
problems that we all live with.
Today, this Department of Education is openly hostile to
civil rights enforcement and school integration and actively
advancing policy that will continue to push some students
forward while leaving so many behind.
In a hearing before this Committee, Secretary DeVos hailed
school choice as the silver bullet, ignoring the fact that
choice often leads to more disparity, more segregation, more
inequity.
We heard the Secretary speak of the one million students
who are on wait lists for charter and choice schools. I remind
everyone that we have a responsibility to educate 50 million
plus students, not just one million. What happens to the rest
of those kids?
Ms. White, I hear you, and I agree with you. My challenge
is that the opportunities that you speak about for your son
Michael, I want that for all students whether they have a
parent at home or not. So we have to make sure that every
public school works, that every student has access to those
opportunities.
As an educator, as a mother, I always ask myself one
question, a guiding question. Is this the education I would
want for my child? If I couldn't answer yes to that every
single time, then I had to figure out something different to
do. And I would challenge everyone here today to ask yourself
that same question. Is this the education you would want for
your child? Don't worry about my child, for your child.
I challenge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to
ask themselves that question. Because what we are talking about
is pockets of excellence. People talk about one school or one
district or one community or one place where it worked. Is that
what you would want for your child to be educated in all of
those other places?
So my question today is for Mr. Losen. In the final report
of the Federal commission on school safety that was prepared by
Secretary DeVos, it recommended a rescission of the 2014
discipline guidances. In its justification for this
recommendation, the report cited research that seemingly
suggested that there are innate behavioral differences between
White students and students of color.
Can you comment on these claims, the research supporting
them and what it means for the Federal Government to include
them in official documents?
Mr. LOSEN. Yes. I think it's disgraceful that research was
cited. That study was refuted by another very conservative
researcher as I mentioned earlier who did the identical study
with the same database but instead of just looking at whether
students were suspended or not, they looked at how many times
students had been suspended.
Now there were all kinds of other problems with that study
that should have raised red flags but that discredited the--
discredidation of the study happened before it was cited as a
reason to rescind the guidance.
So reliance on that kind of flimsy information is the same
kind of way of decision-making that was determined to be
arbitrary and capricious when they tried to rescind the special
education regulations on racial disproportionality.
Ms. HAYES. Thank you so much. And that's not partisan.
That's just if we all seek to improve outcomes for kids then we
should be finding good information and conducting ourselves
accordingly.
I'm going to jump ahead to Professor Brittain who hails
from my home State of Connecticut where I saw the Sheff v.
O'Neill case play out and I have actually seen the results of
it. What can we learn as a Nation from the lessons of the Sheff
case? I mean, I know we still have some challenges and some
things that we have to do on the ground level, but what can we
learn to move forward so that almost as a model to improve
outcomes?
Mr. BRITTAIN. Good morning.
Ms. HAYES. Good morning.
Mr. BRITTAIN. Member Hayes and former National Teacher of
the Year.
Ms. HAYES. I know a little something about education.
Mr. BRITTAIN. I say that all of the people who have been
involved in the Sheff movement all these many years, many
lawyers, many activists, many educators, certainly many
parents, many students, all of which deserve far more credit
than is given to many, we have learned as Rodney King said,
can't we get along?
We have learned from the beginning that we had a multi-
racial coalition seeking education. Somewhat jokingly, we had
the first San Juan, Puerto Rico school district on the mainland
of the United States. So we had to convince Puerto Ricans that
it was their interest, not only pursue forms of bilingual
education but also integration. We had urban and suburban and
therefore, that is what I have learned in the 60 plus years
since then.
Ms. HAYES. Thank you so much. I am embarrassed that we are
even having this hearing today, that we even have still
continuing this discussion. I am sorry for going over, Mr.
Chair, I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Gentleman from Maryland, Mr.
Trone.
Mr. TRONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier this month I
had the opportunity to ask Secretary DeVos about her
department; was addressing the issues that we are discussing
today.
I was concerned and disappointed when the Secretary dodged
my questions twice about whether she believes racial
segregation poses a threat to the educational opportunities for
children of color.
Dr. Darling-Hammond, I would like to pose the same question
to you. Do you believe racial segregation in public schools
poses a threat to the educational opportunity for children of
color?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, we have a lot of evidence that
it does because segregation by race is typically in this
country now also associated with concentrated poverty and
under-resourcing of schools. So the combination places young
people at risk in ways that are unnecessary since we know what
we could alternatively be doing.
And we have a few States that have made the investments
that are necessary for equitable and paritable parity funding
with the kind of strategies that Professor Brittain just
described with early childhood education and qualified teachers
and you see the achievement gap reduce and achievement for all
students move forward.
Mr. TRONE. The Secretary also responded then that every--
she is concerned about every student no matter where they are,
or where they go to school. How does segregation negatively
impact students of all races?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, we can see in our society the
desperate need for people to be able to work and live together
productively and we are experiencing so many events that show
that the segregation we have experienced is flaring up in adult
life in very sometimes violent and unfortunate ways.
Everyone benefits from being in an integrated setting and
the studies show that not only is there better inter-group
relations but more critical thinking, more problem solving,
more capacity that people develop in the settings.
Mr. TRONE. No question about it. In 2016, GAO found public
schools have actually become more segregated by race in class
anytime since 1960.
Professor Britain, in your opinion what's the biggest
reason behind this persistent racial segregation in education?
Mr. BRITTAIN. As my dear colleague Gary Orfield of the UCLA
civil rights project has traced, it's a combination of the
abandonment of school integration, some of which we heard today
by the executive branch of the Federal Government at times.
Certainly in the abandonment of school integration and
restrictions by the Supreme Court Justices, and further by
various educational executives in the higher level of the
Department of Education.
Further, the segregation in housing is still the number one
cause to the segregation in education and programs such as
housing vouchers and programs to extend opportunities for
advantage in living are all a factor in the continuing
segregation 65 years after Brown v. Board of Education.
Mr. TRONE. Mind boggling. 65 years we are still here. It's
embarrassing. One issue we discussed today is the fact that the
Department of Education is making it harder, not easier for
schools to voluntarily address segregation issues. Chancellor,
what do you see as the potential benefits for New York City
students if the Federal Government were to increase its support
for efforts diversified schools?
Mr. CARRANZA. It would be symbiotic with the efforts that
we are undertaking at a local level to increase the engagement
process, to engage in the development of programming, to engage
in the development of integrated integration plans in our city.
What you need to have an alignment of both Federal, State and
local laws and policies. We are taking care of it locally. We
need to have that continuum at a Federal level as well.
Mr. TRONE. In closing, when I asked Secretary DeVos about
the rescission of diversity guidance, I was shocked to hear she
was not familiar with the guidance that her own Agency had
rescinded. Her own Agency.
Even with the Administration's apparent hostility toward
increasing student diversity, I am hopeful when I see students,
students themselves across the country including those in my
home area of Montgomery County, Maryland, organizing and taking
bold efforts to achieve educational equity.
I hope Secretary DeVos can learn a few things from you
folks on this panel today and thank you for your leadership.
Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. We have a couple other Members
on the way but I'll recognize myself at this time beginning
with Dean Brittain.
Dean Brittain, after the Kentucky and Washington State
cases where the voluntary desegregation plans were thrown out,
how difficult is it to actually voluntarily desegregate the
case and how much of a disappointment was it that the opening--
opened doors expanding opportunities grants which gave
professional technical assistance. How disappointing was the
loss of those grants?
Mr. BRITTAIN. As your fellow Congressman said in
relationship to the Voting Rights Act, as John Lewis said it
was a dagger in the heart of enforcing civil rights. It was a
big, big loss.
The 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools was the
biggest hit on school integration since Brown v. Board of
Education in 1954. Nevertheless, though wounded, it continued.
And when people turned to the Obama Administration,
creation of guidance that it took them two years to create,
from the time of the inauguration until 2011, all the civil
rights communities participated with the government. Parents,
children, civil rights advocates, policy makers.
Chairman SCOTT. The money would have been used for
technical assistance to develop voluntary plans that could
withstand constitutional challenge is that right?
Mr. BRITTAIN. That's correct.
Chairman SCOTT. Now we have heard the charter schools
actually make matters worse in terms of integration, is that
right?
Mr. BRITTAIN. That is correct.
Chairman SCOTT. Now how have freedom of choice cases,
freedom of choice plans faired in litigation over school
integration?
Mr. BRITTAIN. When we go back to the immediate post Brown
era, 1955, '56, '57, it was that freedom of choice that was the
first page of the decision after Brown where the Supreme Court
struck down freedom of choice.
It was freedom in theory but it was not freedom in
practicality because 99 percent of all the Whites stayed at the
White school. Only a few percent of the Black students
transferred from the all Black school to the White school.
So this is a modern day form of freedom of choice to say
that by creating these charter schools and having no guidelines
around where the schools are placed or the relationship to the
student's assignments being taken in the public schools is like
creating a new modern 21st century freedom of choice to
perpetuate segregation in education.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Ms. Darling-Hammond, you had
indicated that one of the reasons that African Americans do
better in integrated schools systems, the schools are actually
better. Have you seen--how often do you see low income schools,
predominantly Black actually funded better than the nearby
White schools?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. That's a very rare occurrence.
Typically in at least 30 states you will see disparities going
the other direction where concentrations of Black and Latino
students in high poverty schools are funded at much lower
levels than other schools around them.
Chairman SCOTT. And what is wrong with dealing with
problems in schools by letting a handful of students go
somewhere else and not dealing with the underlying problems?
What is wrong with that strategy?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Obviously, the obligation is to every
child and, you know, competition if it's a winners and losers
game is not actually dealing with the promise of Brown which is
high quality education for everyone.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. And, Chancellor, you indicated
when you integrated the schools, what happened to achievement?
Mr. CARRANZA. The evidence is achievement raises for all
students.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. And, Mr. Losen, exactly what is
defiance as a violation and why is what happened when you
allowed people to be suspended for defiance and what happened
after the, that policy was abolished?
Mr. LOSEN. One of the problems defiance its really even
broader category. Its disruption or defiance and in California
well, one of the problems is that this allows for a great deal
of perception and subjectivity.
And where we have the kind of vague minor offenses that are
very subjectively determined, we tend to see things like
implicit racial bias play a much larger role in whose behavior
is identified as being problems in the first place, and then
who gets the response of an out of school suspension and there
have been quite a few studies to show that Black students are
actually treated more harshly for the same kinds of offenses.
So when they eliminated that particular policy in Los Angeles,
we saw a dramatic, and that was K-12, we saw a dramatic
reduction in the use of suspension and an increase in days of
instruction for the kids who are no longer suspended obviously,
but an increase in graduation rates as a result.
So this idea that, you know, to have--basically the idea is
you have to close the discipline gap, if you want to close the
achievement gap.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. My time has expired. The
gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Underwood is recognized.
Ms. UNDERWOOD. Thank you Mr. Chairman. 65 years ago the
Brown v. Board of Education decision ruled that segregation in
public education is unconstitutional. But as we know it takes
real work to translate that equality in theory into equity and
practice.
And our responsibility in Congress is to ensure our amazing
teachers and educators have the resources that they need to
fully and equally invest in all of our kids.
When I talked to Keith--when I talk to teachers at home in
Illinois' 14th District, one of their top priorities on this
issue is fixing the underfunding of Title I schools.
So Dr. Darling-Hammond, how could adequately-funding Title
I help advance equity in public education?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, in many ways, that would include
equitably funding by State as well as more adequate funding
within States. And in those high poverty settings, if you can
put the resources as is allowed under Title I into stronger,
more qualified, more continuous teaching force, into better
instructional programs, into the wrap around services and
supports that are needed, you get much better outcomes and we
have a lot of evidence about that.
Ms. UNDERWOOD. Excellent. And so can you talk about some of
the resources that students in these schools would have if
Title I was adequately funded? And could it improve their
access to mental health services or academic counseling in
schools for example?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Yes, I think particularly in schools
that are identified for improvement, all of those uses of the
funds are useful. Title IV also is the place where you can fund
some of those comprehensive services.
And again we have evidence that when you create the wrap
around services with the instructional supports that are
needed, achievement goes up for students pretty much across the
board.
Ms. UNDERWOOD. Thank you. Teachers in Illinois also need
the Federal government to fully fund the Individuals with
Disabilities Educational Act or IDEA. The Illinois Federation
of Teachers estimates that public education for students with
disabilities has been underfunded by $233 billion since 2005.
Dr. Darling-Hammond, how could fully funding IDEA help address
current inequities in public education?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, students with disabilities are
among those who are disproportionately failing in schools and
also disproportionately disciplined and so on so clearly we
need that.
One of the key things is that we have a massive shortage of
special education teachers across the country right now which
means we have people in those classrooms who do not know how to
teach in the extraordinary way that is needed for the students.
So part of that investment should really be to return to
the investments we once made in teacher education, teacher
residency programs, investments in service scholarships and
forgivable loans to get teachers prepared and really ready to
do the work in those classrooms.
Ms. UNDERWOOD. Workforce development remains incredibly
important. Thank you. Public education is so important to our
community. People in our community have consistently voted to
raise their own taxes to fund our public education and because
of the resources that our schools have in Illinois 14th, and
their amazing students, parents, and employees, our public
schools are the pride of our district. I am so proud and
impressed by the efforts that parents and school board members
in our school districts have made to improve diversity and
inclusion and so I want to help ensure that school districts
all across our county have the ability to make those same types
of improvements.
Dr. Darling-Hammond, what are the challenges that educators
face in designing and implementing district-wide plans to
reduce inequity in public education?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. Well, inequities in this country sort
of spiral down from the top. We have inequity in the
distribution of Federal funding, state funding, and sometimes
district funding as well as the provision of quality programs.
So as educators are working to really address those
inequalities, they need access to reasonably small class sizes,
to the materials that they need to teach which many of them
lack and pay for out of their own pocketbooks, as well as to
the opportunity for schools to be equitably available to kids
across their districts.
Ms. UNDERWOOD. And how can we help alleviate those
challenges so that issues of inequity can be addressed broadly
throughout our public education system?
Ms. DARLING-HAMMOND. I think there are three major things.
One is equitable funding both at the State level and the
district level. We have a lot of work to do on that. Another is
investments in early childhood education for all kids so that
they come in without an achievement gap at kindergarten. A
third is investments in the training and equality of teachers
of themselves and this ongoing support for their work so that
they can do their best work in that setting.
When you put those together and you create equitable
systems, I think we will also see the kind of desegregation
that we are talking about here because parents will want to
choose the schools that provide all of these resources.
Ms. UNDERWOOD. Well, thank you for raising those points.
You know, investment is incredibly important as is thoughtful,
intentional leadership at all levels in our education system
from that school board all the way up to the Federal Department
of Education.
I am really grateful and appreciative that our local school
district where I live, District 204 in Illinois has an
administration that has created a parent diversity council to
surface up these kinds of challenges that are happening
locally. If they are willing to make the investment of money,
right, there is still opportunities for improvements. And so
they're furthering those actions but we don't overlook on this
Committee the need for those types of investments and I thank
you for offering your expertise to the Committee today. Thank
you. I yield back.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. Before we close I ask unanimous
consent that a report 2016 GAO report that's been referred to
frequently today entitled The Better Use of Information Could
Help Agencies Identify Disparities and Address Racial
Discrimination.
A 2018 GAO report entitled Discipline Disparities for Black
Students, Boys and Students with Disabilities.
A report, Long Run Impacts of School Desegregation and
School Equality on Adult Attainments by Rucker C. Johnson.
The Federal Role in School--the Federal Role in School
Integration, Brown's Promise and Present Challenges by the
Learning Policy Institute, Dr. Darling-Hammond's organization.
A Bold Agenda for School Integration by the Century Foundation
23 billion by Ed Build. Fractured the Accelerating Breakdown of
Americas School Districts by Ed Build and Lost Instruction to
Disparate Impact of the School Discipline Gap in California the
UCLA Civil Rights Project, Mr. Losen's organization.
At this point, do the Ranking Member have closing
statements?
Mr. ALLEN. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and thank you to
the witnesses for being here today. This is a very serious
topic. It is clear we have a lot of work to do at every level
of educational governance to ensure the promise of Brown is
fulfilled for every child.
I request unanimous consent to submit a letter from
Virginia Walden Ford for the record. Mrs. Ford is a parent
advocate who has spent more than 20 years fighting to empower
parents to pursue educational opportunities for their children.
In her letter, Mrs. Ford writes the same schools that we fought
hard to get into in the 1960's after the Brown v. Board of
Education decision have become the schools we most diligently
find a way to get minority children out of.
Those are her words and I couldn't agree more than any
effort to fulfill the promise of Brown has to include a
commitment to parent empowerment.
I also have two observations to share about some of the
criticism of the Department of Education that we have heard
here today. Accusations have been made that the department is
not enforcing Title VI regulations.
First, the regulations in question are still in effect.
They still have the force of the law. The department is still
committed to enforcing them.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, this department
continues to investigate claims under those regulations
consistent with past practices.
The case processing manual for the Office for Civil Rights
is available online. Here is how that manual describes the
approach that should be taken when statistical disparities
exist.
Generally statistical data alone are not sufficient to
warrant opening an investigation, but can serve to support the
opening of an investigation when presented in conjunction with
other facts and circumstances.
Now let's compare that language with the language from a
version of the case processing manual from the previous
administration.
The February 2016 version of the manual states: generally
statistical data alone are not sufficient to warrant opening an
investigation but can serve to support the opening of an
investigation when presented in conjunction with other facts
and circumstances.
To be clear, the language is identical. As I said, there is
more work to be done. And I am encouraged to hear about efforts
in New York City and around the country to respond to challenge
raised by this hearing.
Committee Republicans welcome any genuine effort by the
majority to engage in bipartisan conversations about how to
address that, these many issues that have been raised today.
and, Mr. Chairman, I submit this letter and ask that you--
Chairman SCOTT. Without objection.
Mr. ALLEN.--present it to the record. I want to again thank
all of you. We are in an unprecedented time. We have the
greatest economy in the world. We have more jobs than we have
people seeking jobs. This is going to be a tremendous challenge
to our educators.
We don't want any American to fall through the cracks.
There is so much opportunity--I tell our young people there is
so much opportunity out there today I wish I had it to do over
again to be honest with you.
But we want to make that available to every American and
education is the way to do that and we need to figure that out.
Thank you so much.
Chairman SCOTT. Thank you. And I thank you for pointing out
the language on disparate impact cases. What is in the language
and what is in actual practice I think is what the actual
practice is what needs to be evaluated.
As my colleague from Virginia noted, Virginia was one of
the four cases decided in Brown and one of the five cases
decided that day. Unfortunately Virginia has a disappointing--
had a disappointing response to Brown v. Board of Education
because as I indicated in my opening remarks, it is doubtful
that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life or
denied the opportunity of an education such an opportunity
where the State is undertaken to provide it is a right which
would remain available to all on equal terms.
Apparently the part of that statement that Virginia noticed
was where the State has undertaken to provide it when ordered
to integrate what they did in Prince Edward County in several
other locations in Virginia was just stop providing education
to anybody. That was equal.
But it's obviously made no sense and for several years,
four years in Prince Edward, at least four years in Prince
Edward County, there is no education at all except for the
private academies. So we have a disappointing history, but I
think we are making progress and we have to still pursue every
avenue we can to make sure that people have that right which
must be made available to all on equal terms.
Today's hearing was long overdue. A conversation about
inequity in education 65 years after the landmark decision we
are still fighting to end racial discrimination and systemic
inequalities that continue to undermine the opportunities for
students of color.
As discussed today, we have a critical role in closing the
achievement gap and we need to make sure as our witnesses have
reminded us, that working to desegregate schools and protect
student civil rights can be difficult and uncomfortable. But
the stakes are too high to ignore.
So the government, Federal Government has a moral and legal
obligation to ensure that all children have access to a quality
public education to reach their full potential. If there is no
further business to come before the Committee, the Committee
stands adjourned.
[Additional submission by Mr. Courtney follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Additional submissions by Chairman Scott follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report
April 2016: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CPRT-
116HPRT43624/CPRT-116HPRT43624
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report
March 2018: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CHRG-
116hhrg43625/CHRG-116hhrg43625
Long-Run Impacts Of School Desegregation and School Quality
On Adult Attainments: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-
114HPRT43626/pdf/CPRT-114HPRT43626.pdf
[Questions submitted for the record and their responses
follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Whereupon at 1:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]