[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





                            
 
                     SCHOOL CHOICE: EXPANDING
                       EDUCATIONAL FREEDOM FOR ALL

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               Before The

    SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY EDUCATION

                                 of the

                COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________



             HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 18, 2023

                               __________

                            Serial No. 118-5

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
  
  
  
  [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 
  
  


        Available via: edworkforce.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov
        
        
        
                         ______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
51-823 PDF          WASHINGTON : 2024       

        
        
                COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE

               VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina, Chairwoman

JOE WILSON, South Carolina           ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, 
GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania             Virginia,
TIM WALBERG, Michigan                  Ranking Member
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            RAUL M. GRIJALVA, Arizona
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York          JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia               GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN,
JIM BANKS, Indiana                     Northern Mariana Islands
JAMES COMER, Kentucky                FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania          SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
BURGESS OWENS, Utah                  MARK TAKANO, California
BOB GOOD, Virginia                   ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina
LISA McCLAIN, Michigan               MARK DeSAULNIER, California
MARY MILLER, Illinois                DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
MICHELLE STEEL, California           PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
RON ESTES, Kansas                    SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana              LUCY McBATH, Georgia
KEVIN KILEY, California              JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
AARON BEAN, Florida                  ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota
ERIC BURLISON, Missouri              HALEY M. STEVENS, Michigan
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, New Mexico
JOHN JAMES, Michigan                 FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER, Oregon          JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York
ERIN HOUCHIN, Indiana

                       Cyrus Artz, Staff Director
              Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff Director
                                 ------                                

  SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

                     AARON BEAN, Florida, Chairman

GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania         SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon,
BURGESS OWENS, Utah                    Ranking Member
LISA McCLAIN, Michigan               RAUL GRIJALVA, Arizona
MARY MILLER, Illinois                GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, 
MICHELLE STEEL, California               Northern Mariana Islands
KEVIN KILEY, California              JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York           FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina        MARK DeSAULNIER, California
                                     DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on April 18, 2023...................................     1

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

    Bean, Hon. Aaron, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, 
      Elementary, and Secondary Education........................     1
        Prepared statement of....................................     2
    Bonamici, Hon. Suzanne, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Early 
      Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.............     3
        Prepared statement of....................................     5

                               WITNESSES

    Davidson, Hon. Warren, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Ohio..............................................     8
        Prepared statement of....................................    10
    Pocan, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of Wisconsin...............................................    11
        Prepared statement of....................................    13
    Smith, Adrian, Former Member of Congress, Nebraska...........    17
        Prepared statement of....................................    18
    Messer, Luke, Former Member of Congress, President, Invest in 
      Education..................................................    20
        Prepared statement of....................................    21
    Black, Derek, Professor of Law and Ernest F. Holdings Chair 
      in Constitutional Law, University of South Carolina........    23
        Prepared statement of....................................    26
    Allen, Denisha, Senior Fellow, American Federation for 
      Children...................................................    33
        Prepared statement of....................................    34
    Burke, Lindsey, Director of the Center for Education Policy, 
      Heritage Foundation........................................    36
        Prepared statement of....................................    38

                         ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS

    Ranking Member Bonamici:
        Letter dated April 18, 2023, from the National Coalition 
          for Public Education...................................    50
        Letter dated April 25, 2023, from the National Parent 
          Teacher Association....................................    74
    Grijalva, Hon. Raul, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of Arizona:
        Statement for the record submitted by Raul M. Grijalva...    76


                        SCHOOL CHOICE: EXPANDING



                      EDUCATIONAL FREEDOM FOR ALL

                        Tuesday, April 18, 2023

                  House of Representatives,
  Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and 
                               Secondary Education,
                 Committee on Education and the Workforce,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., 
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Aaron Bean 
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Bean, Owens, McClain, Miller, 
Kiley, Moran, Williams, Foxx, Good, Bonamici, Sablan, Hayes, 
Bowman, Wilson, DeSaulnier, Norcross, and Scott.
    Staff present: Cyrus Artz, Staff Director; Cate Dillon, 
Director of Operations, Daniel Fuenzalida, Staff Assistant; 
Sheila Havenner, Director of Information Technology, Amy Raaf 
Jones, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Andrew 
Kuzy, Press Assistant; RJ Martin, Professional Staff Member; 
Hannah Matesic, Director of Member Services and Coalitions; Eli 
Mitchell, Legislative Assistant; Brittany Alston, Minority 
Operations Assistant; Nekea Brown, Minority Director of 
Operations; Ilana Brunner, Minority General Counsel; Rashage 
Green, Minority Director of Education Policy; Christian Haines, 
Minority General Counsel; Stephanie Lalle, Minority 
Communications Director; Kota Mizutani, Minority Deputy 
Communications Director; Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff 
Director; Banyon Vassar, Minority IT Administrator.
    Chairman Bean. Ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to 
each and every one of you, and welcome to your nation's 
capital, the U.S. House of Representatives, and specifically 
the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary 
Education.
    The meeting is officially called to order. I am Aaron Bean, 
and I have the honor of chairing today's meeting. I note for 
the record a quorum is present. Without objection, the Chair is 
authorized to call a recess. We are expecting votes, possibly, 
but we are able to call a recess at any time without objection.
    We have got a big meeting, ladies and gentleman, planned 
for you today, because Americans love choice. They love choice, 
whether it is their cars, or their sodas, or their toothpaste. 
I was in Walmart just recently, and I had lost count after 23 
different types of shampoos, because Americans know that one 
size does not fit all, and we want individual choice.
    Well, our kids' education is no different. Kids learn 
differently. They have different needs, and different assets, 
liabilities in their learning journey. COVID, you know COVID 
changed so many things. COVID gave parents a chance because of 
in-home learning, or at-home learning on Zoom. It gave parents 
a chance to see what is happening in the classroom, what is 
going on.
    They realized that sometimes that education--journey for 
home school or public school is not the best for their child. 
That is why education choice is on fire right now in our 
country, and so many states are giving more and more options to 
parents to let them go the best way for their own child.
    Today, this meeting is about education choice, of how we 
can do it, how we can offer it. To do that, what an assembly of 
panels. We just do not have one panel for you, we have got two. 
How about that? We have got two all-star panels that we are 
going to allow to talk about ideas, and how they can give 
choice.
    What can we do as a Federal Government to assist states in 
their mission to educate our kids. Sit back, buckle up. Let me 
give you some good news. Here is some good news too. I am just 
naive enough to think that maybe--I am 17 weeks in as a 
Congressman--I am naive enough to think that maybe this is the 
topic that can bring our body together.
    We will see. We will see where that goes. I have already 
met with Ranking Member Bonamici, who is sitting right to my 
right, and in just a moment I am going to introduce her for her 
opening remarks. Let me tell you where we have already agreed. 
We have spent time together and we have already agreed on this, 
that we are going to have a robust meeting discussion, and if I 
am wrong, or if she is wrong, let us try to win each other over 
with the facts and debate, as we go forward.
    With that, it is going to be a great day, a great meeting. 
I am going to introduce our panelists in just a moment, but 
first, let us go to Ranking Member Bonamici for her opening 
thoughts and comments. Good morning, Ranking Member Bonamici.
    [The statement of Chairman Bean:]

     Statement of Hon. Aaron Bean, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early 
             Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education

    Why is school choice spreading like wildfire? Simply put, parents 
are demanding it. They want the ability to choose where their children 
go to school and provide them with the best education possible. The 
traditional public school system has failed many families, particularly 
those in lower-income communities. School choice programs offer a way 
out of failing schools and provide access to high-quality education 
options that would otherwise be unavailable.
    Specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic showed the shortcomings of our 
public school system and the need for education reform. School closures 
left children trapped in unresponsive, rigid systems and created 
generational learning loss. In my state of Florida, we kept school 
doors open in 2020 despite massive opposition, and Florida students are 
better for it. By keeping our students in school, we avoided the 
catastrophic achievement gap that we are seeing in states across the 
nation.According to The New York Times, nine-year-olds were set back 
two decades in math and reading.\1\ Studies further found that students 
in remote school districts did markedly worse than those in schools 
that re-opened.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/briefing/pandemic-learning-
loss.html.
    \2\ https://glenn.osu.edu/sites/default/files/2021-10/
210828_KL_OST_Final_0.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    To parents, the failure of remote learning was obvious and 
predictable. They did not need The New York Times to confirm what they 
already knew. Now they want options to stop this from happening again. 
Moreover, their children need recovery.
    School choice provides the best possible solution on both fronts. 
It gives parents the option to choose a traditional public, private, 
charter, magnet, or home school for their child. It allows parents to 
take an active role in their child's education and gives them the 
flexibility that they need to ensure their child's success. We need 
look no further than Florida--an early pioneer of education freedom--to 
see how universal school choice successfully gives parents a greater 
role in their child's education and ensures every student has access to 
quality education.
    School choice also creates competition, which will drive up the 
quality of education across the board. Again and again, studies have 
shown that school choice is a boon for academic outcomes and graduation 
rates. Virtually no evidence supports the contrary. To the dismay of 
Democrats and teachers unions, more options even improve outcomes in 
Public schools.
    Furthermore, one of the few silver linings of the pandemic is that 
it brought the classroom to the kitchen table. Parents who had been 
left in the dark by the public-school bureaucracy became first-hand 
witnesses to the divisive curricula being taught in some traditional 
public schools. Story after story has revealed that some schools are 
teaching unconscionable, radical race and gender ideology. School 
choice empowers parents to enroll their children in a system that 
aligns with their values and beliefs.
    Some will say that school choice is a threat to our public schools. 
That is simply not true. School choice is about creating opportunities 
for all students, regardless of their background or income. It is about 
empowering parents to make the best decisions for their children and 
giving them the freedom to choose a school that meets their individual 
needs.
    I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting school choice. Let us 
give parents and students the power to choose the education that works 
best for them. Let us empower our children to reach their full 
potential and build a brighter future for our nation.
    With that, I look forward to the hearing today and yield to the 
ranking member.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Bonamici. Well, thank you so much Chair Bean, and it is 
a pleasure to welcome our witnesses, and our colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle to the first hearing of the subcommittee on 
Early Childhood Elementary and Secondary Education in the 118th 
Congress. Our public education system is a bedrock of our 
democratic republic, and I will note that it is not a 
commodity.
    As noted by the founding fathers, numerous Supreme Court 
Justices, and in many State Constitutions, the provision of 
free, high-quality public education to all children serves a 
compelling community interest. This subcommittee is responsible 
for delivering on that mission.
    Unfortunately, the majority has decided to use our first 
subcommittee hearing of the 118th Congress not to focus on how 
we can strengthen public education, but rather to promote 
school privatization programs disguised as school choice. As a 
result, today, we are discussing programs that divert taxpayers 
dollars from public schools, rather than identifying how we can 
improve public education, so it prepares all students for 
success.
    As a policymaker and a parent, I certainly understand the 
importance of families having a voice in where and how they 
educate their children. My own daughter chose a public arts 
magnet school. My husband and I whole heartedly support her in 
that decision, and I have enthusiastically joined my colleagues 
in supporting funding for evidence-based school choice programs 
that empower parents, improve student outcomes, and increase 
diversity.
    I am pleased to see bipartisan support for increased 
funding for the Federal magnet Schools Assistance Program, 
which funds high-quality, public magnet schools, educating more 
than 3 and a half million students nationwide. Democrats on 
this committee support funding for inter and intra district 
choice programs, which provide families and students with a 
meaningful opportunity to attend a public school that might 
better suit their needs.
    I highlight these choice programs because they are rooted 
in a common goal, the improvement and advancement of a public 
education that benefits all students. Vouchers, tax credit 
scholarships, education savings account, and charter schools 
with little accountability, those types of programs my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are interested in 
discussing are antithetical to this goal for many reasons.
    The history of school voucher programs is engrained in an 
active resistance to integration from white families across the 
south. Between 1954 and 1964, in the decade immediately 
following Brown vs. Board of Education, southern legislatures 
enacted more than 400 laws to undermine or disobey public 
school segregation.
    Many of these laws have the intent to, or effect of 
draining resources from public schools to benefit private 
schools, often called segregation academies. It is important to 
learn from this history because from the mid 1960's to 1980's, 
amid court ordered desegregation throughout the south, private 
school enrollment by mostly white students grew more than 
200,000 students.
    The legacy of these policies is that today public schools, 
particularly those schools that serve students of color and 
students from low-income families, are often left underfunded 
and with fewer resources. My colleagues often claim that school 
privatization programs provide lower-income students with the 
opportunity to leave their public school in search of a better 
education.
    This is patently untrue in many, if not most, cases. Many 
choice programs do not require prior attendance at a public 
school as a prerequisite. Many programs, including the 
unprecedented expansion of vouchers passed in the Chairman's 
home State of Florida this year, do not even have a family 
income cap.
    As a result, taxpayer dollars have been used to provide 
tuition coupons for students who are already in private 
schools, and for wealthy families who do not need them. State 
data in Wisconsin shows that two-thirds of students in the 
Choice Program were already enrolled in private schools before 
receiving the subsidy.
    Similarly, previous reports indicated that half of 
Indiana's voucher program recipients never attended a public 
school before joining the State program. Private school voucher 
programs also lack meaningful accountability requirements, 
leaving taxpayer money vulnerable to significant waste, fraud 
and abuse.
    In Oklahoma, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Florida for example, 
investigations have found millions of taxpayer dollars used by 
voucher schools to hire unqualified teachers, serve non-
existent students, and pay for school administrators' personal 
expenses and items. Florida's recent expansion of its school 
voucher program to all elementary and secondary students, 
regardless of household income, is a brazen demonstration that 
its voucher program is meant to replace traditional public 
schools and eventually dismantle the public education system.
    It is also worth noting that State legislators from rural 
communities are apprehensive, and rightly so, about the utility 
and effectiveness of vouchers for their communities, as we saw 
during the failure of voucher bills in both Texas and Georgia 
this year. Many rural school districts are already underfunded, 
and voucher policies would exacerbate their situation while 
providing no benefit to families who live there.
    I represent many rural communities and in most of them the 
school is the community hub. There is not another school within 
miles. We should not drain funds from them to support a 
meaningless choice. My democratic colleagues and I also have 
serious concerns about the effects of school privatization on 
student's civil rights.
    Once a student enters voucher programs, they are left 
without most, or even all of the civil rights protections and 
academic achievement standards that public schools are required 
to provide. Private schools participating in choice programs 
are not always required to honor students, families, and 
student's civil rights protections such as IEPs and 504 plans 
for students with disabilities and language services for 
students with limited English proficiency.
    Private school students may also be rejected or 
unnecessarily disciplined, or expelled for reasons that would 
not be allowed at a public school, often with few or no avenues 
for recourse. Taxpayer dollars, which have clear State and 
Federal accountability standards, have no place in schools like 
this.
    Contrary to proponents' claims, private school vouchers 
have also not been shown to improve students' education. If 
anything, they may hurt students' academic success. Research in 
states with large private school voucher programs--Louisiana, 
Indiana, and Ohio, shows that students using private school 
vouchers scored significantly lower on academic assessments 
than their public school peers.
    In sum, private school choice programs drain resources from 
public education, can lead to wasteful, and even fraudulent 
spending, deprive students and parents of civil rights 
protections and do not improve student achievement. 
Unfortunately, I am disappointed to see my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle supporting low-quality education 
options, instead of following the evidence and the research.
    Instead, I invite my colleagues to join democrats in 
investing in public education and evidence-based choice 
programs, so every family can send their child to a high-
quality, accountable and safe public school. Thank you again, 
Mr. Chairman, thank you to our witnesses. I look forward to 
working with my colleagues to help every student succeed, and I 
yield back.
    [The statement of Ranking Member Bonamici follows:]

  Statement of Hon. Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 
          Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education

    Thank you so much, Chair Bean. It is a pleasure to welcome our 
witnesses and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to the first 
hearing of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and 
Secondary Education in the 118th Congress.
    Our public education system is a bedrock of our democratic 
republic--and I will note that it is not a commodity. As noted by the 
Founding Fathers, numerous Supreme Court justices, and in many state 
constitutions, the provision of free, high-quality, public education to 
all children serves a compelling community interest. This subcommittee 
is responsible for delivering on that mission.
    Unfortunately, the Majority has decided to use our first 
subcommittee hearing of the 118th Congress not to focus on how we can 
strengthen public education but rather to promote school privatization 
programs disguised as school choice. As a result, today we are 
discussing programs that divert taxpayer dollars from public schools, 
rather than identifying how we can improve public education, so it 
prepares all students for success.
    As a policymaker and a parent, I certainly understand the 
importance of families having a voice in where and how they educate 
their children; my own daughter chose a public arts magnet school. My 
husband and I wholeheartedly supported her in that decision. I have 
enthusiastically joined my colleagues in supporting funding for 
evidence-based school choice programs that empower parents, improve 
student outcomes, and increase diversity. I am pleased to see 
bipartisan support for increased funding for the federal Magnet Schools 
Assistance Program, which funds high-quality public magnet schools 
educating more than 3.5 million students nationwide. Democrats on this 
Committee support funding for inter- and intra-district choice 
programs, which provide families and students with a meaningful 
opportunity to attend a public school that might better suit their 
needs.
    I highlight these choice programs because they are rooted in a 
common goal: the improvement and advancement of a public education that 
benefits all students. Vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, education 
savings accounts, and charter schools with little accountability--those 
types of programs my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are 
interested in discussing--are antithetical to this goal for many 
reasons.
    The history of school voucher programs is engrained in active 
resistance to integration from white families across the South. Between 
1954 and 1964, in the decade immediately following Brown v. Board of 
Education, southern legislatures enacted more than 400 laws to 
undermine or disobey public school segregation. Many of these laws had 
the intent to, or effect of, draining resources from public schools to 
benefit private schools, often called ``segregation academies.'' It is 
important to learn this history because, from the mid-1960s to the 
1980s, amid court-ordered desegregation throughout the South, private 
school enrollment by mostly white students grew by more than 200,000 
students. The legacy of these policies is that, today, public schools--
particularly those schools that serve students of color and students 
from low-income families--are left underfunded and with fewer 
resources.
    My colleagues often claim that school privatization programs 
provide lower income students with the opportunity to leave their 
public school in search of a better education. This is patently untrue 
in many, if not most, cases. Many choice programs do not require prior 
attendance at a public school as a prerequisite, and many programs--
including the unprecedented expansion of vouchers passed in the 
Chairman's home state of Florida this year--do not even have a family 
income cap. As a result, taxpayer dollars have been used to provide 
tuition coupons for students already in private schools and for wealthy 
families who do not need them.
    State data in Wisconsin showed that two-thirds of students in the 
choice program were already enrolled in private schools before 
receiving the subsidy. Similarly, previous reports indicated half of 
Indiana's voucher program recipients never attended a public school 
before joining the state program. Private school voucher programs also 
lack meaningful accountability requirements, leaving taxpayer money 
vulnerable to significant waste, fraud, and abuse.
    In Oklahoma, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Florida, for example, 
investigations have found millions of taxpayer dollars used by voucher 
schools to hire unqualified teachers, serve nonexistent students, and 
pay for school administrators' personal expenses and items.
    Florida's recent expansion of its school voucher program to all 
elementary and secondary students, regardless of household income, is a 
brazen demonstration that its voucher program is meant to replace 
traditional public schools and eventually dismantle the public 
education system.
    It is also worth noting that state legislators from rural 
communities are apprehensive--and rightly so--about the utility and 
effectiveness of vouchers for their communities, as we saw during the 
failure of voucher bills in Texas and Georgia this year. Many rural 
school districts are already underfunded, and voucher policies would 
exacerbate their situation while providing no benefits to the families 
who live there. I represent many rural communities and, in most of 
them, the school is a community hub. There is not another school within 
miles. We should not drain funds from them to support a meaningless 
choice.
    My Democratic colleagues and I also have serious concerns about the 
effects of school privatization on students' civil rights. Once a 
student enters voucher programs, they are left without most or even all 
of the civil rights protections and academic achievement standards that 
public schools are required to provide.
    Private schools participating in choice programs are not always 
required to honor students' and families' civil rights protections, 
such as IEPs and 504 plans for students with disabilities, language 
services for students with limited English proficiency.
    Private school students may also be rejected or unnecessarily 
disciplined or expelled for reasons that would not be allowed at a 
public school, often with few or no avenues for recourse. Taxpayer 
dollars, which have clear state and federal accountability standards, 
have no place in schools like this.
    Contrary to proponents' claims, private school vouchers have also 
not been shown to improve students' education--if anything, they may 
hurt students' academic success. Research in states with large private 
school voucher programs--Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio--shows that students 
using private school vouchers score significantly lower on academic 
assessments than their public-school peers.
    In sum, private school choice programs:
    1) Drain resources from public education;
    2) Lead to wasteful and even fraudulent spending;
    3) Deprive students and parents of civil rights protections; and
    4) Do not improve student achievement.
    So, unfortunately, I am disappointed to see my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle supporting low-quality education options 
instead of following the evidence and research.
    Instead, I invite my colleagues to join Democrats in investing in 
public education and evidence-based choice programs so every family can 
send their child to a high-quality, accountable, and safe public 
school.Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses. 
I look forward to working with my colleagues to help every student 
succeed.
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Bean. Ms. Bonamici, thank you so much for the 
opening comments. It is indeed an exciting time in education 
across America. Pursuant to Committee Rule 8(c), all committee 
members who wish to insert written statements into the record 
may do so by submitting them to the clerk in Word format by 5 
p.m., after 14 days of the date of this hearing, which is May 
3, 2023.
    Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 
14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material 
referenced during the hearing to be submitted for the official 
record.
    You have waited long enough. Let us go to our first all-
star panel. You thought you knew him. You see him in the 
hallways. He is Hon. Warren Davidson. He represents Ohio's 8th 
district, but did you know he graduated from West Point? He 
served our country. Thank you for your service, Congressman 
Davidson, in the Army, after the Army, he earned an MBA from 
Notre Dame, and has done a variety of different things.
    Most importantly, he was instrumental in the debate on the 
historic Bill of Rights Bill that this body passed a week and a 
half, 2 weeks ago, whenever we did, recently. The Bill of 
Rights. He has got an idea on how we can expand choice. We are 
looking forward to hearing from Congressman Davidson.
    Ranking Member Bonamici, you brought a witness today too, 
tell us who it is.
    Ms. Bonamici. Indeed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have with 
us today Congressman Mark Pocan, who represents Wisconsin's 
Second congressional District, a position he has held since 
2013. He is a small business owner, a union member, and a 
lifelong advocate for progressive causes.
    In previous Congresses he served on this committee. I want 
to add here that I miss his voice on the Education and 
Workforce Committee, but we are glad he is back as a witness 
today. He currently serves importantly on the Appropriations 
Committee where he sits on the Labor, Health and Human 
Services, the Education Subcommittee, and the Finance Services 
and General Government Subcommittee. Welcome Representative 
Pocan.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. We welcome 
Congressman Pocan, and finally our third all-star witness of 
our first panel, Adrian Smith as well. So lengthy of all of the 
roles that he has done. Sure, he represents Congress's Nebraska 
Third District, but prior to that he was an educator, a real 
eState agent, and served his hometown as a member of the City 
Council.
    Notably, today he has a bill. He has a bill also, that is 
focused on expanding choice, and letting kids and families 
choose their own path going forward. With that, let us get to 
our all-star panel. Welcome. We know you all are on a tight 
schedule, so what we are going to do is allow each of you to 
speak as long as you want, as long as you stop after 5 minutes.
    With that, let us get to Congressman Davidson. You are on 
the gun, and welcome to the committee. You are recognized my 
friend, we are glad you are here.

STATEMENT OF HON. WARREN DAVIDSON, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, OHIO 8TH 
                            DISTRICT

    Mr. Davidson. Thank you, Chairman Bean, Chairwoman Foxx, 
and the rest of the committee for hosting me on this member 
panel today to talk about empowering parents and expanding 
school choice. I am pleased the committee has decided to take 
this issue up so early in the 118th Congress.
    It was great to be able to support H.R. 5, the Parents Bill 
of Rights, as it passed the House recently, without an 
important amendment, nevertheless. What is the proper Federal 
role for education policy? I think we can all agree that the 
status quo does not fit our various descriptions and 
expectations.
    While I do like Thomas Massie's one sentence bill ending 
the Department of Education, the reality is rather than 
quitting cold turkey, the communities need us to unwind years 
of policies that have made schools dependent on Federal dollars 
at the expense of their own local autonomy, local 
decisionmaking, aligned with the views and values of their 
community.
    The surest remedy to accountability for these dollars is to 
fund students via parents, rather than schools. Courts have 
found that parents have vast authority when it comes to 
deciding how to raise and educate their children, and it is 
exciting to see under republican leadership in the house, that 
Congress is finally discussing policy that reflects this 
reality.
    Parents have the right to determine their children's 
future, and it is up to us to ensure that they have the tools 
they need to make informed decisions that align with their 
values and beliefs. This starts by removing unelected and 
unaccountable Washington bureaucrats from the classroom. People 
here in this town do not need to decide things that parents are 
empowered to decide.
    Unfortunately, millions in taxpayer dollars currently prop 
up failing school systems that generate abysmal student 
outcomes year after year, not to mention they sideline parents 
throughout the entire process. A couple of weeks ago, I offered 
an amendment to H.R. 5 that, if adopted, would have required 
local school districts that receive these Federal dollars to 
hold an open enrollment period for children both inside and 
outside of their school district.
    It left details about how many and what criteria the 
schools could choose, so long as they were not discriminatory 
and were made public. This proposal would have given parents 
the opportunity to pick the highest quality education for their 
child no matter what zip code they live in.
    In 2023, roughly 80,000 students took advantage of open 
enrollment in my home State of Ohio. Participation has steadily 
increased over time, and it is thanks to the abundance of 
school choice options leaders in my State have worked 
tirelessly to provide parents.
    Now they have a lot of work left to do in Ohio, but one of 
the most popular programs, Ed Choice, provides K-12 
scholarships to students who are assigned to underperforming 
schools, as well as to students whose families meet certain 
income designations.
    I think the principle should be that the money follows the 
students without these tests. Ohio continues to expand 
eligibility for their school choice programs in part because 
the results of these early programs have already been 
tremendous, despite outcries from democrats and teacher's 
unions, these programs have empowered parents with options in 
creating competition among schools.
    Every student is different. Programs such as Ed Choice have 
encouraged schools to carefully tend to the needs of parents 
and their children who, if dissatisfied, can vote with their 
feet and move to a more fitting school for them. According to a 
2022 study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute located in Ohio, 
the academic achievement of district students was 
``significantly higher'' than it would have been had districts 
not been exposed to the Ed Choice Program.
    Ohio's families are not the only ones reaping positive 
results of school choice programs, as was highlighted in the 
opening remarks by the Chairman. There has been an explosion of 
school choice legislation introduced in states all around the 
country, and while COVID was horrible, one thing that has been 
positive has been the attention families have given to school 
choice.
    One of the many ways Congress could phaseout the Department 
of Education is to simply consolidate Federal funding we 
appropriate to the Department into block grants, which would be 
awarded to individual states based on how many citizens are in 
each State.
    This is another path, versus the path that I offered in my 
amendment, and perhaps the most fitting in our Constitution as 
a Republic.If we gave these dollars to states, then the states, 
of course, would choose different courses of action, but it 
would certainly get Washington out of it and empower states to 
do things differently.
    There is clearly not a uniform consensus as to which way to 
go, but it would certainly be more fitting for Federal dollars 
to empower a more local form of government. Congress uses block 
grants in Washington for a variety of programs, and I hope that 
we can move closer to a more Constitutional form of government 
in all respects, but certainly with respect to education 
policy, and I yield.
    [The Statement of Mr. Davidson follows:]

             Prepared Statement of the Hon. Warren Davidson

    Thank you, Chairman Bean--and the rest of this committee--for 
hosting me on this member panel today to talk about empowering parents 
and expanding school choice. I am pleased the committee has decided to 
tackle this issue so early in the 118th Congress, and it was great to 
be able to support H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights Act, as it passed 
the House recently.
    What is the proper federal role for education policy? I think we 
can all agree that the status quo does not fit our various 
descriptions.
    While I like Thomas Massie's one sentence bill, the reality is we 
need to unwind years of policies that have made schools dependent on 
federal dollars at the expense of autonomy--local decision making 
aligned with the views and values of the community.
    The surest remedy to accountability is to fund students (via 
parents) rather than schools.
    Courts have found that parents have vast authority when it comes to 
deciding how to raise and educate their children. It is exciting to 
see, under Republican leadership in the House, that Congress is finally 
discussing policy that reflects this reality.
    Parents have the right to determine their child's future, and it is 
up to us to ensure they have the tools they need to make informed 
decisions that align with their values and beliefs.
    This starts by removing unelected and unaccountable Washington 
bureaucrats from the classroom. Unfortunately, millions in taxpayer 
dollars currently prop up failing school systems that generate abysmal 
student outcomes year after year. Not to mention, they sideline parents 
throughout the entire process.
    A couple of weeks ago, I offered an amendment to H.R. 5 that, if 
adopted, would have required local school districts that receive 
federal funding to hold an open enrollment period for children both 
inside and outside the district. It leftdetails about how many and what 
criteria to the schools, so long as they were not discriminatory.
    This proposal would have given parents the opportunity to pick the 
highest quality education for their child, no matter what their zip 
code is.
    In 2023, roughly 80,000 students took advantage of open enrollment 
in my home state of Ohio. Participation has steadily increased over 
time, and it is thanks to the abundance of school choice option leaders 
in my state that have worked tirelessly to provide for parents.
    One of the most popular programs, EdChoice, provides K-12 
scholarships to students who are assigned to underperforming schools, 
as well as to students whose families meet certain income designations.
    Ohio has continued to expand eligibility for their school choice 
programs, in part because the results have been tremendous. Despite 
outcries from Democrats and teachers' unions, these programs have 
empowered parents with options and created competition among schools.
    Every student is different, and programs such as EdChoice have 
encouraged schools to carefully tend to the needs of parents and their 
children, who if dissatisfied, can vote with their feet and go to a 
more fitting school for them.
    According to a 2022 study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who 
has offices in Ohio, the academic achievement of district students was 
``significantly higher'' than it would have been had districts not been 
exposed to the EdChoiceprogram.
    Ohio families are not the only ones reaping the positive results of 
school choice programs. There has been an explosion of school choice 
legislation introduced in states all around the country.
    One of the many ways Congress could phase out the Department of 
Education is to simply consolidate the federal funding we appropriate 
to the Department into a block grant, which can be awarded to 
individual States based on citizens in each state.
    Congress uses block grants in Washington for a variety of programs, 
in no small part, because we want taxpayer dollars to be spent in the 
best way possible. However, the block grants would have to come with no 
strings attached.
    For decades, presidential administrations have used the Department 
of Education to implement ``one-size-fits-all'' policies. They failed 
time and time again by funding schools that have clear track records of 
bad studentoutcomes.
    If we change the status quo and block grant our federal education 
spending, states like Ohio would have the flexibility to spend taxpayer 
dollars in ways that impact their students the most, such as expanding 
their school choice programs.
    Of course, approaches around the country could and would vary, but 
that is how our Constitution is supposed to work. It is only a republic 
if we keep it and education policy is only one example of how we have 
far more government than will fit within our Constitution.
    It is time for our federal government (all of us) to recognize 
this. I look forward to working with Chairwoman Foxx, and the rest of 
my colleagues on this committee to spend taxpayer dollars in a way that 
restores a government small enough to fit within the Constitution. We 
can afford that government financially and morally.
    Thank you, Chairman Bean!
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Bean. Mr. Davidson, thank you very much. We 
appreciate your thoughts. Let us go to Wisconsin. Let us go to 
Wisconsin where Mr. Pocan, you are recognized. Welcome to the 
committee, we are glad to have you here. What say you on 
education?

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK POCAN, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, WISCONSIN 2ND 
                            DISTRICT

    Mr. Pocan. Thank you to the full committee Chair, and thank 
you, Ranking Member. I appreciate the chance to testify before 
you today. The title of today's hearing School Choice, 
Expanding Educational Freedom for all is somewhat ironic 
because the data of these choice programs shows these programs 
drain resources from public schools to fund private and 
religious schools, which are not held to the same educational 
standards, nor are subject to many of the anti-discrimination 
laws that protect LGBTQ Plus students, students with 
disabilities, and students of color.
    I served for 14 years in the Wisconsin State Legislature 
during one of our first in the Nation school voucher 
experiments, and I am glad to share some of the findings. 
Vouchers fund students already attending private schools, not 
low-income kids. Let us be clear, voucher programs 
overwhelmingly subsidize kids who are already in private 
schools.
    In Wisconsin, more than 70 to 80 percent of vouchers go to 
kids already in private school. Wisconsin's program started 
with 511 students in the 2013-2014 school year and now has an 
enrollment of over 17,000 students, and each year the program 
has consistently enrolled more students from private schools 
than from public schools. Cutting their resources to subsidize 
kids attending private schools that their parents can already 
afford is not about education, it is really about tax breaks.
    Second, vouchers do not save taxpayer dollars and drain 
funds for public schools. Additionally, these programs do not 
save taxpayer dollars. The cost of Wisconsin's statewide 
voucher program has grown from just over 3 million in 2013, to 
over 98 million less than a decade later. Wisconsin is 
effectively funding two separate school systems, one public, 
one private out of limited State education funds.
    This puts a heavy financial burden on public schools and on 
taxpayers who have to foot the bill. My republican colleagues 
often talk about their support for rural communities, but 
voucher programs hit rural schools particularly hard and put 
these communities at risk. I live in a rural community of 830 
people myself.
    Rural communities cannot afford to lose their schools 
because of unaccountable voucher programs. Third, vouchers do 
not improve academic achievement. These programs also fail to 
improve academic achievement for students. Studies have shown 
that Milwaukee students using vouchers to attend private 
schools performed no better on standardized tests than their 
public school counterparts, and that the Milwaukee voucher 
program had no effect on students likelihood of graduating 
college. Many voucher schools also shutdown with little 
warning, abruptly forcing students to move to schools, public 
schools, and without returning a dime of public funding.
    One study shows that 41 percent of all private voucher 
schools operating in Milwaukee between 1991 and 2015 failed. 
Research also shows academic outcomes tend to improve for 
students who choose to leave their voucher school for a public 
school.
    Fourth, voucher schools lack accountability and oversight. 
Finally, for my colleagues who love to talk about 
accountability for Federal spending, it is worth noting that 
these school choice programs have zero accountability for 
taxpayers. When Wisconsin first started the voucher program the 
standards were incredibly loose.
    There was a school that used their government funds to 
lease Cadillacs. Another school that received funds was run by 
someone who said he could read a book simply by placing his 
hand on it. While eventually the standards were improved, 
voucher schools are not subject to the same requirements and 
oversight as public schools, meaning there is little to protect 
taxpayers from these types of abuses.
    It is clear that public funds belong in public schools, 
which serve all students regardless of whether they have 
special needs, or their economic situation. The data shows that 
voucher programs lack basic oversight measures, sometimes fund 
discrimination, and fail to improve academic achievement for 
the students that participate.
    Our nation's public schools are already resource starved, 
struggling to fund livable salaries for teachers, basic 
infrastructure upgrades, or manageable classroom sizes. We need 
to invest in them for better results. Thank you for this 
opportunity to speak today, and I yield back.
    [The Statement of Mr. Pocan follows:]
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.001
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.002
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.003
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.004
    
    Chairman Bean. Mr. Pocan, thank you so much. If you are 
just tuning in, we are talking about Americans educational 
choice, where that leads, and what we can do with it. We are on 
part A of two all-star panels. We are going to Nebraska now, 
where Hon. Adrian Smith is standing by. Congressman Smith, you 
are recognized. Welcome to the committee.

  STATEMENT OF HON. ADRIAN SMITH, FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS, 
                     NEBRASKA 3RD DISTRICT

    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Chairman Bean, Chairwoman Foxx, 
Ranking Member Bonamici, Ranking Member Scott, and members of 
the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this 
important topic here in today's hearing.
    There is no question that school choice is having a moment 
nationwide. Data shows parental involvement leads to better 
outcomes for students, and as legislators we have a 
responsibility to encourage more parental involvement in 
education, not less. School choice is one way to do that.
    Parental empowerment is more important than ever before. It 
is incumbent upon us to come together and put forward creative 
solutions to ensure all children can access a quality 
education, no matter their background or where they live. This 
was an issue near and dear to our friend and late colleague, 
Representative Jackie Walorski.
    While I wish Ms. Walorski were here testifying before you 
today, it is an honor to have carried forward her bill 
alongside Representative Burgess Owens, who serves on this 
important subcommittee. Our bill, the Educational Choice for 
Children Act, is an innovative policy mechanism to provide 
deserving students of all backgrounds with more options to fund 
their education needs, something we should all be able to agree 
on.
    It is important, and with emphasis I note this measure 
leaves in place all existing public education resources. Let me 
repeat. This measure leaves in place all existing public 
education resources. The ECCA would create an annual ten-
billion-dollar pool of tax credits, which Treasury would 
allocate to private, non-profit scholarship granting 
organizations, or SGOs in each State, and in D.C.
    These SGOs would receive donations from families and 
businesses, allowing them to provide scholarships to families 
below 300 percent of their state's median income. SGOs would 
then allocate one for one tax credits back to the donors, and 
grant the scholarships to families. In addition to paying 
traditional tuition costs, the scholarships could also be used 
to pay for tutoring, supplies, and other needs for families and 
rural areas where their local district cannot fully meet their 
needs, and where traditional private school options do not 
exist.
    This process is run by private, non-governmental SGOs, 
there is no government involvement in providing these 
scholarships. We do this through the tax code. Once again, we 
are leaving in place all existing funding for education 
budgets.
    You may find this concept familiar because the structure of 
this tax incentive is similar to programs with strong 
bipartisan support like the low-income housing tax credit. The 
ECCA is supported by numerous stakeholders and advocates, and I 
hope today's subcommittee hearing will pave the way for 
additional action on this important legislation.
    Thank you again for having me to discuss this ECCA, and the 
importance of school choice to students and families across 
America. Thank you and I yield back.
    [The Statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

                   Prepared Statement of Adrian Smith

    Thank you, Chairman Bean, Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Bonamici, 
and members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to 
discuss this important topic at today's hearing.
    There is no question that school choice is having a moment 
nationwide. Data shows that parental involvement leads to better 
outcomes for students,\1\ and as legislators we have a responsibility 
to encourage more parental involvement in education, not less. School 
choice is one way to do that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/programs/safe-supportive/parental-
engagement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Parental empowerment is more important than ever before. It is 
incumbent upon us to come together and put forward creative solutions 
to ensure all children can access a quality education, no matter their 
background or where they live.
    This was an issue near and dear to our friend and late colleague, 
Representative Jackie Walorski. While I wish Ms. Walorski were here 
testifying before you today, it is an honor to have carried forward her 
bill alongside Representative Burgess Owens, who serves on this 
important subcommittee.
    Our bill, the Educational Choice for Children Act, is an innovative 
policy mechanism to provide deserving students of all backgrounds with 
more options to fund their education needs, something we should all be 
able to agree on. It is important to note this measure leaves in place 
all existing public education resources.
    The ECCA would create an annual $10 billion pool of tax credits 
which Treasury would allocate to private, non-profit scholarship 
granting organizations, or SGOs, in each state and in DC.
    Those SGOs would receive donations from families and businesses 
allowing them to provide scholarships to families below 300% of their 
state's median income. SGOs would then allocate one-for-one tax credits 
back to the donors and grant the scholarships to families.
    In addition to paying traditional tuition costs, the scholarships 
could also be used to pay for tutoring, supplies, and other needs for 
families in rural areas where their local district cannot fully meet 
their needs and where traditional private school options do not exist.
    Because this process is run by private, non-governmental SGOs, 
there is no governmental involvement in providing these scholarships.
    Because we do this through the tax code, once again we are leaving 
all existing funding for education budgets in place.
    You may find this concept familiar because the structure of this 
tax incentive is similar to programs with strong bipartisan support, 
like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.
    The ECCA is supported by numerous stakeholders and advocates, and I 
hope today's subcommittee hearing will pave the way for additional 
action on this important legislation.
    Thank you again for having me to discuss the ECCA and the 
importance of school choice to students and families everywhere.
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Bean. Thank you, Mr. Smith, Mr. Pocan, thank you 
very much for coming forward. We appreciate, we know you all 
are excused. How about that? You are excused. Members, we are 
going to pause literally for just half a minute, 30 seconds, as 
we excuse our first all-star panel, and then we invite the 
second all-star panel. Thank you very much. Well done.
    Our second all-star panel now making their way to the 
witness table. We are now looking for the witnesses for the 
second all-star panel. We found one, hooray. You are first. You 
get to choose. Your choice. We are back ladies and gentlemen. 
This is the Subcommittee on Early Childhood Elementary and 
Secondary Education.
    We are in the middle of a discussion on education choice in 
America. We have already heard from one all-star panel, and now 
it is time for all-star panel No. 2. We have got four distinct 
distinguished witnesses that we are going to hear from, and we 
are glad to have you here. Welcome.
    For our first witness introduction, let us go to our own 
Mary Miller. You are recognized.
    Mrs. Miller. Thank you so much to all of our witnesses for 
coming today, and I would like to introduce Mr. Luke Messer, 
who is the President of Invest in Education. From 2013 to 2019, 
he served as a U.S. Congressman for Indiana's Sixth 
Congressional District and was a member of this committee.
    He also served as a State legislator in the Indiana House 
of Representatives, and was President and CEO of School Choice, 
Indiana, where he helped pass major school choice legislation, 
and usher in the largest state-based education reform movement 
in the country. Thank you sir for attending.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ms. Miller. Welcome. We 
are glad to have you here. I defer to Ranking Member Bonamici 
to introduce our second witness.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Derek 
W. Black is a professor of law and Director of the 
Constitutional Law Center at the University of South Carolina, 
School of Law. His area of expertise includes educational 
policy, Constitutional law, and civil rights.
    The focus of his current scholarship is the intersection of 
Constitutional law and public education, particularly as it 
pertains to educational equity, equality, and fairness for 
disadvantaged students. His work has been cited by Federal 
courts in various briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court.
    Based on that research, he offers expert witness testimony 
in school funding, voucher and Federal educational policy 
litigation. He holds a JD from the University of North Carolina 
School of Law.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, and welcome Mr. Black. 
Nathaniel Moran, Congressman Moran, you are recognized to 
introduce our third witness.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you, Chair. I am pleased to introduce Dr. 
Lindsey Burke, who is the Director of the Center for Education 
Policy at the Heritage Foundation. She has published 
evaluations of education choice options for public policy 
foundations across the country. If that were not enough, she 
has also done extensive work shaping, and evaluating policies 
on education savings accounts.
    She holds a Ph.D. in education policy from George Mason 
University, where she examined the intersection of education 
choice and institutional theory. We are grateful, ma'am, that 
you have joined us today, and look forward to hearing from you. 
Please welcome Dr. Lindsey Burke.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you, Mr. Moran, and welcome Dr. Burke. 
I have the honor of introducing our fourth witness. It is 
Denisha Allen. She is a Senior Fellow at the American 
Federation for Children, and previously served as school choice 
and youth liaison for the Secretary of Education at the U.S. 
Department of Education.
    She is from the free State of Florida. She is a tax 
scholarship graduate, who had her life changed by being able to 
choose the school that she chose. She has been featured in the 
Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, and Fox News, but 
most importantly, we discovered that we share a passion for the 
Jaguars out of Jacksonville, because that is where you are 
from. We are glad to have you here.
    You have probably got one of the best jobs ever making 
families--just changing lives by helping them navigate their 
way through school choice. With that, panelists, we are glad to 
have you here. There is a 5-minute warning. Your lights will 
light up. Maybe I will give you the signal if you go forward, 
but we are glad to have you here, and just welcome.
    Welcome back to our first witness, Mr. Messer. We drew 
straws, you lost, so you are going first. We are delighted to 
have you here. Welcome back. So Mr. Messer, you are recognized.

   STATEMENT OF HON. LUKE MESSER, FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS, 
                 PRESIDENT, INVEST IN EDUCATION

    Mr. Messer. Thank you, Chairman Bean, Ranking Member 
Bonamici, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to testify here today. It is great to be back in 
this hearing room. As a former member of the Education and 
Workforce Committee, former President of the State school 
choice organization, and former State legislator, I have worked 
for many years to reform K-12 education, with a particular 
emphasis on expanding educational freedom and parental 
empowerment in K-12 education.
    This month marks the 40th anniversary of a nation at risk, 
arguably the most important document assessing the State of K-
12 education ever published by the Federal Government. Forty 
years later and not enough has changed. The truth is we are a 
long way away from having a 21st Century K-12 education model, 
where every student has access to a great education, and 
schools are laser focused on learning and improving academic 
outcomes for students.
    The pandemic exposed a disturbing underlying political 
dynamic that too often places the interests of adults above the 
welfare, both emotionally and academically of students. The 
result was a widespread documented learning loss that will take 
years to recover.
    During the pandemic, with millions of students learning 
from home, America's parents also got a much better look at the 
substance of what is being taught in our Nation's schools. 
Unfortunately, many schools are driving an agenda that has 
little to do with reading, writing, math, science, art, music 
or history.
    Thanks to the leadership of Representative Letlow, 
Chairwoman Foxx, and many other members of this committee, the 
House recently passed a bill, the Parents Bill of Rights, which 
is intended to ensure that parents have a much stronger voice 
in our Nation's schools, but importantly, school choice is the 
engine that makes the Parents Bill of Rights enforceable.
    Parents need the freedom to choose the education 
environment that best meets their child's needs. Parents, 
especially lower income parents, need the power to be able to 
leave government assigned schools that are not working for 
their child. Parents need school choice. The great myth about 
school choice is that it allegedly hurts public schools. 
Decades into this debate, school choice is an experiment no 
longer.
    In America today, there are 3.5 million students in public 
charter schools. There are around 700,000 students benefiting 
from a voucher, tax credit scholarship, or education savings 
account. The public school system is still standing and still 
educating the vast majority of our Nation's students.
    In fact, more than 20 years of research compiled by 
EdChoice, shows that the existence of school choice actually 
improves academic achievement in surrounding public schools. 
School choice is also incredibly popular. In America today, it 
is hard to find a public policy issue on which republican, 
democrat, independent, Latino, African American, and millennial 
voters all agree, yet poll after poll shows 70 to even 90 
percent support for these groups for various forms of school 
choice.
    Congress can heed the call from voters and parents of 
school age children, and pass America's boldest school choice 
bill, H.R. 531, the Educational Choice for Children Act, 
authored by Representative Smith, who did a great job 
describing the bill earlier today, my friend Burgess Owens, and 
then my late colleague from Indiana, Jackie Walorski.
    The ECCA represents federalism and ensures K-12 education 
remains a State and local issue, creates no new mandates, or 
government programs, protects religious liberty, and private 
school autonomy. It does this by creating a ten-billion-dollar 
Federal tax credit that allows individuals and businesses to 
contribute to non-profit scholarship granting organizations and 
the states.
    These SGOs provide scholarships for students to use for a 
variety of educational purposes, such as tuition, tutoring to 
address learning loss, special needs services, school related 
fees, education technology or curriculum materials. That is 
private money, not Federal money, to fund scholarships, while 
donors get 100 percent non-refundable tax credit.
    Once implemented, the ECCA would provide educational 
opportunities for more than a million families throughout the 
country. Imagine how different a policy debate would have been 
throughout the pandemic if one million families could have 
voted with their feet.
    [The Statement of Mr. Messer follows:]

                   Prepared Statement of Luke Messer

    Chairman Bean, Ranking Member Bonamici, and Members of the 
Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. As a 
former member of the Education & Workforce Committee, former president 
of a state school choice organization, and a former state legislator, I 
have worked for many years to reform K-12 education, with a particular 
emphasis on expanding education freedom and parental empowerment in K-
12 education.
    This month marks the 40th anniversary of ``A Nation at Risk'', 
arguably the most important document assessing the state of K-12 
education ever published by the federal government.
    For those who do not recall, ``A Nation at Risk'' was a data-based 
report issued in April of 1983, by the Reagan Administration's National 
Commission on Excellence in Education. The most famous line of the 
report declared that ``the educational foundations of our society are 
presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens 
our very future as a Nation and a people.'' (U.S. Department of 
Education, 1983).
    The report was fashioned as ``an open letter to the American 
people'' and called on elected officials, educators, parents, and 
students to reform a public school system it described as ``in urgent 
need of improvement.''
    Forty years later, not enough has changed. The truth is: we are a 
long way away from having a 21st Century K-12 education model where 
every student has access to a great education, and schools are laser 
focused on learning and improving academic outcomes for students.
    Today, our K-12 ``system'' continues to place the interests and 
agendas of adults above the learning and academic needs of students. We 
are still, for the most part, the same antiquated 19th Century model 
that funds systems instead of students. If we learned anything during 
the pandemic, it is that our K-12 ``system'' remains woefully 
inadequate for the times, inflexible, and incapable of ensuring a 
quality education for every child.
    More alarmingly, the pandemic exposed a disturbing underlying 
political dynamic that, too often, places the interests of adults above 
the welfare, both emotionally and academically, of students. The result 
was a widespread, documented learning loss that will take years to 
recover.
    As Members of the Education Committee, you are fully aware of the 
catastrophic learning loss that occurred because of school closures and 
often unreasonable government mandates during the pandemic. Millions of 
students lost an entire year (or more) of learning. The loss fell 
disproportionally hard on children in low-income families and special 
needs students. The 2022 NAEP scores reinforced what we already knew. 
Fourth grade reading scores were the lowest since 2005. One quarter of 
fourth graders performed at the ``below basic'' level in reading.
    Math scores for the 4th and 8th grades showed the biggest declines 
since NAEP assessments began in 1990.
    During the pandemic, with millions of students learning from home, 
America's parents also got a much better look at the substance of what 
is being taught in our nation's schools.
    Unfortunately, many schools are driving an agenda that has little 
to do with reading, writing, math, science, art, music or history. Many 
parents discovered that their own local public schools no longer 
aligned with or respected their family's values.
    Thanks to the leadership, Rep. Letlow, Chairwoman Foxx, and many 
other Members of this committee, the House recently passed a bill, the 
Parents Bill of Rights, which is intended to ensure that parents have a 
much stronger voice in our nation's schools.
    No doubt, the Parents Bill of Rights will bring more transparency 
into our public school system. Importantly, school choice is the engine 
that makes the Parents Bill of Rights enforceable.
    Parents need the freedom to choose the education environment that 
best meets their child's needs. Parents, especially lower-income 
parents, need the power to be able to leave the government-assigned 
school that is not working for their child. Parents need school choice.
    Parental empowerment through school choice will transform an 
outdated 19th Century education system into a 21st Century model where 
every child has access to a great education, regardless of their 
parents' income, residence, privilege or social status.
    The great myth about school choice is that it allegedly hurts 
public schools. Decades into this debate, school choice is an 
experiment no longer. In America today, there are 3.5 million students 
in public charter schools. There are around 700,000 students 
benefitting from a voucher, tax credit scholarship, or education 
savings account. The public school system is still standing and still 
educating the vast majority of our nation's students. In other words, 
school choice has not hurt public schools. In fact, more than 20 years 
of research compiled by EdChoice shows that the existence of school 
choice actually improves academic achievement in surrounding public 
schools.
    School choice is also incredibly popular. In America today, it is 
hard to find a public policy issue on which Republican, Democrat, 
Independent, Latino, African American, and Millennial voters all agree. 
Poll after poll shows 70% to even 90% support from these groups for 
various forms of school choice.
    We have seen this support playing out in the states. There are now 
31 states, plus Washington, D.C., with a voucher, tax credit 
scholarship, or education savings account program (ESA). Four states 
have even passed universal school choice programs in which every K-12 
student is, or soon will be, eligible to participate. Of course, there 
are still 19 states where parents of school-aged children are denied 
the opportunity to choose the best school for their own children.
    Congress should heed the call from voters and parents of school-
aged children and pass America's boldest school choice bill--H.R. 531, 
the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).
    The ECCA respects federalism and ensures K-12 education remains a 
state and local issue. It creates no new mandates or government 
programs. Instead, the ECCA creates a $10 billion federal tax credit 
that allows individuals and businesses to contribute to non-profit 
scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) in the states. These SGOs 
provide scholarships for students to use for a variety of educational 
purposes such as tuition, tutoring to address learning loss, special 
needs services, school-related fees, education technology, or 
curriculum materials. That is private money, not federal money, to fund 
scholarships, while donors get a 100% non-refundable federal tax 
credit.
    Once implemented, the ECCA would provide educational opportunities 
for more than a million families throughout the country. Imagine how 
different the policy debate would have been throughout the pandemic if 
one million families could have voted with their feet.
    This is important enough to say again; the ECCA contains no 
government mandates or encroachments on SGOs or schools that educate 
scholarship students. It protects religious liberty and private school 
autonomy. It benefits students who live in urban, rural, and suburban 
parts of the country. For states that already offer school choice, the 
ECCA scholarship can be stacked on top of an existing state 
scholarship, voucher, or ESA, thereby increasing the purchasing power 
for parents and allowing more students to benefit, especially during 
the more expensive high school years. The ECCA also creates educational 
opportunity in states that lack education freedom by directly 
empowering parents to choose the school or education service that meets 
their child's needs. It does these things without expanding federal 
government education policy or spending new federal money.
    Giving more parents the freedom to choose the best school or 
education service for their children is where K-12 education must go. 
It is just common sense. There is nothing to fear from directly 
empowering parents. Our view is that it should not just be wealthy or 
politically powerful parents who get to choose the best school for 
their child. All parents should have this right.
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Bean. Mr. Messer, thank you so much. You have not 
lost it. You still stayed under time, so we are glad to have 
you back. Let us go to our second witness, it is Mr. Black. Mr. 
Black, welcome again, and you are recognized and your mic.

   STATEMENT OF DEREK BLACK, PROFESSOR OF LAW AND ERNEST F. 
   HOLLINGS CHAIR IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH 
                            CAROLINA

    Mr. Black. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is my honor to testify 
before the committee. I want to focus my comments on four 
issues in particular, states' Constitutional duty in education, 
the financial impact of vouchers on public education, unequal 
access and discrimination in voucher programs, and student 
achievement.
    First, public financing of vouchers must be situated within 
a larger Constitutional context. The key question is whether 
private school subsidies are permissible under State 
Constitutions. All 50 State Constitutions mandate the provision 
of public education. These mandates are affirmative and 
absolute, and they include qualitative components.
    Both Constitutional language and courts describe these 
obligations as states' paramount, or foremost duty, which is to 
say that no other priorities can come before them. Various 
State Constitutional clauses also directly limit states 
involvements in financing private school education, and reserve 
certain resources exclusively for public schools.
    The purpose of those restrictions is to ensure states 
remain wedded to public education as their top priority, and 
the public funds do not get diverted elsewhere to the detriment 
of public schools. Provisions of these sorts, for instance, 
have required the Florida, Nevada, and South Carolina Supreme 
Courts most recently to strike down voucher programs.
    It is also worth emphasizing that these State 
Constitutional education clauses are a function of the United 
States Constitutional mandate that Congress guarantee a 
republican form of government in the states. Since the Nation's 
founding, the provision of public education has been understood 
as a central pillar of American democracy, and a republican 
form of government.
    This understanding is reflected in one of the Nation's four 
foundational documents--the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which 
actually precedes the United States Constitution, and in the 
terms that Congress has imposed on states as a condition of 
admission into the Union.
    Second, various studies strongly suggest that many, if not 
most, states are failing to meet their Constitutional 
obligations regarding public school funding, and these 
shortfalls tend to increase when states adopt a voucher and 
voucher like programs. One study found that states disinvested 
nearly 600 billion dollars in public schools following the 
Great Recession.
    During the same period, several states exponentially 
expanded their private school choice programs. For instance, a 
2022 report rated Florida's funding level in its public schools 
as an F. It is funding effort as an F, and its distribution of 
funds amongst those schools as a D. At the same time, Florida 
spends roughly 1 billion dollars a year on private school 
tuition.
    Conversely, states with the highest public education 
funding ratings do not typically support voucher programs. It 
is also worth emphasizing that even when public schools lose 
students, many of their costs relating to transportation, 
facilities, utilities, and personnel remain fixed. As a result, 
public schools must provide the same services, but with fewer 
resources.
    Third, private schools participating in these programs do 
not provide equal access to all students. They are exempt from 
various anti-discrimination and Constitutional restrictions, 
and evidence suggests that some of these schools are in fact, 
discriminating against students in admission, as well as 
providing questionable curriculum.
    In addition, states have increasingly changed their 
programs from expanding opportunity for lower income students 
to simply subsidizing private school tuition for all students. 
No matter what, private schools continue to pick and choose 
from student applicants based upon academic credentials, and 
other factors such as behavioral history.
    The net result of publicly financed programs that help to 
sort, segregate, and stratify students into demographic silos. 
These dynamics pose serious challenges for our democracy and 
run contrary to the governmental role in education. If 
government is no longer willing to pursue its democratic goals, 
the rationale for publicly financing education evaporates.
    Fourth, many school choice proponents incorrectly believe 
that private schools, and thus, tuition programs, offer an 
academic advantage over public schools. While the average test 
score and private schools is higher, this is a function of the 
fact that private schools are demographically distinct from 
public schools.
    When comparing apples to apples, public schools slightly 
outperform private schools. Studies more specifically on 
voucher programs show that students enrolling in these programs 
often perform worse than their similarly situated peers in 
public schools.
    Congress and states have never fully achieved their goals 
in public schools. The public education has, as much as any 
aspect of the American story, been a central pillar of 
achieving what Abraham Lincoln called, ``A more perfect 
union.'' Now is not the time to abandon this crucially 
important project, but to redouble our efforts, and recommit to 
its premises.
    Our State Constitutions and national credos do not allow 
for anything less. Thank you.
    [The Statement of Mr. Black:]
   [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 
 

    
    Chairman Bean. Well done, Mr. Black. Thank you very much. 
Our fourth panelist is Ms. Allen. Ms. Allen, welcome again, and 
you are recognized.

   STATEMENT OF MRS. DENISHA ALLEN, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN 
                    FEDERATION FOR CHILDREN

    Mrs. Allen. Thank you so much, Representative Bean, and for 
all the leadership for having me here today. I grew up in 
Jacksonville, Florida, on the east side of Jacksonville. My 
neighborhood sits on the east side of downtown, near the arena 
where the Jaguars play, and it is closed off by Springfield.
    By all accounts, the east side of Jacksonville should be a 
prosperous neighborhood, but the reality is far different. It 
has been the focus of many projects in the city, and statistics 
tell a sad tale. The median household income is half that of 
the citywide average. You can buy and sell drugs easily, crime 
is high, this neighborhood is where I went to school, and I 
failed the third grade twice because I could not read.
    I felt so insecure. I just knew I was stupid. I was 
regularly humiliated by my classmates because I was 2 years 
older than everyone in my class. Teachers sighed when I walked 
through the door. Unsurprisingly, I hated school. To me, school 
was just a place that I had to go out of obligation, so my 
mother would not go to jail because that had actually happened 
before.
    The summer before my sixth-grade year, I started to live 
permanently with my godmother. I thought that I was a failure, 
and it seemed that my life would follow the same path of many 
folks in my family, dropping out, or worse. When I started to 
live with my godmother, one of the first things she wanted to 
do was put me in a great school.
    She found out about the Florida Tech's credit scholarship 
and immediately enrolled me into her church's private school. I 
did not know my life was going to change as much as it did. 
Every day at my new school, the teachers greeted me with a 
smile. I felt so loved and seen.
    Because I did not read on level, teachers met with me one-
on-one to catch me up. They saw the potential that was in me. 
My confidence began to grow. They did not view me as a chore, 
but as a child of God, and as a student that was capable of 
learning. I went from making D's and F's consistently, 
believing that I would be a teen parent, a high school dropout, 
to making A's and B's, graduating from high school, becoming 
the first in my family to do so, undergrad, and earning my 
master's degree.
    I now work full-time to create more opportunities for 
students nationwide. I learned that I was not a failure, but 
the public school system had failed me. Imagine all the 
students who are like I once was, students who are trapped in 
failing, poor performing schools, who do not read on grade 
level, who are destined to drop out, become a teen parent, 
spend the rest of their life behind bars.
    Imagine the students who were sitting in the back of the 
classroom being overlooked, even the students who are gifted, 
who were not being challenged enough, and telling all of those 
beautiful faces that there is a feasible alternative, that 
their liberation is in the form of education freedom, but only 
if their State leaders prioritize their students' needs above 
systems.
    Students in this country deserve a K through 12 option that 
is beyond the singular one the government has assigned to them, 
yet in many states the opportunity for America's students 
remain out of reach. Florida, my home State, is a bright 
exception. Over 100,000 black students in Florida are enrolled 
in their non-district schools.
    For context, that means that there are more black students 
in Florida that are enrolled in choice programs than 30 states 
have black students overall. School choice does not just 
benefit students who have left district schools. As school 
choice has been expanded in the State of Florida. The district 
schools have also seen strong academic gains, both outpacing 
black students nationally, and narrowing the achievement gap 
between white students in Florida.
    The sad reality is that many states will never access this 
lifechanging opportunity unless Congress acts. There are many 
proposals to provide more options to parents, but the Education 
Choice for Children Act would allow education freedom now more 
than ever. School choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats. 
My own life is a reflection of that data, and as someone who 
saw firsthand the power that it has had in my life, I cannot 
wait to see the amazing things that happen across the country.
    I encourage Congress to act swiftly to ensure that no child 
is left behind. Thank you.
    [The Statement of Mrs. Allen follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Denisha Allen

    Good morning. My name is Denisha Allen. Thank you, Representative 
Bean, for your leadership, and to the body for having me.
    I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, mostly on the Eastside. My old 
neighborhood, called the urban core, should by all accounts be 
prosperous. It is just east of downtown, near the arena where the 
Jaguars play, and closed off by historic Springfield. The reality is 
far different.
    It has become the focus of many urban projects in the city, but 
statistics tell a sad tale. The median household income in the ZIP code 
where I grew up is about half the citywide average. You can buy and 
sell drugs easily, and crime is high. This neighborhood is also where I 
went to school.
    I failed third grade--twice--because I could not read. I felt so 
insecure. I just knew I was stupid. I was regularly humiliated by my 
peers because I was two years older than my classmates. Teachers sighed 
when I walked through the door. Unsurprisingly, I hated school.
    To me, school was not the window to opportunity but an obligation. 
I thought school was a place I had to go so my biological mother would 
not go to jail--because that had happened before. In the fourth grade, 
I was enrolled in a check-up program to help me get into my correct 
grade. At the end of the year, I was told I did not pass the program so 
I would not be going to my correct grade. Again, I felt like a failure. 
It seemed that my life path would follow in the same path as many of my 
family members, with dropping out or worse.
    Then, during the summer of my sixth-grade year, my life turned 
around. I went to live with my godmother, and one of the first things 
she wanted to do was to enroll me into a good school--a small private 
school her church had recently opened on the northside of Jacksonville. 
She applied for the Florida tax-credit scholarship. I was awarded one 
of those scholarships.
    I did not know my life was about to change. Every day at my new 
school, my teachers greeted me with a smile. I felt loved and seen.
    Because I did not read on grade level, teachers would meet with me 
one-on-one to help me. They saw potential in me that I never had. My 
confidence grew. They did not view me as a chore but as a child of 
God--as a student capable of learning.
    I went from making Ds and Fs, believing I would become a teen mom 
and a high-school dropout, to making As and Bs, becoming the first in 
my family to graduate from high school, then undergraduate college, and 
grad school--earning a master's degree and going on to work full-time 
in this field to ensure that as many other students as possible get 
this incredible opportunity.
    I was not a failure. The public school system had failed me. 
Imagine all the students today who are like I once was--the ones who 
are trapped in poor-performing schools, who do not read on grade level, 
are destined to drop out of school, become a teen parent, or spend the 
rest of their life behind bars.
    Imagine the students who are sitting in the back of classrooms 
being overlooked. Imagine the students who are gifted but are not being 
challenged because the majority of classroom time is spent on 
discipline and classroom management.
    Imagine telling those beautiful faces that there was a feasible 
alternative, that their liberation came in the form of education 
freedom--but only if their state leaders prioritized students' needs 
above the systems that had failed them.
    Students in this country deserve K-12 education options beyond the 
singular one the government assigns, yet in many states, the 
opportunity for America's students, including its 7.7 million Black 
public school students,\1\ to access these potentially life-changing 
learning options remains out of reach.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ National Center for Education Statistics: Racial/Ethnic 
Enrollment in Public Schools.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Florida, my home state, is a notably bright exception, with more 
than 600,000 Black students, among the highest number compared to other 
states, who are achieving great things thanks to education freedom.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ In 2017-18, Florida had 626,289 Black students in public 
schools, ranking it third among states behind Texas and Georgia. Civil 
Rights Data Collection (ed.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For example, in the 2020-21 school year, 112,662 Black students in 
Florida were enrolled in non-district options that did not exist a 
generation ago, including charter schools, private schools via state-
supported scholarships, and home education using state-funded education 
savings accounts.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Controlling the Narrative: Parental Choice, Black Empowerment & 
Lessons From Florida. (See Figure 1.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For context, Florida now has more Black students enrolled in choice 
options than 30 states have Black students overall, including Arkansas, 
Minnesota, and Massachusetts.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Civil Right Data Collection (ed.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Black students in Florida charter schools outperform their 
counterparts in Florida districtschools, according to state and federal 
test data.\5\ Academic data for Florida's private school choice program 
shows that participants graduated from high school, went to college, 
and earn degrees at significantly higher rates than their peers in 
district schools.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ SAR1920 (fldoe.org).
    \6\ The Effects of the Florida Tax credit Scholarship Program on 
College Enrollment and Graduation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A 2020 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research found 
that as the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program grew, district 
schools improved. School choice does not just benefit students who left 
district schools. As choice expanded, Black students who remain in 
Florida district schools are also making strong academic gains, both 
outpacing Black students nationally and narrowing achievement gaps with 
white students in Florida.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ NDE Core Web (nationsreportcard.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In the 1990s, Florida's graduation rate was 52 percent overall--and 
42 percent for Black students. Now, it is 87 percent overall--and 82 
percent for Black students.\8\ The same trends can be seen in national 
math and reading scores. In the 1990s, Black students in Florida were 
near the bottom relative to Black students in other states. Now in most 
categories, Black students in Florida are near the top.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ Florida's Graduation Rate, 1998-99 to 2017-18 (fldoe.org) The 
graduation rate gap between Black and white students in Florida in 2020 
was 5.1 percentage points.
    \9\ Closing the Racial Achievement Gap: Learning from Florida's 
Reforms | The Heritage Foundation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The sad reality is students in many states will never access this 
type of life-changing opportunity unless Congress acts. There are many 
proposals to provide more options to parents--like the Education Choice 
for Children Act--it would allow parents to have education freedom now 
more than ever. Since Covid, parents have been begging for more options 
and state legislatures have been listening. To date, five states have 
passed bills to provide all their students with education freedom.
    School choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats. My own life is 
reflected in this data. As someone who saw its power firsthand, I 
cannot wait to see the amazing things to come in this new world of 
wide-open options for all. I encourage Congress to act swiftly to 
ensure no child is left to struggle.
    Thank you.
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Bean. Ms. Allen, thank you so much, and thanks for 
coming and sharing your story. We are going to go to Q and A, 
questions from members. Members, everybody has 5 minutes. We 
have 5 minutes ourselves. Here is the list that I have right 
now, and if this is not correct whisper in my ear, but 
questions will go in the order of Bean, Bonamici, McClain, 
Norcross, Moran, Sablan, Williams, Bowman, Miller, Wilson, 
Owens, Estes, Kiley, Scott, and Foxx.
    After we get to hear from Dr. Burke, because Dr. Burke, we 
are not going to forget about you. We are glad to have you 
here, so Dr. Burke let us go and give you 5 minutes too.

  STATEMENT OF DR. LINDSEY BURKE, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR 
             EDUCATION POLICY, HERITAGE FOUNDATION

    Ms. Burke. Thank you. I think I get 6 minutes now. My name 
is Lindsey Burke. I am the Director of the Center for Education 
Policy at the Heritage Foundation. The views that I express in 
this testimony are my own and should not be construed as 
representing any official position of the Heritage Foundation.
    Thank you, Chairman Bean and Ranking Member Bonamici, for 
the opportunity to testify today. Over the past decade, states 
have increasingly adopted private school choice options, such 
as vouchers, tax credits, scholarships, and education savings 
accounts. As of March of this year, 13 states have education 
savings accounts, or ESA's silo accounts, 15 have school 
voucher options, and 21 give families access to tax credit 
scholarships.
    What began as an earnest academic idea proffered by Nobel 
Laureate Economist Milton Freedman in 1955, and his seminal 
essay The Role of Government in Education, has now become 
mainstream public policy, a cornerstone of State efforts to 
restore parental control in education, and improve learning 
outcomes for students.
    The benefits of education choice are numerous, and as 
school choice options expand, these benefits are being 
demonstrated empirically through a growing body of scientific 
research. To date, researchers have conducted 18 randomized 
control trial evaluations of the effect of school choice on 
students' academic achievement.
    RCTs are the gold standard of scientific research, because 
differences in the outcome variable of interest between the 
control group and the experiment groups can be attributed to 
the policy intervention in question as a result of 
randomization, enabling researchers to draw causal conclusions 
to a high degree of certainty.
    Of the 18 RCTs conducted on the academic achievement 
impacts of school choice, 12 find positive effects for some or 
all students, 4 find neutral effects, and 2 find negative 
effects. The bulk of scientifically rigorous evaluations are 
unambiguous about the positive academic effects of school 
choice on students' outcomes.
    In addition to improving academic achievement, access to 
school choice significantly increases students' likelihood of 
graduating from high school and enrolling in college. Of the 
seven experimental evaluations conducted to date on the affect 
of school choice on academic attainment, six find statistically 
significant positive effects for some or all students, and one 
finds no effects.
    No rigorous studies find a negative effect on academic 
attainment. One study is particularly noteworthy. A 
congressionally mandated evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity 
Scholarship Program, a voucher option for children from low-
income families right here in the Nation's capital. 
Participating students were 21 percentage points more likely to 
graduate than the students who did not receive a scholarship in 
the control group.
    You will be hard pressed to find another policy 
intervention as successful as the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship 
Program has been. School choice is important because it is 
providing accountability to families. When an assigned public 
school is poor performing, families and areas with education 
choice now have the ability to hold that public school 
accountable, by taking their child's share of education funding 
elsewhere.
    This is more critical than ever. On the most recent 
administration of the National Assessment of Educational 
Progress, student math scores fell 8 points for eighth graders, 
and reading scores declined 3 points. Experts say this is the 
equivalent of wiping out two decades worth of learning gains. 
Overall, across the country, just 26 percent of eighth graders 
are proficient in math, and just 31 percent are proficient in 
reading.
    Although school choice is primarily a State policy, there 
is a role for Congress to play in advancing education freedom, 
starting with areas over which Congress has ultimate authority. 
It should secure and expand the highly successful D.C. 
Opportunity Scholarship Program, formula funding the program, 
transitioning it from a voucher to an education savings 
account, and making it universally available to all D.C. 
children.
    It should make IDEA and Title I funding portable, following 
families, following children to schools of choice. It should 
provide education savings accounts to Native American children 
who are currently trapped in underperforming Bureau of Indian 
Affairs schools, and it should provide education savings 
accounts to children from active-duty military families.
    Education choice provides a needed course correction 
aligning K-12 education with the rest of the American 
experience, one based on free choice and the accountability to 
consumers created through competition, even in the case of 
publicly funded programs.
    Pell Grant recipients are not assigned to particular 
colleges because they receive a Pell Grant. Food stamp 
recipients are not assigned to the grocery store that is 
closest to their home. In K-12 education, students are assigned 
to a school that is closest to where their parents can afford 
to live, even if that school is a poor fit.
    It is time to break the link between housing and schooling, 
and fund families directly, just as we do in every other aspect 
of American life. Thank you.
    [The Statement of Dr. Burke follows:]
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.012
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.013
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.014
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.015
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.016
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.017
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.018
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.019
    
    Chairman Bean. Well done Dr. Burke. Thank you so much. Mr. 
Messer, thank you for the general nudge to make sure our full 
panel has testified. Now, we are going to Q and A, and I have 
got the list, members, I know there are several different 
committees going at once, so put the clock on Bean, and let us 
get started.
    First of all, Dr. Burke, welcome. There is a group that 
says money--it is all about money, and we need to funnel more 
money to public schools, but you and I talked earlier. That may 
not be the case. There are some states that spend a whole bunch 
more and may not get it. Can you comment on money? Is it all 
about money, Dr. Burke?
    Ms. Burke. It is not about the money at all, and thank you 
for the question, Chairman Bean. You mentioned New York. New 
York City is now spending north of $38,000.00 per student per 
year. If we look across the country, we know that we----
    Chairman Bean. Now, Dr. Burke, if they are spending 
$38,000.00, that is not per student. Is that per student?
    Ms. Burke. That is per student per year.
    Chairman Bean. They are probably far ahead getting the best 
results. Is that right? Spending that much money?
    Ms. Burke. If money mattered. If money mattered that would 
probably be the case. To your point, money does not matter. 
There is no correlation between spending and academic 
achievement, and the research literature that is out there. We 
are now spending nationally over $17,000.00. That is revenue 
per pupil per year, and we can look at the private school 
sector. You can look at the Catholic school sector, in 
particular.
    Catholic schools are spending less than half of what we are 
spending per pupil in the public system, and getting results 
that are far beyond what we see in traditional district schools 
across the country, so money just simply does not matter. It is 
not about how much we spend, it is about who controls those 
dollars. That should be parents.
    Chairman Bean. Is it true--there is argument, and now I say 
this sometimes, and is this correct or not? I mean, we can 
either fund the system or fund the student. Is that clarifying, 
and we get better results in funding the students? Would you 
agree?
    Ms. Burke. As a general rule, we should absolutely move 
toward funding children, not systems. We should fund the 
student. We should not fund a system to which we assign a 
student based on where their family can afford to buy a home. 
That is an inequitable way of funding K-12 education, so we 
should move in that direction certainly.
    This is what states are doing across the country. State 
after State are now recognizing, just as Milton Freedman did, 
that just because we publicly finance education, does not 
require government delivery of schooling, and so that is what 
education choice does. It separates the financing of education 
from the delivery of schooling, and funds families directly, 
enables them to choose learning environments that are safe and 
effective, and reflect their values.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you, Dr. Burke. I want to say that 
money does not mean more money does not automatically mean 
better results, so that is a good takeaway from--if we only 
learned that from this meeting, then we would be further ahead 
had we not known that point.
    Ms. Allen, what a tremendous testimony you have given. I 
think you have the greatest job ever, changing family's lives, 
knowing that they can access, to be part of the million African 
Americans who are attending public school choice in the free 
State of Florida.
    You may know this, there is the KIPP School in the west 
side of Jacksonville that has a fantastic statistic that is a 
gamechanger. The chance of someone attending public schools and 
going to college is less than 5 percent in Jacksonville when 
they attend public schools. If they attend KIPP School that 
number goes to 80 percent.
    What is it like changing lives with a family, giving them 
the hope that they can send their kid to the school of their 
choice. What is that like?
    Mrs. Allen. Yes. It is amazing to put quite frankly. Based 
on my personal experience, not knowing what was going to be 
possible, what potential lives, just follow the same path as 
members in my family.
    Now, working in this space to ensure that students across 
the country are given the access to a high-quality education is 
monumental. During my time in Florida as an advocate, the 
teacher's union sued the Florida program twice. I was filming a 
commercial once to tell the teacher's union to drop the suit. 
During this time, there was a little boy who was fearful that 
he would be ejected from his school, who looked up to me 
crying, saying am I going to have to leave my school?
    That was very disheartening to know that there are forces 
that do not want kids to be in learning environments that are 
meeting their ultimate needs because there are communities of 
schooling that are meeting them.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you. I was there when the step up for 
students did a march on Tallahassee, and it was truly 
empowering. Mr. Messer, welcome back again, and briefly, in all 
of 30 seconds, what do we need to do to continue the march to 
bring educational choice across America? What do we need to do?
    Congressman Messer. The key is parents. You know, you 
mentioned money may not make a difference. What does matter is 
engaged parents, and when you have school choice policies that 
empower parents to help shape the future of their child, you 
get better results.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. That concludes my time. 
Up next will be Bonamici, McClain, Norcross, and Moran. Ranking 
Member Bonamici, you are recognized.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I find it very 
concerning that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
consistently criticize public schools and then highlight what 
they see as their shortcomings, many of which are the product 
of decades of disinvestment, while proposing policies that 
would drain more resources from public schools, and decrease 
their capacity to effectively serve.
    I want to emphasize all students because as we know, the 
voucher schools, and charter schools, they do not all take all 
students, and when you adjust for all of those factors, I think 
it is baffling to say that funding does not matter. It does. I 
am going to ask my question to Professor Black. I appreciate 
your expertise on civil rights.
    Particularly, your scholarship highlighting the benefits of 
equal access to public education. For decades, civil rights 
laws, Title IX, IDEA, ESEA, those have significantly decreased 
discrimination and contributed to the goal of providing all 
students with the opportunity to get a high-quality education. 
How can absolving schools, especially private, religious 
schools, from following civil rights laws affect students and 
families, who may choose a private school as part of a choice 
program?
    Professor, if you can bring the microphone a little closer, 
I think we will have an easier time hearing you.
    Mr. Black. Sure. Yes. Well, I think as one of my colleagues 
once said, the further our children get away from public 
schools the less we can----
    Mrs. Bonamici. Can you continue, but raise that up just a 
little bit. Thank you.
    Mr. Black. I said the further children get away from public 
schools, the less we have the capacity to protect them. You 
know, you mentioned in your opening remarks that ultimately 
Milton Freedman's initial arguments were laid dormant regarding 
private school choice.
    It really was not until the State of Virginia decided that 
it wanted to resist the desegregation of public schools there, 
that there were any takers in the public school sector. African 
American children, at least at that time, chose to stay home 
rather than to participate in a private, segregated system.
    Now, of course a lot has changed since then, but as you 
point out, states consistently refuse to apply anti-
discrimination standards in their private school programs. In 
fact, you know, we have hearings like this, and people insist 
there must be accountability, there must be anti-discrimination 
protections, religion, gender, sex.
    There is almost always a refusal to include those 
provisions in those programs, and so students are left to a 
market that can deal with them, instead of students dealing 
with the market.
    Ms. Bonamici. Right. I want to get to a couple more 
questions Professor Black, and I want to know, I want to ask 
about students with disabilities. I just want to note that I 
think about our role as policymakers. I think about all the 
students who are in the school. Ms. Allen, awesome that you are 
doing well. I think about all the students who are in the 
school you left. Our obligation is to them as well.
    Professor Black, I want to ask you about students with 
disabilities. I know they are participating in school choice 
programs, so where are they going, and what do the schools do 
to meet their needs? The traditional public schools have 
infrastructure. They have specialized personnel, they have 
teachers, they have speech and occupational therapists. They 
have adaptive equipment.
    What happens when students with disabilities go to some of 
these schools, and how would the unenrollment of some students 
with disabilities and the money provided, diminish the services 
to students with disabilities who remain in traditional public 
schools?
    Mr. Black. Well, so two things. No. 1, the IDEA protection, 
which you referenced, does not follow the students there. In 
fact, some states have required students, although it is not 
always transparent, to sort of waive any disability rights they 
may have as a condition of accepting enrollment in a private 
voucher program, so that is No. 1.
    No. 2, when you have fewer special education students 
enrolling in the private system, what you really have is a 
concentration of them in the public system, which again has an 
increased cost in the public system. It is losing students who 
may be easier to educate, or cheaper to educate, but retaining 
the higher cost students.
    Public schools do not object to that, but there is a 
financial consequence to it.
    Ms. Bonamici. They may go back to public school, and then 
not get the funding, as Mr. Pocan pointed out. My third 
question, Professor Black, some people, including some here 
today, have posited that a massive, multi-billion, up to ten-
billion-dollar school choice Federal tax credit, would not 
affect the public school funding, which I find a bit baffling 
because it seems like 10 billion dollars less in revenue that 
could be used for example, for fully funding IDEA. So do you 
agree? Why or why not?
    Mr. Black. Well, as you point out, the Federal Government 
has yet to fully fund the IDEA in the history of the program, 
so any dollars spent elsewhere would be a dollar not spent 
there. I think we take that same point as I always emphasize at 
the State level. Until you discharge a Constitutional 
responsibility of the public education program, I do not 
believe it is appropriate to consider alternatives to that 
program, because there is absolutely an obligation there.
    Ms. Bonamici. Just to clarify, a ten-billion-dollar school 
choice Federal tax credit would reduce Federal revenue by 10 
billion dollars. Is that correct?
    Mr. Black. Look at the State level, any type of tax 
credits, you know, movement of dollars from one system to the 
other, does have the effect of either directly coming out of 
the public education funding program, or indirectly coming out 
of it.
    Ms. Bonamici. Absolutely. Mr. Chairman, I see my time has 
expired, but as I yield back, I request unanimous consent to 
enter into the record a letter from the National Coalition for 
Public Education, encouraging Congress to reject the private 
school vouchers.
    Chairman Bean. Without objection.
    [The letter of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.020
    
    [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T1823.021
    
    Chairman Bean. There has been a line up in our order. 
Owens, Norcross, Moran, Sablan, and Williams. Let us go to Utah 
where Mr. Owens is ready for his time. Congressman, you are 
recognized.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you so much, Dr. Foxx and Chairman Bean 
for holding this important hearing today, and thank you to our 
witnesses for their participation. In particular, I would like 
to thank my colleague Representative Adrian Smith, it has been 
a pleasure to work with him on this Educational Choice for 
Children's Act that we introduced earlier this year in honor of 
our colleague, Jackie Walorski.
    I would also like to thank former Representative Luke 
Messer, who has been a long-time champion of school choice. 
Representative Messer long ago caught the vision of school 
choice, and how transformative educational freedom is for 
families, especially those in low-income and on performing 
school districts.
    Educational freedom is a civil rights issue of our time. 
Educational freedom supports students over systems, and gives 
every child in America, regardless of his or her zip code, the 
opportunity to achieve the American dream. I have seen first-
hand how access to quality education could change the course of 
a child's life.
    Educational freedom can give someone a second chance in 
life, and passion, and will not stop fighting until every 
child, regardless of his or her race, socioeconomic status, 
family situation, or neighborhood has the right to educational 
freedom. A little bit earlier, somebody stated that no public 
rationale should support choice. I am going to disagree 
vehemently on that. This is a civil rights issue. Every child 
has a right for an education.
    Every child has a right for a choice of going to the right 
place. I think it is interesting because as we talk now about 
how 10 billion dollars is--it pulls away from our revenue, I 
mean of all times to talk about using that example. Let me just 
go back. We have Ms. Allen here. That is a great example of 
what could happen with choice.
    Let me tell you about the other kids who have not had a 
choice. 2017, 75 percent of the black boys in the State of 
California could not pass standard reading and writing tests. 
75 percent. No choice. Their parents did not have the chance to 
have this opportunity we are talking about right now.
    Do you want to see the results of that? Look at what is 
going on in the streets of California across the board, and 
every single urban city where these kids have not been taught 
how to read, write, think or dream. 100 percent of the black 
kids here in D.C. in one district, have zero proficiency in 
math.
    Now, it is one thing to commit to public schools. If it is 
a bad school system, why should we put our kids in there? Why 
should you put your kids in there? I would suggest no one in 
this room should approach to keep their kids in a school that 
is failing and say it is okay.
    Some way we would put aside this empathy, and say it is 
okay for other kids, particularly blacks, Hispanics, those who 
cannot defend themselves. There is a result of us allowing this 
system not to have meritocracy put into this process. I want to 
address this real quick, Mr. Messer.
    The Educational Choice for Children's Act, how does this 
impact the resources for public education? I think it is very 
important because this is what unions like to do is put fear in 
people's hearts. How does this impact those educational systems 
already in place right now?
    Congressman Messer. First, Congressman, let us thank you 
for your great leadership on the ECCA. Yes, as you talk through 
this, I think it is important to remember you might be entitled 
to your own argument, but you are not entitled to your own 
facts, right? There are 200 billion dollars in COVID monies 
that are out in schools across America.
    100 billion, forgive me, we are in Washington, 100 billion 
of which have not even been spent. The money that would be used 
for this tax credit, it is not Federal Government money, it is 
the money of the individuals who would decide to give their 
private contributions to private SGOs, and then create better 
opportunities for kids.
    You were describing what is happening across America and 
what happens to the kids that do not get a chance. I once had a 
chance to speak at the Basis Academy here in Washington, DC. 
This extraordinary mathematics academy, math and science 
academy, with kids from every zip code in Washington, DC, with 
graduation rates in the high 90's, 80 plus percent--90 plus 
percent going to college. The first question they asked me was 
Congressman, why do not my friends and neighbors have this same 
chance?
    Mr. Owens. Yes.
    Congressman Messer. Sometimes even my sibling, or cousin 
have this same opportunity. It is immoral in a country like 
ours. No child should be forced to go to a failing or unsafe 
school.
    Mr. Owens. I only have a few seconds here, and I would just 
say this. If you want the voice of those who are not being 
heard, those who say we represent, listen to Ms. Allen please. 
Ms. Allen, do you have any last comments on this topic of 
choice?
    Mrs. Allen. I would just like to reiterate what you said 
that this is a civil rights issue of our time. I look at 
Baltimore, that is not too far from here, where dismal academic 
reports are pretty much every week being highlighted by the 
media. The scholarship program there is $3,000.00, but the 
average per pupil spending is $21,000.00.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you so much and I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Our order is Sablan, 
Moran, Bowman, and Williams. Let us go to Congressman Sablan 
from the Northern Mariana Islands. You are recognized.
    Mr. Sablan. Thank you. Thank you very much sir. Good 
morning to our witnesses. Welcome. I am trying to figure out if 
we want most of our students to aspire to those coming out of 
charter schools, when what we should really do is improve our 
public schools so that they could all, you know, not just the 
few.
    Professor Black, and again, proponents of school choice say 
that it will positively affect all schools and children. Is 
that true, sir?
    Mr. Black. I am sorry. I missed the last couple of words 
there.
    Mr. Sablan. All right. It is said that school choice will 
positively effect all schools and children. Is that true? 
Positively effect?
    Mr. Black. It is hard for me to concede as to how school 
choice would positively effect all schools, given the financial 
impacts of private school choice on public school budgets, and 
particularly given there was discussion earlier as to whether 
money matters.
    The research consensus of decades is, in fact, public 
school funding levels are positively correlated to student 
achievement, and in fact, even those who have questioned it, 
when put on the stand in court, have conceded that of course, 
not all money matters. If we waste money it does not matter, 
but that money spent on things that matter in public schools 
have a very positive impact on student achievement, so I do not 
understand how removing funds from them could have a positive 
effect.
    Mr. Sablan. Again, Professor, our colleagues from the other 
side of the aisle like to frequently point out that the word 
education is not found in the United States Constitution when 
they are trying to justify school choice programs and funding 
private elementary and secondary schools. Can you please speak 
about the history of public education as a founding principle 
of our great nation?
    Mr. Black. That is a long story. I will try to be brief. I 
will at least say that our founding fathers, such as Jefferson 
and Adams, in particular, well Madison and Washington were all 
keenly aware of the problem of an educated citizenry, even 
prior to the United States Constitution.
    The notion was that we had to provide public education to 
have an educated citizenry, so that we could have a republican 
form of government. This sort of concept of a republican form 
of government with public education as its pillar was there 
before the United States Constitution.
    I referenced earlier the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, many 
of the people who voted on that, Continental Congress, which 
proceeded this one, are also the same people who attended the 
United States Constitutional Convention, but that Northwest 
Ordinance of 1787, required that every single square inch of 
land that remained in the United States of America outside of 
the original colonies, would be divided up into squares, right, 
and that each town would have 32 lots.
    The 16th lot in each town would be reserved for public 
schools. The outer lying lots would generate resources for 
those schools. Anyone who has driven from Pennsylvania into 
Ohio, or from Kentucky into Ohio, and they used to carry around 
those little maps will notice something very different.
    The lines between the counties in Ohio and every county 
that goes west are straight. That is because of the Northwest 
Ordinance and the standards that it sets for territories to 
become states in the United States of America. After the Civil 
War, Congress never admitted another State to this union 
without requiring them to mandate public education in their 
State Constitution.
    Yes, it is the role of states to provide public education, 
but that is a function of the overall Constitutional structure 
of a republican form of government in the United States of 
America.
    Mr. Sablan. Thank you very much, sir. Thanks for coming. 
Chairman I yield.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us go to New York, 
where Representative Williams is standing by. You are 
recognized.
    Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My wife and I both 
attended public high schools, and she performed much better 
than I did. She was valedictorian, and I will not comment 
further. In our choice in our family, we actually decided to 
home school our children. We actually did that across I think 
five or six different jurisdictions, including different 
states, always having to interpret the rules, and to comply 
with the rules.
    That required a lot of effort, and again I salute my 
fantastic wife for the success of our children through that 
process, and their ongoing success as adults. In my district 
just in the last month I have visited two fantastic schools. 
The first is the Fremont Elementary School, part of East 
Syracuse Minoa School District.
    It is a public school. It is extremely well-run and well 
organized. It has tremendous outcomes, it has great leadership, 
and most of all it has great teachers. Dr. DeSiato, who runs 
that school district, is truly exceptional in her work. I 
commend her.
    In the poorest parts, or adjacent or near the poorest parts 
of Syracuse, there is another school, it is called the Syracuse 
Science Academies of New York. It is a charter school, run by 
Dr. Tolga Hayali, and also has spectacular success. I truly 
enjoyed getting to read my favorite books to a second-grade 
class there and answer questions about life on submarines.
    Just in my district, we have two fantastic examples of both 
public schools, and charter schools, and yet also in my 
district we have some of the poorest schools, and some of the 
least, worst performing schools. I find that unfair. Mrs. Allen 
you are the star of the show. Thank you for being here.
    With all respects to the others, but your personal story is 
truly inspiring. In your area of Jacksonville, where were the 
best public schools that you were aware of in Jacksonville?
    Mrs. Allen. Unfortunately, there are still no schools of 
choice on the east side of Jacksonville where I grew up, and 
the schools that were underperforming when I went are still 
underperforming.
    Mr. Williams. Which were the best performing in the greater 
Jacksonville area, what were the best?
    Mrs. Allen. It would have been on the more affluent side of 
the city, on the south side, in the San Marco, downtown area 
private schools were probably the best pick for families.
    Mr. Williams. It seems like a simple solution. Why did not 
your family simply move into the wealthy neighborhoods?
    Mrs. Allen. We could not afford it.
    Mr. Williams. Perhaps attend the private schools?
    Mrs. Allen. Yep. We could not afford it. We do have a 
system of choice in this country, to your point, and it is 
based on zip code. If you can afford to buy a house in a 
wealthy community, you have school choice. Unfortunately, 
parents do not have that opportunity. Lower income parents, 
even lower middle-class parents do not have the opportunity to 
pay for a house in a great district.
    Mr. Williams. Approximately how many miles would you say it 
is between the east side of your neighborhood and some of these 
south side schools that were high performing? Approximately how 
many miles would you say?
    Mrs. Allen. I would say about five miles from Jacksonville 
to a great school, which is just right across the river.
    Mr. Williams. Your opportunity to attend a school of your 
choice, did it require that you move?
    Mrs. Allen. No, it did not. Actually, I was able to go to a 
private school on scholarship, and drive to that school. We did 
not have to move from the neighborhood, yes.
    Mr. Williams. You were able to stay in your neighborhood, 
and because of the choice, you were able to markedly change 
your education opportunities?
    Mrs. Allen. That is right.
    Mr. Williams. Okay. Well, I think that is a wonderful 
story, and it seems like the easiest solution to overcome 
geography and a lot of the discrepancy that we see in our 
public school system, so thank you for sharing your testimony.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us stay in New York 
where Mr. Bowman is standing by and ready for his 5 minutes. He 
is recognized.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to 
the witnesses for being here. I want to start by saying that I 
went to public schools my entire life, and I received an 
excellent education in my public schools, and now I am sitting 
here as a Member of Congress after beating a 31-year incumbent 
in 2020, without taking any corporate backed money, so that is 
pretty impressive, I would say.
    I just wanted to add that for the record. Dr. Burke, you 
mentioned a New York City school spent how much per student?
    Ms. Burke. It just came out, $38,000.00. North of 
$38,000.00.
    Mr. Bowman. $38,000.00 and that is based on what year's 
data?
    Ms. Burke. Most recent available data.
    Mr. Bowman. Which year?
    Ms. Burke. 2021-2022.
    Mr. Bowman. 2021-2022, correct. This is the same time where 
New York State received American Rescue Plan money?
    Ms. Burke. Yes.
    Mr. Bowman. The same time where New York State received 
CARES Act money, as the first time that New York State has been 
funded by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a lawsuit that they 
won 20 years ago that finally is going to be fully funded. So 
this $38,000.00 is the most money ever invested in New York 
State schools. Is that correct?
    Ms. Burke. Correct.
    Mr. Bowman. That is correct. Okay. Prior to this influx of 
money, New York State was not spending $38,000.00 per student.
    Ms. Burke. Correct.
    Mr. Bowman. Do you know how much they were spending?
    Ms. Burke. They were still spending among the most, if not 
the most.
    Mr. Bowman. Do you know how much?
    Ms. Burke. It was north of $30,000.00.
    Mr. Bowman. North of $30,000.00. Okay.
    Ms. Burke. Yes. I do not have an exact figure. I can get it 
for you.
    Mr. Bowman. Okay. Let us say $30,000.00 for argument's 
sake. Let me explain student funding and student spending to 
those in the room who may not understand how it works. It is 
not $38,000.00 for every single child in the school system. 
When you have a school system that has a disproportionate 
number of children with special needs, and a disproportionate 
number of English language learners, the school system receives 
additional funding for those students. Is that correct, Dr. 
Burke?
    Ms. Burke. That is correct.
    Mr. Bowman. That is correct. Because New York City has a 
disproportionate number of children with special needs, and a 
disproportionate number of English language learners, New York 
City receives additional funding. When I was a school 
principal, I had 250 students. If I had $38,000.00 per student, 
my budget would have been 8 million. It was never anywhere near 
that, because I did not have a large number of children with 
special needs.
    In addition, this money is not per student in terms of we 
are giving students the money. This money is spent on teachers, 
staff, books, and different things like that. If you are a 
child with special needs, or a child that is an English 
language learner, you need additional resources to make sure 
you are meeting your academic needs.
    Now Dr. Burke, is it true that charter schools by and 
large, take and receive less children with special needs than 
public schools?
    Ms. Burke. No. In fact, if you look at not only charters, 
but private school choice programs, private school choice 
programs in particular, are the fastest growing private school 
choice programs, are for those kids with special needs.
    Mr. Bowman. Are you familiar with Success Academy in New 
York City?
    Ms. Burke. Yes.
    Mr. Bowman. The Success Academy takes the same percentage 
of special ed students that public schools take.
    Ms. Burke. I would have to look.
    Mr. Bowman. Okay.
    Ms. Burke. I do not know.
    Mr. Bowman. They do not. I could tell you that. They do 
not.
    Ms. Burke. I cannot tell you if they do or do not.
    Mr. Bowman. Well I am saying for the record, and anyone can 
look this up, Success Academy does not take the same percentage 
of children with special needs as New York City public schools. 
I have a few other questions. Mr. Messer, how are you doing? Do 
you support teachers' unions? Yes, or no?
    Congressman Messer. Teachers' unions have never supported 
me.
    Mr. Bowman. Do you support teachers' unions, yes or no?
    Congressman Messer. Teachers' unions have never supported 
me.
    Mr. Bowman. Okay. Is that a no? Yes, or no? Do you support 
teachers' unions?
    Congressman Messer. I do not have a yes or no answer to 
that.
    Mr. Bowman. I am sorry?
    Congressman Messer. I do not have a yes or no answer to 
that.
    Mr. Bowman. Okay. Dr. Burke, do you support teachers' 
unions?
    Ms. Burke. No.
    Mr. Bowman. No. Mr. Black. Do you support teachers' unions?
    Mr. Black. I have no objection to them, but I do not donate 
any money to them.
    Mr. Bowman. Yes, or no?
    Mr. Black. I support their mission, but I do not support 
them in any individual capacity.
    Mr. Bowman. Ms. Allen, do you support teachers' unions?
    Mrs. Allen. No.
    Mr. Bowman. No, you do not. Okay. So we have three of the 
four people who have identified themselves as people who do not 
support teachers' unions. It feels to me that this support of 
voucher programs to move students out of public schools into 
private, and/or charter schools, is a direct attack on the 
public-school institution and infrastructure, and specifically 
on teachers' unions, as three of the four witnesses we have do 
not support teachers' unions.
    Let me ask another quick question starting with Mr. Messer. 
Do you support the U.S. Department of Education, and do you 
think it should be dissolved?
    Congressman Messer. When I was----
    Mr. Bowman. Dr. Burke, do you support the Department of 
Education U.S.?
    Ms. Burke. No. Dissolve.
    Mr. Bowman. Okay. Ms. Allen, do you support the U.S. 
Department of Education?
    Ms. Allen. I worked at the U.S. Department of Education for 
2 years, so.
    Mr. Bowman. Yes, you do?
    Ms. Allen. I worked at the U.S. Department of Education for 
2 years.
    Mr. Bowman. No, you do not? It is a yes or no? Do you 
support it or not?
    Mrs. Allen. I would rather not answer that.
    Mr. Bowman. Okay. All right. Thank you. My time is up. I 
yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Mr. Bowman. Let us go 
to Michigan, where Representative McClain is standing by, she 
is ready to go. Representative McClain, you are recognized.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you. Let us, just out of curiosity, 
stay with that same thing. I would like an answer from all of 
you. Do you support students?
    Congressman Messer. Yes. I do support students.
    Mrs. McClain. You do. Wonderful.
    Congressman Messer. I think it is crazy to say that 
supporting students somehow makes you anti-teacher's union, or 
Department of Education.
    Mrs. McClain. Let us understand. Unions are great, right? 
Teachers' unions are just that. They support the teachers. I 
thought we were doing the hearing on students, so you support 
the students?
    Congressman Messer. Yes.
    Mrs. McClain. How about you? Do you support students?
    Ms. Burke. Yes ma'am.
    Mrs. McClain. Next?
    Mr. Black. Yes, I do.
    Mrs. McClain. Wonderful. How about you ma'am?
    Mrs. Allen. Of course.
    Mrs. McClain. Okay. Just so we are all clear. We are all 
here about the students, right? The goal today is about the 
student, just checking. Okay. All right. In my home State of 
Michigan, and across the country, families have suffered 
through prolonged school closings, and lockdowns during COVID-
19 pandemic.
    It is what it is, right? Most students fell behind in math 
and reading, and we actually have data, facts, right to support 
that, and due to the force, remote instruction. I mean, I think 
the teachers did the best they could with the situation at 
hand. Dr. Burke, can you talk more about how school of choice 
actually helped families during the pandemic?
    I think what the pandemic showed is that people learn in 
different ways, right? We should not go, and we should not just 
have this one size fits all because last I checked we are here 
about the student, right? Do you think school of choice helped 
parents get their kids back in school sooner?
    Do you think in person instruction would help these 
students close the learning gap created by the pandemic? Can 
you just talk a little bit about that from the eyes of the most 
important, and that is the student?
    Ms. Burke. Yes. Thank you, Congresswoman, for reorienting 
us to the student question at hand today because it is all 
about students, and we do not want students trapped in 
unaccountable public schools. If we look at Catholic schools, 
in particular, during the pandemic, you are absolutely right. 
Private schools were much more likely to reopen much quicker 
than the district schools, largely because teachers' unions 
kept those district schools closed.
    If we look at Catholic schools, they opened much quicker, 
as soon as they knew it was safe to reopen, when the science 
showed that it was safe to reopen schools. The result has been 
pretty phenomenal. There was a piece by Kathleen Porter McGee 
in the Wall Street Journal recently, and she found that if all 
Catholic schools, all 1.6 million children in Catholic schools 
were a State, they would outperform every other State on the 
math and reading.
    Low-income kids in particular, minority students in 
Catholic schools gained 10 points in reading over the course of 
the pandemic, when students across the country actually lost 3 
points in reading, and 8 points in math. I mean this is a 
phenomenal story to tell about how Catholic schools thrived.
    Mrs. McClain. Well, Dr. Burke, let us not let the facts get 
in the way of a good story over here. Mr. Messer, in your 
testimony you mentioned the overwhelming support that school of 
choice has among parents. In Michigan, we provide zero, no 
public support for parents to choose private educational 
options.
    The State is increasingly out of step with the other states 
that do help parents access private schooling options. Policies 
that have a clear record of success, again facts. Can you talk 
more about what the polls tell us about support for school of 
choice across the country in my last minute remaining?
    Congressman Messer. Yes. I mean overwhelmingly, we live in 
America today where we agree on almost nothing, but we all 
agree on school choice. Poll after poll, 90 percent, 80 
percent, 70 percent of Americans support school choice, 
support--here are three simple concepts. One, no child in 
America should be forced to go to a failing or unsafe school.
    Every parent should be able to move their child if their 
kid is in that kind of school. 80 percent support across 
America. It is not fair that only wealthy parents get to choose 
where their child goes to school. 80 percent support all across 
America. Schools should focus on the basics, not pushing the 
political agenda.
    Parents should have a right to send their child to a 
different school if they think their school has gotten too 
political. 80 percent across America, including by the way, 80 
percent of African American parents, who support that same 
point of view. If this was about what the American people want, 
we would have universal school choice everywhere already.
    Mrs. McClain. Imagine what we can do if we put the child 
first. We would leave politics at the home, and again, just 
really put the children first, and we focus on facts. Amazing 
what would happen if we had some accountability in some 
measurements, so with that I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us go to 
Connecticut, where Representative Hayes is standing by for her 
5 minutes. Representative Hayes, you are recognized.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. I am sitting here feverishly taking 
notes, because I would like to recenter some of the comments 
that have been made in this committee. As an educator, I know 
for certain that predictable and sustained investments in our 
public schools do in fact lead to better student outcomes.
    What we are talking about here today is decades of 
disinvestment. I agree that it is not fair that only wealthy 
parents should be able to decide where they send their schools, 
and I think the answer to that is to make all of our public 
schools the best that they can be.
    I also want to say, just as a followup to Representative 
Bowman's questions, is that we are mandated. We have two very 
important mandates by the Individuals with Disabilities and 
Education Act. Public schools have to take differently abled 
students, and we are mandated to address the needs of those 
students first.
    Two very important things stand out. We have to provide a 
free and appropriate education to kids with disabilities, and 
we have to do that side by side with their peers in the least 
restricted environments. I will also say that this conversation 
about supporting students, supporting teachers, supporting 
teachers is supporting students. I hear over and over. I have 
heard that the COVID pandemic exposed what teachers were doing 
in the classroom, as if teachers were hiding something.
    That teachers' unions, the work that they have done. I 
would remind you that teachers' unions are teachers. I can tell 
you that it was incredibly disturbing to hear one of the 
witnesses on the panel say that it took for you to go to a 
private school for a teacher to smile at you.
    Educated in public schools, taught in public schools, my 
children go to public schools, and I can tell you that those 
environments are warm and nurturing, and could use additional 
Federal funds, but this idea that the panacea for academic 
success is charter schools is completely deceiving.
    I will also note that there is a distinct difference 
between private charter schools, and public charter schools, 
and I would encourage anyone who is listening to this committee 
to look those things up because a lot of the statistics that we 
are hearing today is from in fact, public charter schools.
    I am a proponent of public charter schools. I think that 
parents should be able to choose a school that has a specific 
stream, or a STEM academy, or arts education, or whatever it is 
their children are looking for, but I also believe that public 
funds should require public accountability, and that is what we 
are not talking about today.
    90 percent of our children go to public schools, and we 
should make sure that all of those schools, whether it is the 
school two towns away, the school across the street, or the 
school around the corner is the best school that it can be with 
the highest quality of public education.
    My question today is for Professor Black. The Department of 
Education collects extensive data on public schools, including 
achievement, enrollment, discipline, bullying, and harassment, 
and special education information. This data collection helps 
make an informed decision on children's education.
    Unfortunately, in most states, private schools, and private 
charter schools are not required to report the same 
information, even if they accept vouchers or public funding. 
Professor Black, is there any transparency or oversight built 
into school choice programs to ensure that the schools parents 
choose for their children are high-quality, and is there any 
recourse if they are not found to be high-quality?
    Additionally, do you believe states should fund voucher 
programs that do not meet high-quality education standards?
    Mr. Black. I do not believe they should fund vouchers that 
do not meet high-quality education standards. There is 
tremendous lack of transparency in what happens outside of the 
public school system, and therefore studies are often thinner 
because they do not have the data to which you referenced.
    For the record, I would say I do support the public U.S. 
Department of Education because it is the institution that 
ensures the enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes in this 
country. I also would note for the record, that no voucher 
program ever put to the people in the history of the United 
States of America has ever succeeded on the ballot.
    The most recent one of which I am aware was in Arizona, and 
it failed 65 to 35 percent in the State of Arizona.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. As an educator by profession, I also 
support the U.S. Department of Education, and their mission to 
ensure that every child in every zip code has a high-quality 
public education, and in my last seconds I just would like to 
amplify some of the challenges with charter schools that are 
not public.
    They vary by State. There is a messy admission process that 
excludes many students. There is high teacher turnover and low 
student diversity. Those are all things that we can look at and 
address if we truly want to make an argument for the charter 
school movement, and I am open to doing that, but I quite 
frankly, I do not believe that that is the direction that this 
hearing is going, and with that I yield back. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Bean. Ms. Hayes, thank you very much. 
Representative Moran represents the great State of Texas, and 
he is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman from the great State of 
Florida. We appreciate that. Dr. Burke, I want to turn my 
attention to you and give you an opportunity to elaborate about 
some of the things that you mentioned in your brief and in your 
opening statements.
    In particular, you mentioned about the D.C. Opportunity 
Scholarship Program. It is something democrats have long 
criticized. That is especially unfortunate, because as you 
pointed out, the DCOSP has been remarkably successful. This 
program has helped rescue students from underperforming public 
schools and gives them better options.
    What can you say to my democratic colleagues on the left 
who argue that this program should be terminated?
    Ms. Burke. Yes. I mean what a travesty that would be for 
the thousands of children and their families who are currently 
enrolled. This, as I mentioned earlier, has been one of the 
great public policy success stories, and D.C. is home to a 
pretty robust choice marketplace now. Over 40 percent, probably 
over 50 percent at this point of students, have access to 
public charter schools, or are enrolled in them.
    There is public school choice and then the D.C. Opportunity 
Scholarship Program. It has been a lifeline for children to 
attend safe and effective schools in the district. You can see 
that play out. They show up at rallies where we see thousands 
of children who are rallying in order to keep this program 
secure.
    During the Obama administration, nearly every budget cycle 
President Obama tried to zero out funding for what is the 
Nation's only federally supported school choice program, and 
these families showed up day after day to fight tooth and nail 
to secure this option. I genuinely hope that we can put it on 
more firm footing moving forward.
    Right now, the OSP is really at the whims of the Federal 
appropriations process every year, and of course that can get 
politicized. We need to move toward formula funding. The D.C. 
Opportunity Scholarship Program, so that it is a stable revenue 
source, we need to make it open to every single family in 
Washington, DC. Every child should have access to a safe and 
effective school.
    If I could just really quickly, we keep hearing that public 
schools are underfunded, and as Mr. Messer alluded to a few 
minutes ago, they are still sitting on 100 billion dollars of 
unspent art funding. I mean there is more money than they can 
spend right now at the moment. We have to reorient toward 
funding families directly, and move away from funding these 
unaccountable systems of government schools to which we are 
assigning children.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate the 
concept of accountability. That is something that I think, when 
we get into this discussion about teachers' unions, gets lost 
because effectively the teachers' unions resist accountability 
for performance in the classrooms, and that is unfortunate.
    If we could actually have true accountability it might work 
out a whole lot better. Let us turn now to education savings 
accounts, in particular for our military personnel. We know 
that there are a lot of military personnel that get assigned to 
new bases, new locations or families are then effectively put 
in a geographic area where they do not have a public school 
choice, but they are forced into a certain area.
    Talk about why education savings accounts, and particularly 
for military personnel are so important.
    Ms. Burke. Thank you for that. I mean this is something 
that Congress should do as soon as possible in my opinion. I 
mean the national security is not only an enumerated power, but 
it is a responsibility of the Federal Government. We know from 
survey after survey that about a third of military families 
have thought about leaving the service altogether because of 
the public school their child would have to attend at their 
next duty station.
    Military, kids of military families, are assigned to the 
closest public school to the duty station to which their parent 
is assigned when they move from State to State. We have to 
break that link, and we can do that by funding them directly 
through education savings accounts. A few military connected 
children attend DOD schools.
    It is only actually about 4 percent of those children. The 
rest, 96 percent, attend public schools that are close to the 
duty station, and that has given a lot of heartburn to military 
families who need options when they are assigned to their next 
duty station in order to serve effectively.
    Mr. Moran. Thank you, Dr. Burke. With the minute that I 
have remaining, I just want to ask you about this notion that 
seems to be arising from the other side about well, if we are 
for school choice, somehow we are against public schools. Is 
that the way you see this debate going?
    Is it really that easy to say well if you are for school 
choice you are against public schools?
    Ms. Burke. No. Not at all. Look, if we look at State 
Constitutions across the country, they do mandate for public 
education. We have to make a distinction between public 
education and public schooling. Yes, as I said earlier, 
publicly fund education, but allow families to choose what that 
looks like for them, what school works well for them, what 
school is safe and effective, and aligns with their values.
    We are getting to that point now, if we look across the 
country we have got universal education choice now in six 
states, which is a really phenomenal development.
    Mr. Moran. That is right. I will just conclude by saying 
that I personally had the option to send my kids anywhere I 
want to. I have the means where I can do that if I want to, but 
I choose to send them to a public school because for me and my 
family and my kids, that is the best choice. I want other 
parents to be able to make the choice that is best for their 
kids as well. Thank you for your testimony. I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Here is our new order. 
Miller, Kiley, Scott, Foxx, Good, so let us go to Illinois, 
where Representative Miller is standing by, and she is 
recognized for her 5 minutes of questions.
    Mrs. Miller. Thank you. Mr. Messer, I have a question for 
you. In my home State of Illinois, very sadly, only 30 percent 
of students are reading at grade level, and only 26 percent are 
proficient in math. How do you think school choice would better 
serve parents and students in Illinois?
    Congressman Messer. Yes, look, I think that is a great 
question, and as was alluded to by Mr. Moran, there is a sort 
of false premise being thrown out there that we believe that 
somehow there is some panacea. Here is, I think, the panacea. 
Empowering parents through education freedom.
    If you have a child who is unable to be at academic 
standards, you can find a school that fits their needs better. 
Through programs like the ECCA, the tax credit scholarship bill 
that Congressman Owens, Smith, Walorski, and others have 
supported, you have the option to pay for tutoring through, you 
know, a math tutoring course, if you need to.
    I think the key that we have to remember is it is not 
enough to just tell folks well, tough, the reality is, and I am 
going to say it. We have a lot of folks in America who can 
afford to have choice, and send their kids wherever they want. 
We are ready to fight to make sure others do not.
    Mrs. Miller. Yes. I agree along with many of the other 
members at the thought that we have disabled our young people 
by not giving them the proper education, and definitely parents 
should have the power to make the educational decisions, which 
are best for their children, including moving them out of 
failing schools and into schools where they can succeed.
    Thank you so much, and I want to yield my remaining time to 
Congressman Owens.
    Chairman Bean. Congressman Owens you are recognized for the 
remaining time.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you so much. I would like to first of all 
just make a point that you know the panacea is that when a mom 
and dad look at their child, it is all said and done, said I 
did my best, and I succeeded. Unfortunately, we have millions 
of children today, and millions of parents who do not feel that 
way. They think they are failures.
    They think that the system is not for them. We see the 
results of that as we speak. With the Educational Choice for 
our Children Act, help us understand also the scholarship 
organizations, how that works out, and is that something that 
comes out of Federal budget, or can you help me understand 
that?
    Congressman Messner. Well, you have 21 states in America 
today that have educational SGOs, scholarship granting 
organizations. The reality is that means that you also have 29 
who do not. The scholarship organizations will operate 
differently in the states where they already exist, and they 
just build on top of that. The reality is many of the 
scholarships that are available for families today do not get 
them all the way to where they need to be to have an actual 
choice.
    An important part of these ECCA is it will allow for there 
to be scholarships in states that do not currently have any 
other choice option, and frankly, states where the teachers' 
union has such a political entrenchment, that those options 
probably will not come to those states for quite some time. 
Illinois, an example of State that is like that.
    How does the ECCA do that? Simply through freedom. It 
allows a donor to write a charitable tax contribution to a 
scholarship creating organization that then will be able to 
decide, you know, and give parents opportunities.
    Mr Owens. That donor gets a tax credit, and the 
understanding that they are finally building our country back 
with good education by educating those kids that do not have 
it. Let me just ask you. How many children do you have?
    Congressman Messer. I have three.
    Mr. Owens. Three. One, two, okay. Would you agree that you 
know what is best for your child? Can we do that sitting up 
here right now?
    Congressman Messer. Yes.
    Mr. Owens. That is the conversation with friends. You do, 
and so does every other parent out there. These parents love 
their children like we love our children, so it is time for us 
to stop putting down parents, and it is time for us to stop 
acting like they do not know what they are doing. They cannot 
sit down and think this process through, what is best for their 
child.
    If a system is not working with the public, private, 
parochial, home school, it is not working, they will do their 
best to make sure you get to a safe place that does work. Thank 
you for your participation. Thanks for your passion, and Ms. 
Allen, I cannot say it enough, thank you for your success. That 
is what we need to see more of. Thank you so much. I yield 
back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us go to 
California. Representative Kiley is standing by. Representative 
Kiley, you are recognized.
    Mr. Kiley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Starting first with just a 
brief point of clarification. We heard a lot of references on 
the other side to private, charter schools. Mr. Messer, are 
charter schools public or private schools?
    Congressman Messer. They are public schools.
    Mr. Kiley. We also heard the other side say that somehow 
charters get to pick and choose their students. Is that true?
    Congressman Messer. No.
    Mr. Kiley. What are charter schools required to do when it 
comes to admission?
    Congressman Messer. There may be others on the panel that 
can answer better than me, but essentially public schools are 
required to meet the standards of public schools.
    Mr. Kiley. Accept all students?
    Congressman Messer. Yes.
    Mr. Kiley. Thank you. Professor Black, you are an opponent 
of school choice, correct?
    Mr. Black. Not in all forms, but at least in the form of 
that we have been discussing thus far yes, but private choice 
can, or I should say school choice, as mentioned earlier in the 
form of magnet, is tremendously successful, and charters with 
appropriate restrictions could also produce positive benefits 
that I would support. I would not say I am all for or all 
against.
    Mr. Kiley. You oppose the use of public funds for private 
education, private schools?
    Mr. Black. If there are, in most instances, I would not say 
there are no instances in which I would say it is appropriate.
    Mr. Kiley. Oh, and where would you support that?
    Mr. Black. You know there are students who need residential 
housing. Situations because of severe physical, and mental 
disabilities that simply cannot be delivered in a regular 
public education setting, and that seems to me to be----
    Mr. Kiley. By and large you are opposed to the use of 
public funds.
    Mr. Black. By and large I would think of it, by and large 
the State Constitutions are opposed to it, and I stand in 
accordance with that.
    Mr. Kiley. Sure. You do not think private schools should be 
abolished, or anything like that?
    Mr. Black. No, I do not.
    Mr. Kiley. You do support the right of families to send 
their kids to private school if they could afford it?
    Mr. Black. I support, yes.
    Mr. Kiley. The likes of, you know, President Biden, 
Governor Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, who have 
paid large sums of money to send their kids to private school, 
you would support their right to do that?
    Mr. Black. I support an individual's choice to spend their 
money in whatever way they choose to, so long as it does not 
violate State or Federal law.
    Mr. Kiley. You make an interesting argument in your 
testimony. You say that the U.S. Constitution, Article 4, 
Section 4, says that Congress must guarantee a republican form 
of government in the states. You go on to say that since the 
Nation's founding the tradition of public education has been 
understood as a central pillar of democracy in a republican 
form of government.
    Professor Black, did COVID era school shutdowns violate the 
republican government clause of the United States Constitution?
    Mr. Black. Could you repeat your statement?
    Mr. Kiley. Did COVID era school shutdowns violate the 
republican government clause of the U.S. Constitution?
    Mr. Black. Public schools continued to provide education, 
so when you say shutdown, in what respect do you mean shutdown?
    Mr. Kiley. Well for example, Burbio, the in-person 
instruction tracker for the 2021 school year, has an index of 
in-person instruction of the vast majority of states were above 
50 percent, but the 5 lowest states below 25 percent were 
Hawaii, Washington, Maryland, Oregon, and last of all my home 
State of California.
    Would you say that those states violated the republican 
government clause of the U.S. Constitution by refusing to offer 
an in-person instruction to their students when other states 
were able to do so?
    Mr. Black. I would not say, the premise of the question as 
I understand it, and maybe I misunderstand it, is that they 
must provide public education at a particular time on a 
particular day in a particular method. The republican form of 
government does require public education, but it does not 
specify the time of day, or the location of which that could 
occur, and thus times in which one was not in school could be 
made up at later points.
    I think you asked a very complicated question, I would be 
happy to have further discussions about, but I think there is a 
lot of nuances to----
    Mr. Kiley. Do you think it was a mistake for those states 
to keep their schools closed that long?
    Mr. Black. You keep saying closed.
    Mr. Kiley. Or failing to offer in-person instruction?
    Mr. Black. I am not a scientist. I do not think I am 
prepared to say at what point we should have had in-person 
instruction or not. I would ultimately think we would follow 
the CDC guidelines.
    Mr. Kiley. Okay. You also note that Florida has received an 
F when it comes to spending rankings. You then go on to note 
that several other states received A and B ratings. I looked up 
one of those at random, Washington, DC, which received an A 
rating, and then compared how those two jurisdictions, Florida 
and D.C. have done when it comes to education outcomes and the 
national assessment of education progress for students eligible 
for free or reduced lunch.
    For fourth grade reading, Florida, 61 percent achieved at 
the basic level of achievement. D.C. was 38 percent. Eighth 
grade reading, it was 62 percent to 49 percent. Why is it that 
you care more about the level, the amount of money that is 
being spent, than the amount that students are learning?
    Mr. Black. I do not care more about the amount that is 
spent. I care about studies that show what the amount spent 
correlates, and as to the comparison you make, the percentage 
of students with disabilities, low-income in the District of 
Columbia, is exponentially greater than it is in the State of 
Florida.
    Mr. Kiley. If I may just add that I did a comparison of 
students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch. This is an 
apples-to-apples comparison.
    Mr. Black. My apologies.
    Mr. Kiley. Thank you.
    Chairman Bean. Very good. Thank you very much, Mr. Kiley. 
Well done, to keep it in the time. He represents the great 
Commonwealth of Virginia. He is also the Ranking Member of the 
full Education and Workforce, and I am happy to recognize him 
for his 5 minutes, Representative Scott, you are recognized.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Professor 
Black, are there public and private charter schools?
    Mr. Black. All charter schools are public, but some of them 
are run by private entities as opposed to public or non-profit 
entities, so the distinction would be those that are run by 
non-profits versus those that are run by private entities.
    Mr. Scott. Okay. One of the criticisms throughout vouchers 
is that if you start a voucher program, the first thing you do 
is fund those already in private schools. Is that right?
    Mr. Black. A very substantial portion of those programs do 
fund children who are already in private schools.
    Mr. Scott. Do the vouchers cover the tuition at the private 
school?
    Mr. Black. It does not cover the tuition of many private 
schools, and thus children who cannot make up the difference, 
or cannot afford to go to all private schools.
    Mr. Scott. If you cannot afford the difference, then you do 
not get any help. You mentioned disinvestment. Is that because 
the political pressure, when you have vouchers and a public 
school system, the political pressures increase the vouchers, 
and not so much increase the investment in public schools?
    Mr. Black. You certainly know politics far better than I, 
Representative, but I would say that it is my experience that 
vouchers are very popular inside of State legislative 
buildings, but not very popular at all outside of them.
    Mr. Scott. Do the private schools get to select who their 
students are based on academics, better behavior, or parental 
involvement?
    Mr. Black. Yes.
    Mr. Scott. On evidence of success, Dr. Burke mentioned the 
success of the D.C. schools in terms of academic success. I 
think you mentioned that when you equate for parental 
involvement, education level of parents, other demographics, 
can you say what happens to the achievement level after you 
have done that?
    Mr. Black. My reading of those studies is that the 
achievement levels are not higher in the private schools.
    Mr. Scott. Say it again.
    Mr. Black. My reading is that those studies, when we 
account for the things that you mentioned, do not demonstrate 
higher achievement in D.C.'s private schools, for the students 
participating in those programs.
    Mr. Scott. In civil rights, you are talking about civil 
rights laws, one of the problems we are experiencing today is 
increased segregation in public schools. Green vs. Newton 
County, Virginia, is from my home State, that found freedom of 
choice unconstitutional. Can you say what these school choice 
programs do to the integration or segregation of our public 
schools?
    Mr. Black. They do not contribute to it, and my 
understanding based upon what I am looking at is they are 
perpetuating, or at least facilitating additional--various 
forms of additional segregation and stratification in private 
schools, as opposed to public schools.
    Mr. Scott. In terms of discipline, if the private school 
expels problem students, or does not accept private students, 
what happens to those students?
    Mr. Black. They could raise the contract breach that the 
United States Constitution does not apply to them.
    Mr. Scott. They would end up back in the public school 
system?
    Mr. Black. Yes.
    Mr. Scott. Are private schools covered by the Individuals 
with Disabilities Education Act?
    Mr. Black. No.
    Mr. Scott. What happens to all the students who need those 
services?
    Mr. Black. They would not get them. They would not be 
legally entitled to them in a private setting.
    Mr. Scott. Now we have talked about some students who were 
stuck in a failing school, and they need choice. It seems to me 
that the rational choice was everyone would get up and leave. 
The fact is that whatever choice system you have, 90 percent of 
them are going to be left behind with less resources, less 
political pressure.
    How is it a good idea to leave those 90 percent behind? How 
are they helped with a choice program?
    Mr. Black. They are not. As one study of Chicago's schools 
aptly put it, the real privilege in America is not having to 
make a choice as to where to go to school.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Mr. Scott. Let us go to 
the Chair. How about that, she is the Chair of the full 
committee. I was honored when she was on our subcommittee. She 
is also a former educator. She is from the great State of North 
Carolina, and she is recognized now. Dr. Foxx, you are 
recognized for a question and answer period.
    Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Chairman Bean. I think you have held 
an excellent hearing today, and I appreciate that. Congressman 
Messer, it was a pleasure to serve with you, and it is a 
pleasure to see you in the role that you are in right now, 
working on such a great cause. Thank you very much.
    Congressman Messer. Thank you.
    Mrs. Foxx. You obviously have extensive experience on the 
issue of school choice at all levels. I have long believed that 
education is best handled at the State and local level, and not 
the Federal Government. One of the best ways to empower 
parents, rather than the D.C. bureaucrats, is to put 
educational choices back in the hands of parents.
    You have served as President of School Choice Indiana, 
consistently advocated for school choice during your time in 
Indiana State House. What principles do you think D.C. 
policymakers should keep in mind when it comes to education? 
What can State and local leaders do to keep the Federal 
Government from micromanaging schools?
    Congressman Messer. Well, I think I have got kind of a high 
minded answer, and then a really practical answer. Okay. The 
high minded answer is to remember the stakes, and we talk a lot 
in this building about the Constitution, appropriately so. I do 
not think we talk enough about the second paragraph of the 
Declaration, which says we are all endowed by our creator, with 
certain inalienable rights.
    Rights that cannot be taken from you, the rights to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You cannot do that in 
America today. You cannot pursue happiness if you do not have 
access to a quality education. We need to make sure every 
family has that choice. How do you do it? That is the practical 
part. This is not complicated. Empower parents. Parents know 
best.
    It cannot both be true that our current public school 
system is doing a fabulous job and be true that if we give 
parents an option, everybody is going to pour out of the school 
and somehow destroy them, right?
    The reality is that we are now 30 years into this debate. 
Parents leave when it is best for their child to leave. The 
rest of the system improves.
    Mrs. Foxx. Thank you. Ms. Allen, I was quite moved by 
reading your personal story and hearing it today. Your story 
perfectly encapsulates why we need school choice. I am 
overjoyed that Florida's tax credit scholarship was available 
to you and had such a positive impact.
    What troubles me is that many children in our country do 
not have that opportunity. Republicans are absolutely committed 
to making sure every child has the opportunity you have had, to 
find the educational option that works best for them, and their 
families. I know you are the first in your family to graduate 
from high school, college and graduate school, which is a 
remarkable accomplishment.
    Can you talk about what it means to you and your family to 
be the first in your family to achieve such a high level of 
education?
    Mrs. Allen. It is a tremendous success. It is a pleasure 
for me to serve as this trailblazer in my family. My niece is 
now also a college graduate. She is a nurse traveling across 
the country. It is a pleasure that she looks up to me, and so 
we have been able to set a new trajectory, and it is because of 
education freedom.
    Mrs. Foxx. Thank you very much. Dr. Burke, one of the 
arguments we have already heard from our democrat colleagues is 
that school choice hurts traditional public schools, and I 
think Congressman Messer explained it very well just now. The 
public schools are doing such a great job, and why are we 
afraid of choice, and the fact that people will leave?
    It is not true, and we know it is not true. We also know 
that competition creates an incentive for anybody to improve. 
It breaks up the monopoly power, traditional public school 
districts. That is what it would do. I believe in school 
choice, not only because it helps students of private schools 
and charter schools, but because it helps traditional schools.
    I know you have spent your career analyzing the evidence on 
school choice. Could you give us quickly some findings from the 
research on how school choice affects traditional public 
schools?
    Dr. Burke. Thank you, Chairwoman Foxx. I appreciate that. 
You are right. It is a competitive pressure that creates that 
rising tide that lifts all boats. We know that school choice 
improves academic outcomes for children who choose to stay in 
their district schools as well.
    There are 28 empirical evaluations of the effect of school 
choice and the competitive pressure that it puts on public 
schools as well. These are matching and longitudinal studies. 
Of those 28, 26 show positive effects for students and public 
schools as more and more private schools begin to participate 
in a school choice program, one finds a null effect, and only 
one found a negative effect.
    Mrs. Foxx. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Dr. Foxx. Our final 
member in the spotlight just entered the building, or entered 
our room, and he is from the Commonwealth of Virginia, let us 
go to Virginia, where Mr. Good is standing by for his 5 
minutes, and he is recognized.
    Mr. Good. Thank you, Chairman Bean, and thank you to our 
witnesses. I think I am the only thing standing between you and 
being paroled from this hearing today, but thanks for your time 
today. First, just a question or two to Ms. Allen, I appreciate 
you again being with us today.
    Our backgrounds are somewhat similar, where I grew up in a 
lower income family, grew up on food stamps, free school lunch, 
and I am old enough that it was the days when not everyone had 
free school lunch. You had to qualify for it and went to rough 
inner-city schools.
    Low-income white kids, low-income minority kids, rough 
background schools. Through the benevolence of others, my 
family could never afford it. I was able to go to a private 
Christian school for high school, which made a tremendous 
impact on my life, similar to what I have seen in your 
testimony on the impact that it made for you.
    As you know, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, was created to help, and theoretically anyway, 
disadvantaged students. In a community like where you grew up 
on east side Jacksonville, how would you comment on the 
effectiveness of the Federal funds, what kind of impacts are 
being made, effectively being leveraged I should say, to help 
disadvantaged students in your experience?
    Ms. Allen. Of course. Every school that I went to in 
elementary school was a Title I school and did not meet my 
needs. The schools are currently still Title I, and currently 
still poor performing and lower income. With my work at the 
American Federation for Children, I started a special project 
called Black Minds Matter.
    I actually have the first and the only directory of black 
school founders, and these are folks who started schools. Many 
of these black school founders used to be public school 
teachers in Title I schools, and what is interesting is that 
they reached the ceiling, and they saw that they could not 
help, they could not do as much as they wanted to really help 
kids learn.
    They just decided to start their own school. Many of the 
colleagues and members, we are talking about teachers in the 
public schools, in the system. Teachers who are teaching in 
private and charter schools are doing a tremendous job at 
trying to help give students more opportunity, and so they are 
also benefiting from what we are talking about today.
    Mr. Good. You know, you certainly see the other side, you 
know, we talk about school choice a lot on our side, if you 
will, and I hate to say sides like that. The other side is very 
much against school choice, and will say, you know, that school 
choice harms the public schools.
    Their feeling is if a public school is toxic, if it is 
failing, if it is dangerous, if it is not meeting the needs of 
the children, or the families that are subjected to those 
schools, then everyone should have to share in that misery, and 
no one should have the opportunity or school choice.
    I have a bill that is called The Choice Act, which would 
allow Federal dollars allocated for education to follow the 
child through the school choice of the family, whether it was 
another public school. You know, some districts charge you to 
go outside your district of course, a few thousand dollars in 
Virginia in some cases, whether it is the private or Christian 
school, or a home school expenses, or what have you.
    How might it have made a difference, or for people like 
others in your situation or yourself maybe, if Federal dollars 
went to the school choice of the family instead of being 
restricted to that public school where the child happens to 
reside.
    Mrs. Allen. It would make a tremendous difference. You 
know, folks who have backgrounds similar to ours are wanting 
better options for their students. There is a very sad story of 
a mom from Ohio who tried to pick a different public school for 
her daughter, and ended up in jail because she was violating 
the law by sending her kid to a school outside of her 
district's assigned zip code.
    That is not a free, equitable system. We need one though.
    Mr. Good. You know, and sadly, unfortunately, there is not 
a correlation that we can demonstrate in terms of achievement, 
or excellence in education, and the dollars allocated by school 
district. Some of the areas across the country where we spend 
the most money in the public school system, or government 
school system, we get the worst outcomes in those systems.
    This is for Dr. Burke, and again thank you for being with 
us, and in the limited time that I have left, could you just 
comment on how you feel like the effectiveness is demonstrated 
by the Federal Government's role in education?
    What is the proper role of that education, and what is the 
demonstrated effectiveness for the mandates and the controls 
that come with the Federal Government's small amount of dollars 
that are allocated?
    Ms. Burke. Well education is not an enumerated power of the 
Federal Government, so the more that we can do to start winding 
down Federal intervention in K-12 education, the better. The 
track record has been incredibly poor, unfortunately, since 
Lydon Johnson launched his war on poverty. We have spent two 
trillion just at the Federal level alone, which remember is 
just 8.5 percent of all K-12 education funding.
    Outcomes, if you look at the long-term trend assessment, 
are flat for reading and math achievement over time. We are 
still in the middle of the pack internationally. Disadvantaged 
students are still struggling with graduation rates, et cetera, 
so we have got to change that dynamic, start winding down 
Federal spending, and intervention in K-12 education, and allow 
education choice to flourish in the states.
    Mr. Good. Thank you. In Virginia, 94 percent of our funding 
for the schools come from State and local, and I would submit 
that the 6 percent we get from the fed's is not worth it. We 
can make do on the 94 percent without the Federal mandates, and 
the negatives that come with it. Thank you so much, and I yield 
back Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you, Mr. Good. At the beginning of our 
program today, I promised that it would be an interesting 
debate, robust concepts, and big thoughts and ideas, and thanks 
to each of our panelists today, that was a promise fulfilled. 
You all did a great job, and thanks for the time this morning.
    Before we adjourn, Ranking Member Bonamici and I discussed 
the need to review our audio system, and maybe we can improve 
it going forward, or at least review it, but what a great day. 
So to all the members, thanks for doing your homework, coming 
in before, coming in prepared. Let us go have a great day. 
Since there is no business before the committee, we stand 
adjourned.
   
   [Additional submissions by Ms. Bonamici and Mr. Grijalva:]
   
   
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 


    [Whereupon 12:24 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]