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▶ 0:07:47well good morning everyone it's uh good to have everyone here at the uh labor Health Human Services subcommittee I want to preparations and uh thank you for our Witnesses for being here especially as we discuss uh funding for uh K through 12 education and um this subcommittee is going to be looking at two areas primarily today number one the effectiveness of federal K through 12 funding and also the importance of school choice and um I look forward to hearing
▶ 0:08:17uh and learning from each of our Witnesses about the state of our public um K through 12 schools of the challenges that our students are facing and the trends that uh these experts that are before us are seen in the field uh America's students are struggling uh there's no way to sugarcoat I think that fact the results from the L latest National assessment for Education progress showed student test scores overall are below the 2019 levels
▶ 0:08:47in all grades and subjects students have not recovered from the pandemic and the lowest achieving students are disproportionately falling further and further behind matter of fact one one third of eighth graders Nationwide are currently reading below the basic level the current system has failed these kids by leaving them wholly unprepared for the workforce if this trend continues the entire nation will suffer socially and economically other industrialized
▶ 0:09:18nations will continue to outpace us in too many schools education in core subjects like reading and math are being replaced by indoctrination School administrators and teachers are too focused on social justice issues that schools were never meant to dress and not focused enough on academic instruction and academic Excellence unfortunately schools are often using federal funds to pursue these misguided
▶ 0:09:48harmful agendas as I've said in this room before probably on several occasions schools should be teaching how kids how to think and not what to think for the sake of their children parents across the country are standing up and demanding change from administrators and in some cases looking for non-district schooling options for their children I'm uh pleased that the Trump Administration has taken several steps to Champion school
▶ 0:10:18choice and eliminate divisive ideologies from K through 12 education I look forward to working with the administration over the next four years to make improvements to to the overall system while we may hear calls from um some in this room today for more Federal funding on K through2 schools the data tells another story the federal government appropriates 19 billion annually for block grants to States for Title One
▶ 0:10:48K12 schools during the covid pandemic Congress appropriated additional 190 billion for K through2 schools on average federal funding compromises less than 10% of the State education budgets in recent years total federal and state per people spending on education has skyrocketed I think we all have to be clear taxpayers are spending more and more on education but getting
▶ 0:11:19far Les less results to the students we need to pause assess our efforts and that's exactly what this Administration is attempting to do we have a big challenge ahead uh as we turn to uh uh look at Student Success as that's of as it has often been said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting that you would get a different results well over and over again Congress has opened its credit card
▶ 0:11:49and the efforts are not improving the outcomes I hope this hearing that we have this morning will help highlight why we cannot simply continue to expect more Federal support to drive better outcomes in K through 12 education before I turn to the my ranking member uh Miss delaro for her remarks I would like to introduce the panel uh first we have Miss Virginia gentles from the defense of Freedom Institute for policy studies welcome
▶ 0:12:20uh she will share with us the challenges facing our schools students and parents today next we will hear from Dr Lindsay Burke who is director of the center for Education policy at the Heritage Foundation and her uh focus is on K12 education form and school choice glad to have you here we'll also hear from uh Miss starlee Coleman president and CEO of the national allance for public charter schools about the strong academic outcomes
▶ 0:12:50that charter schools are yielding for students despite limited Federal funding and last and certainly not least we'll hear from Mr Robert Kim uh from the education Law Center whose expertise includes civil and education rights law and policy so thank you to each of our uh Witnesses for coming here today and sharing with us um we uh as members of Congress we want to demonstrate the respect and courtesy uh that you deserve and this subcommittee will have a
▶ 0:13:20ample opportunities to engage in vigorous debate over the size and the scope of federal funding but these witnesses that we here have to have here today are going to share with us information within their particular areas of expertise and I look forward to giving them the opportunity to do that I would now like to turn to the committee's ranking member um and also the serves as the full committee ranking member Miss deloro uh for any comments that she would like to make thank you very much
▶ 0:13:50uh Mr chairman and thank you for holding this hearing on how our investments in elementary education have demonstrably improved outcomes for children and how ending those Investments would jeopardize the future success and prosperity for millions of Young Americans I might add just as a note Mr chairman that last week Elon Musk cancelled the nape survey National um Association for Education uh a program National assessment for educational programs
▶ 0:14:21um he canceled the nape survey and you referenced nape in in your remarks and that survey for 17y olds so we apparently are not concerned about student data any longer uh I want to extend my thanks as well with a warm welcome to our Witnesses Miss gentles Dr Burke Mr Kim Miss Coleman uh welcome to the labor HHS that's labor Health Human Services and education appropriation subcommittee uh this
▶ 0:14:51hearing is on an incredibly important topic but I must begin by underscoring that these are not normal times and we cannot continue business business as usual in fact the topic of this hearing ignores the outcries of the American people because today House Republicans want to discuss investments in education while Elon Musk and president Trump are illegally terminating Department of Education funding the American people are calling
▶ 0:15:21our offices every day asking about the illegal spending freeze and about what has happened to all already appropriated funding keeping in mind that the power of the purse resides in the Congress and within this Appropriations Committee it does not reside with the executive or with a someone who has been deputized by the executive to
▶ 0:15:51have the power of the purse neither one has that power Republicans owe the American people real answers about when their disrespect for the law will end and not more pretending that this is business as usual furthermore we are on the cusp of an executive order to dismantle Department of Education an unelected unchecked billionaire has already done Untold damage to our nation's ability to collect to analyze invaluable information on school performance including
▶ 0:16:21and especially for our youngsters in elementary school earlier this month Elon musk's so-called Department of government government efficiency terminated $1 billion in education department contracts and awards and that includes dozens of contracts awarded by The Institute of Education sciences that is the Department's independent research and statistics panel that tracks school Nationwide without ies's
▶ 0:16:52critical work parents Educators and policy makers are in the dark when trying to compare student and schoolwide achievement Elon Musk is taking a wrecking ball to the welfare of children in schools and their ability to learn it's unconscionable I believe it is immoral and above all it is unlawful and that's only where they began president Trump reiterated that his top goal for his secretary of education nominee Linda mcmah was to
▶ 0:17:22and I quote do a great job and put yourself out of a job end quote I refuse to let these hearings distract us from where Republicans want to take public education the Department of Education is fundamental to the American dream and that will be demonstrated by our hearing today so let us begin today's hearing was called by the majority to reexamine a question that has in fact been settled for decades does money matter when it comes to Elementary
▶ 0:17:52and student outcomes some of my Republican colleagues claim that additional funding for our public school does not improve outcomes a claim with no basis in reality and one that is in fact at complete odds with ample scientific um uh uh examples a 2018 review of research on the relationship between education spending and student outcomes this was by Northwestern University I didn't make this up found statistically significant
▶ 0:18:23positive results for students in 12 out of 13 studies similar to studies here them here these are the studies the studies which debunk this notion um that we're trying here to examine today about student outcomes so similar studies Texas Wisconsin California other states have also found that increases in school funding improve student outcomes Common Sense funding that puts more teachers
▶ 0:18:53in classrooms to serve students from lowincome backgrounds yields positive results so that raises the question why would anyone Advance a baseless claim that has been debunked over and over again I believe as the majority's fiscal year 2025 labor HHS education Bill showed House Republicans are following the project 2025 Playbook and helping Elon Musk reach project 2025 stated goals of eliminating the Department of Education illegally stealing lawfully
▶ 0:19:24appropriated federal education funds eliminating Title One which is the Cornerstone of our federal investment in public education and which supports 25 million students Nationwide let us look at that widely debunk claim again specifically as it relates to Title One in his paper follow quote follow the money School spending from Title One to adult earnings end quote renowned Economist Dr Rucker Johnson found that and I quote
▶ 0:19:54increases in Title One funding are significantly related to increases in the likelihood of graduating from high school reductions in both the likelihoods of grade repetition and school suspension or expulsion more years of completed education higher earnings work hours a reduction of the annual incidents of poverty in adulthood as ages 30 to 40 and a reduction in the likelihood of ever being incarcerated by age 35 the effects on educational outcomes are
▶ 0:20:25more pronounced for children for poor families end quote of course these findings and others were only made possible thanks in part to Grants contracts and studies administered by the Department's Institute of Education Sciences so let's end The Institute and not have the data perhaps that perhaps it explains the unlawful and Reckless termination of $1 billion doar in research gr contracts when this Administration
▶ 0:20:55finds facts inconvenient they simply try to change the facts or silence the source what is even more baffling is that the Republican attacks on public education are wildly unpopular there is no mandate to remove teachers from the classroom but that is where they're taking us a recent bipartisan poll commissioned by all for Ed found that 58% of Voters oppose eliminating the Department of Education while just 29% support such a reckless move a whopping 68% of Voters agree
▶ 0:21:25that and I quote we should increase funding to improve Public Schools so that they better meet the needs of students for the jobs and careers of the future end quote with only 24% supporting a contrarian view that quote we should increase funding to give parents vouchers so they can send their child to the school that best meets their needs selling vouchers as school choice quote school choice is a misnomer the real choice in the equation goes to private schools who can choose to
▶ 0:21:55reject students that do not come from from well-to-do families and then what happens where should those students go nine out of 10 students in our country attend public school I implore my colleagues across the aisle stand up for the majority of Americans who reject the premise of this hearing who oppose the actions Elon Musk and Russ vote are taking to make project 2025 a reality stand up for 50 million children who attend public schools
▶ 0:22:26in rural suburban and urban school districts across this country in the meantime we need to get our work done we are nearly 5 months past the end of the fiscal year without a labor Health Human Services and education bill that can become law but the funding Cuts in the 2025 labor HHS education bill that has been proposed by the majority would take a wrecking ball to programs that ensure Elementary School students ever have a chance at
▶ 0:22:56achieving that American Dream from K through 12 K through 12 education the majority put cuts of 8.6 billion dollars on the table where are they seeking to exercise their so-called fiscal responsibility nearly half of that cut comes from title one which would result in thousands of teachers being kicked out of classrooms I do not believe the American people want larger
▶ 0:23:26class sizes fewer teachers among them but that is exactly what House Republicans aim to deliver they have also found savings by eliminating programs that help young children learn English programs that provide grants to State and local education agencies to help schools meet their State academic standards and programs that provide grants to help students grapple with ever mounting stress and pressure pressure disheartened to say the least to see my
▶ 0:23:56colleagues take aim at the programs that help their own constituents Advance their education programs that improve the livelihoods of children and their families and when we sit down to negotiate a full year funding bill that can reach 218 votes which the House Republicans proposal cannot I look forward to protecting investments in Title One ensuring a quality Elementary education does not become the perview of only the wealthy this committee this
▶ 0:24:26Congress should be focused on finishing full year Appropriations bills we now stand less than four weeks away from the March 14th deadline without so much as a Topline agreement the American people are demanding help with the cost of living the single biggest issue they are facing and we can do that here this committee has incredible power to change lives to help the middle class we can help make education affordable to make it easier to succeed in the workforce
▶ 0:24:56through our funding bills unfortunately the pressing need to finish ful year bills is not even the most urgent challenge to our federal education priorities the Department of Education created by an act of Congress funded by Appropriations bills passed by these Congress and signed into law and they are laws they are not directives they are laws ensures that no matter the wealth of their family does or does not have or whether they have a disability
▶ 0:25:26or other disadvantage every single child has the opportunity to obtain an education it is the embodiment of what Horus man called and I quote the great equalizer the role of the Department of Education is crucial in securing the opportunities and rights of every student in America instead of Shoring up our investments in American students Elon Musk plans to follow the project 2025 Playbook turn public education over to the highest biders the wealthiest families
▶ 0:25:57and he is doing so with the cooperation and the capitulation of House Republicans families and communities across the country are reing for multiple crises in classrooms skyrocketing costs learning loss achievement gaps educator shortages and epidemics of loneliness and of school violence and they are looking to our elected officials for Solutions government of the People by the people for the people cannot be replaced by government
▶ 0:26:27of billionaires by billionaires and for billionaires if we want to eliminate the Department of Education I say to my colleagues then put your name on a bill to do that let your constituents see it let us debate it let us and the American people deliberate do not yield our Authority and the rule of law to uncheck billionaires as we will discuss today Elementary education is an Irreplaceable prerequisite to economic mobility in this country and our federal
▶ 0:26:57Investments play an Irreplaceable role in ensuring the promise of an education is fulfilled for every child in this country but we cannot do and what we will not do is to retreat from our children's education altogether thank you and I yield back thank you Miss deloro and now I'd like to turn to our Witnesses uh you have each been allotted up to five minutes uh to deliver your opening remarks um of course your your written uh testimony
▶ 0:27:27will be included in the full record so we'll just start and we'll just go down the line so uh Miss jold will'll start with you and uh you have the floor chairman udol ranking member deloro and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today my name's Virginia gentles and as a parent of two school-aged children a product of public schools and a former Federal provincial and State education bureaucrat I've had a front row seat to the American Education system's challenges and how it harms students when I worked
▶ 0:27:57for a former subcommittee member in the late 1990s only 31% of fourth grade students and 33% of eth grade students were proficient readers I wrote talking points for my boss lamenting alarming test results and I met with organizations pleading for more funding they got their wish a reliable stream of ever increasing federal education funding and steady employment for federally employed and often unionized adults ferally funded and unionized adults but where is the evidence that the money truly benefi
▶ 0:28:27been benefited students despite dramatic increases in annual education funding and the 190 billion in Co era supplemental funds student outcomes are historically low and the achievement Gap is widening our country is experiencing an Undeclared crisis in education nape scores have declined for over a decade and plummeted after Co era school closures there is no state in the country where the majority of students are performing at grade level in math and reading if more money was the solution why are 94
▶ 0:28:584% of elementary and middle schoolers living in districts that haven't returned to pre pandemic achievement levels despite the vast sums poured into the K12 system for learning loss recovery 70% of students aren't reading or doing math proficiently and 40% lack basic math and reading skills these struggling fourth graders don't know the difference between odd and even numbers and the eighth graders can't find the midpoint between two numbers on a number line alarmingly only 2% of black eth
▶ 0:29:28students in Milwaukee are proficient in math these scores are heartbreaking these students likely will never catch up our education system is robbing Children of the future they deserve every indicator shows that it is broken this ongoing systemic disaster reveals that the US Department of Education has failed to fulfill its mission to promote student achievement and preparation for Global competitiveness by imposing onerous regulations and Reporting requirements as well as a ceaselessly shifting political agenda the blow Department
▶ 0:29:58makes it harder for the people closest to students to do their jobs well Title One funding began flowing from the federal government 60 years ago as part of the 1965 Elementary and secondary Education Act so 15 years before the Department of Education was created the program's formulas have become increasingly complex the monitoring requirements have burdened States and districts and each level of government takes a hefty cut of the 18 or 19 billion in annual funding while lowincome students continue to struggle ensuring
▶ 0:30:28that all students have access to highquality education is a worthy goal pretending that title one in its current form has met that goal is foolish the federal government passed the law currently known as the individuals with disabilities Education Act idea 50 years ago so five years before the creation of the US Department of Education the 14 billion in annual Ida funding fuels a mammoth bureaucratic Labyrinth that too often harms children with disabilities while forcing students to hire lawyers and Sue in order to receive federally
▶ 0:30:59promised accommodations and services special interests like the school unions exacerbate our nation's academic crisis in 1979 the National Education Association pushed for expanded Federal control of education and the creation of the US Department of Education during the pandemic the national unions pressured the federal government to keep schools closed and today state and local unions are closing schools with strikes blocking tutoring and reading training and even protecting sexual predators in K12 schools recent coverage of a
▶ 0:31:29Michigan Union contract revealed that Tre teachers can be drunk on the job four times before a union member can be fired so what should be done we know the answer is not pouring more Federal funding into a fundamentally broken and unit controlled K12 system academic outcomes are worse than when I was a 22-year-old congressional staffer instead we should Empower States and families State leaders are responding to the academic crisis by improving literacy instruction and expanding education freedom to just created a Statewide education
▶ 0:31:59savings account program that will serve 20,000 students initially with a priority for low-income students and students with disabilities Congress should consider redirecting Federal funding and passing a federal tax credit that would supplement state-based school choice programs additionally combining federal education funding streams could reduce ineffective reporting and resource intensive monitoring requirements allowing states to allocate taxpayer dollars in a more student centered way let's stop pretending that the status quo is working it's time for a new approach that prioritizes
▶ 0:32:30the needs of students thank you thank you my name is Lindsay Burke the views I express in this testimony are my own and should not be construed as any official position of the Heritage Foundation thank you chairman ader Holt and ranking member deloro for the opportunity to testify today Washington has been on an education spending spree for decades throughout the 20th century inflation adjusted per pupil spending increased 3 .5% per year every year
▶ 0:33:00education spending on a per pupil basis is more than tripled in real terms since 1965 the yearand and Johnson launched his war on poverty which included unprecedented new federal spending on education federal state and local spending each more than doubled per pupil in real terms since the Department of Education was created in 1980 and on top of General Revenue incre increases over the past half century public public school districts have also been the recipients of an unprecedented
▶ 0:33:31influx of taxpayer funds in the wake of covid-19 Congress allocated $90 billion do across three Appropriations the largest infusion of cash to K12 education in history this was two and a half times the department of education's annual budget to paraphrase Ronald Reagan we don't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem so how is this money spent massive increases in spending have largely financed an ongoing Staffing surge kenesa States
▶ 0:34:01Ben scaffy has documented that from 1950 to 2019 while the number of students increased 100% in the nation's schools the number of teachers increased 243 per the number of non-teaching Staff increased 79% teachers make up just 47.5% of all School staff today perhaps we would not care about increased spending if it accompanied increased growth in academic outcomes but it
▶ 0:34:31has not after an exhaustive review of the literature Stanford Economist Eric hesek found that there's quote no strong or systematic relationship between school expenditures and student performance as hanek explained in 2019 quote while there is some small movement up and down over time the remarkable aspect is that reading a math performance in 2012 looks virtually unchanged from four decades before four Additionally the gap between the top and bottom
▶ 0:35:02desile of students by family income the 9010 Gap as it's known Remains the Same as it was when the war on poverty began the equivalent of four grade levels worth of learning as hars Paul Peterson explains quote the stability of these gaps over such an extended time period is striking we do not find a closing of the Gap at some point over the time period only to see it reopen up again it does not narrow during the Carter years or the Reagan years or during the boom years of the 1990s
▶ 0:35:32or after the passage of No Child Left Behind or at any other specific point throughout those five decades the Gap is amazingly unwavering quote so what's a better path forward in 1998 the seminal education at a Crossroads report was published after an exhaustive series of State hearings an examination into the effect of federal involvement in education several key findings came out out of that report Federal involvement in K12 education has led to a quote
▶ 0:36:02program for every problem mentality it has led to Shadow state level Departments of Education with three times as many federally funded employees in state agencies as at the Federal Department of Education task primarily with administering federal education programs the crossroads report documented how Federal programs and spending had created quote a cottage industry in selling information on program descriptions application deadlines and filing instructions for each of the Myriad
▶ 0:36:33federal education programs end quote it detailed how millions of man- hours were required every year to complete the federal paperwork burden created by the Department of Education and to add insult to injury it found that as little as 65 cents on every Federal dollar ultimately made its way back to the classroom the conclusion of the education at the crossroads report was a alient in 1998 as it is now quote it is time for the burden of proof to shift
▶ 0:37:03from the federal government if it cannot be demonstrated that a particular Federal program is more effectively spending funds than States and local communities otherwise would spend them Congress should return the money to the states and the people without any burdensome strings attached end quote since the war on poverty began taxpayers have spent nearly 3 trillion on K12 education just at the Federal level alone given the state of American Education today more Federal spinning has not been the ticket to
▶ 0:37:33improving outcomes for students it's time to chart a different course thank you chairman adalt ranking member deloro and distinguished subcommittee members thank you for the opportunity to testify today my name is Robert Kim I serve as the Executive Director of Education Law a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and Advance public education and the rights
▶ 0:38:03of students Nationwide I also served during the Obama Administration as Deputy assistant secretary in the US Department of education's office for civil rights I'd like to be begin my remarks by underscoring the stakes of today's conversation on federal education funding millions of American families and thousands of school districts in every state rely on these funds every day to receive or provide critical Education Services I'd like to touch on three points regarding
▶ 0:38:34Federal investments in our nation's Public Schools one Money Matters in education two the federal role in education is critical and three a vibrant public education system is vital to our nation's prosperity and Global standing on the first point researchers overwhelmingly agree that increased funding boosts student achievement and other life outcomes even Dr hesek a leading expert associated
▶ 0:39:04with the money doesn't matter Camp concluded recently that there was a positive and statistically significant relationship between education spending and not only improved test scores but improved High School completion and increased College attendance in addition studies show that adequate school funding leads to other gains for students such as increased adult wages and life expectancy and decreased contact with the criminal justice system in short sufficient funding really
▶ 0:39:34does make a difference in education second the federal role in education is vitally important to reduce inequality and Bridge opportunity and achievement gaps among students States and districts rely on federal funding to varying degrees but in every case the federal contribution is significant for example the 17 members of this subcommittee alone represent 1.3 million public school children attending schools within your congressional districts that receive
▶ 0:40:05$3 billion annually in federal revenue according to the latest available data drops in such funds would be devastating to your constituents and the same goes for every member of Congress at the department I experienced I experienced firsthand how the federal government works to expand and ensure equal educational opportunity for the most vulnerable students key Federal programs and initiatives include supporting schools serving High percentages of low-income students rural
▶ 0:40:35education parent and family engagement school safety literacy development effective instruction grants for teachers and school leaders Arts education gifted and talented education exp expanding pre kindergarten access Career and Technical education supporting Charter and magnet schools as well as promis neighborhood and fullservice Community Schools and addressing the needs of our most vulnerable students students living in poverty homeless and migrant
▶ 0:41:05students Indian native Hawaiian and Alaska native students students with disabilities and multil linguage multilingual Learners and so on also I cannot overstate the importance of two additional functions of the department research evaluation and data collection and civil rights enforcement cuts and education research Staffing and contracts limit our ability to monitor educational progress identify and evaluate the effectiveness of Education strategies and programs and ensure sound
▶ 0:41:35use of taxpayer dollars and friezes or cutbacks in OCR Staffing and civil rights enforcement have impacted already thousands of parents trying to secure services for their children or to protect them from harassment or discrimination at school we must not let the dismantling of critical Department continue finally it is so important that we preserve and enhance public education in America proposals to shift federal education funding streams for public
▶ 0:42:05schools to private school vouchers including through Esa accounts and other mechanisms are dangerous for multiple reasons the negative fiscal effects of vouchers alone are huge and have accelerated at an alarming Pace over the past three years we see the effects of this already in States like Florida and Arizona where hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars are being spent on vouchers while public schools in those states are among the lowest funded in the country these Trends stretch State budgets to the Max and
▶ 0:42:36threaten their ability to maintain highquality public schools that are free and open to all students so in conclusion I urge every member of this committee to support a strong Federal role in and funding for public education which is so critical to our nation's Pro prosperity and to our democracy thank you very much chairman erer Holtz ranking member deloro and members of the subcommittee thank you for the invitation to be here today
▶ 0:43:06I'm Starly Coleman the president and CEO of the National Alliance for public charter schools across the country more than 8,000 public charter schools serve a diverse student body of 3.7 million students 46 states have passed legislation allowing charter schools to open and over the last 5 years public charter enrollment has 12% and charter schools are delivering results in 2024 The forom Institute and
▶ 0:43:36the progressive policy Institute both found that when Charter Schools open students in traditional Public Schools also Thrive their research shows that students in both Charter and traditional Public Schools perform better in reading and math in communities where Charter Schools exist this is is true in both urban and rural communities there is currently one program in the entire federal budget dedicated to advancing school
▶ 0:44:06choice across the country and that is the federal charter schools program the modest Federal investment in this program provides startup funds for new Charter Schools until State funding kicks in when students arrive on campus and while the CSP doesn't come close to covering all Charter School startup costs it's a catalyst for advancing one of the most successful bipartisan and in demand education reforms in American public education history
▶ 0:44:37while charter schools have become part of the fabric of urban education it's important for you to know that suburban and Rural Charter growth is surging the CSP is vital to our ability to meet parent demand for public school options in these communities a CSP Grant in Idaho is seating the growth of charter schools founded and run by retired military leaders including an Air Force Colonel an Army Major and Lieutenant Colonel and a Marine Corps Major
▶ 0:45:07in Texas several classical curriculum charter schools have enrollment weight lists numbering in the thousands including my own child and a CSP Grant is helping those schools open more campuses in Alabama the CSP provided startup funds for the Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School in besser the CSP is the way for you to show parents in all states and communities red and blue Urban and not that you are listening and
▶ 0:45:37investing federal funds in programs they want and that work at the same time we must be honest about what federal funds alone cannot do and that is overcome bad policy or practices at the state and local level Public Schools district and Charter are coming off historic budget highs and no reasonable person can look at the most recent nape results and say that all we need is more money more money alone
▶ 0:46:07will not improve student outcomes if schools are using unsound instructional practices money won't help but making a change to move to sound practices takes money Federal funding can be a powerful incentive to reform state and local policies so so they result in better outcomes for children and keep our best teachers in the classroom and yet you must strike a careful balance of not micromanaging States in
▶ 0:46:37schools this may seem like a contradiction demand results but don't micromanage funding alone won't solve our problems but we can't fix them without it this is nuanced work that doesn't lend itself well to sound bites but it's the needle this committee must thread here are three guiding principles that might help as you think about future K12 funding number one use federal funding to support students most in need two use federal funding
▶ 0:47:08to expand proven and promising strategies that are increasing student learning three use federal funding to show parents that you are listening to their demand for public school options as a mom of a public school student I want to acknowledge that you have a hard job it's hard to know how your decisions will trickle down to my little girls classroom in Austin Texas but they do and moms like me are counting on you to thoughtfully balance the need for resources
▶ 0:47:38with the need for sound policy and the need for the decisions as many of the decisions as possible to be made as close to the children who are being served thank you for the opportunity to be here today thank you all right well we will go ahead and start with our uh questioning part of the um hearing and U of course as always we will uh each U member have five minutes um and to a lot five up to five minutes
▶ 0:48:08uh to ask any questions and of course I try not to be too strict on that because sometimes you're in the middle of a a question or an answer but uh certainly we want to be respectful to other members on the subcommittee and so we want to uh acknowledge that so uh let me start I'll begin with myself uh Mr generals um our students and parents have been through a lot uh over the last 5 years especially uh during the pandemic years and the latest uh npe um
▶ 0:48:39scores paint a dismal picture um as you mentioned in addition to your impressive career and education policy U and your work on the hill um you're also the mother of two School children can you highlight or maybe talk about some of the particular challenges that students and teachers and families are experiencing um in K through2 education and number two
▶ 0:49:09what are some of specific areas where you believe that schools have moved beyond what their core mission was to do so please yeah happy to speak to this issue my children have attended both private and public school they were enrolled in our local school districts when the uh School District closed schools in March 2020 and I ended up uh pulling them out of the district when the district refused to open in the 21 um in the next school year
▶ 0:49:392021 school year uh so huge problem that I think that we've alluded to here today is the Fallout from those school closures not not the Fallout from the pandemic a germ a disease um did not cause um historic academic failure uh this the way that the education system the K12 system handled it caused that so I I would say uh we will face The Fallout from that uh from the school closures from the disruptive
▶ 0:50:10quarantines and from the um the general policy afterwards to abandon homework to lower standards to just uh do anything that they could to even try to get students back uh because we are facing double the rate of chronic absenteeism now in this post-pandemic era um so the a whole generation is going to be uh dealing with that um I did want to go back to what I said about idea uh we cannot pretend that it's working as is
▶ 0:50:40and so when we're talking about the 8 million students 15% I believe of our nation's students um receiving services or supposed to be receiving services and accommodations under Ida we have to acknowledge that that is broken and that we don't have enough uh special education teachers so special education teachers should be compensated well and treated well we need them in in this system uh another thing that we need to address is uh our literacy crisis the scores are horrific 40% of students below
▶ 0:51:11basic while only 30% are proficient that's a a new reality and um I was thankful that I did have the opportunity to pull my children well I taught my children to read um using the teacher child to read an 100 Easy Lessons book which I recommend to all parents parents need to be in the driver's seat take responsibility for that um but I uh also am am thankful that um they are in private schools where literacy is is emphasized so we need to address how teachers are taught um with when it comes to literacy
▶ 0:51:42instruction what are the ed schools doing and what is um what does that look like in the classroom and then you mentioned uh schools getting off track uh that was another thing that we've seen trend-wise and fortunately my children are protected from that because they are in in um faith-based private schools at this point but uh too many Educators viewing themselves as activists rather than Educators instructors and getting caught up in whatever the latest thing is um of the moment rather than focusing
▶ 0:52:12on core academic instruction I think parents are are done with that and hopefully we'll see a turnaround in that Trend soon okay let me for my time expires uh Dr bur welcome back to this to the uh subcommittee all can you just briefly uh talk about some what you're seeing in the data and how it's showing that uh regarding hiring Trends in schools um both for uh teaching and non teing staff
▶ 0:52:42thank you for that question chairman so if you go back to 1950 and I alluded to this briefly there were 2.36 teachers for every non- teer in a school district in America today it's one to one so state it differently for every teacher you see in a typical District in America there's a non-teaching largely administrative counterpart and so I mentioned that 100% increase in the number of students in public schools across the country and that there was a 243 per increase in the number of teachers and I would just reiterate a
▶ 0:53:1379% increase in the number of non-teaching staff from 1950 to today so that's largely where the money's going so what is the overall percentage of teachers that are actually in the school 47.5% thank you all right now my time is expired I want to turn to Mr Loro thank you Mr chairman a couple of points I think during the the the pandemic I I think it was President Trump who was in uh at the helm in during the pandemic I also I
▶ 0:53:43think it's interesting that once again we're just quoting the the nape survey and we have a crowd of folks at the moment who want to just eliminate nape and the ability to make an an an assessment with which it as for you to draw your conclusions from it just seems to be mindless to do in the agency uh that can give us the information as to whether scores are going up or whether they're going down in which we can make some judgments and which this committee can make judgments as to where we go
▶ 0:54:13anyway the education chapter of president's Trump project 20225 authored by Dr Burke proposes to eliminate the Department of Education cancel title one over 10 years and convert what's left the federal education programs into a quote no strings attached block grant it would seem from the testimony that Dr Burke and Miss gentles view the mere presence of any federal requirements on appropriated funds as burdens quote burdens but when I consider the programs at this subcommittee funds each
▶ 0:54:43year under education laws like idea individuals and um uh with disabilities education I see programs that guarantee fundamental civil rights to students with disabilities the right to a free appropriate public education individualized education plan parent and student participation Dr Burke and Miss gentles I am concerned that you confuse essential protections for vulnerable children in education programs for quote burdens my question is to you
▶ 0:55:14um Mr Kim you were responsible for safeguarding the civil rights of students with disabilities during your tenure at the Department of Education can you explain to parents of children with disabilities across this sttion what it would mean if Elon Musk president Trump and House Republicans got their way and turned Ida into a no strings attached block grant thank you ranking member and thank you for the question um let me just start by saying that you know
▶ 0:55:44we don't have to go back very far in history to know uh what what uh things were like for students with disabilities um even uh prior to uh around the time of 1970 just going back a little bit in time only one in five students with disabilities was educated in in public schools there was a problem here where students with disabilities were labeled um as emotionally disturbed mentally often uh shuttled
▶ 0:56:14to hospitals or asylums so we know that idea when it was passed in 1975 as well as other civil rights laws in the early '70s tried to reverse this and increasingly uh um integrate students with disabilities into the American education system um Ida funding is very specific and uh very targeted to support students with disabilities we have part B of the Ida Grant uh
▶ 0:56:44which is intended to help States and preschool programs provide for special education and related Services we have part C uh which really is to support early intervention for our youngest children infants and toddlers with disabilities and uh it's critical for in that part of the grant to expand enrollment for underserved infants and toddlers including children from low income backgrounds and children living in rural areas and then there's also a part of the Ida which is targeted to help
▶ 0:57:15prepare special Educators uh funding that is so crucial at a time when States and districts um have a lack or shortage of special Educators that are well trained to meet the diverse needs of of all uh Learners so block granting or uh would would lead to a lot of bad results here they would it would increase the risk that funding doesn't go go toward these specified purposes there would be a lack of accountability over the use of funds um I I
▶ 0:57:45I would also mention that idea has long been underfunded and so um we what we need to be doing is to get to the authorized levels of Ida rather than going in the reverse and block granting Which history shows and we've seen studies that when you block grant uh not only does the usages get diverted to other purposes but the actual amount for that program goes down because Congress uh becomes uh more uh skeptical that the uses uh
▶ 0:58:15for that Grant are being used in a way that was part of the intent of the original legislation and so overall the funding goes down the amounts uh the usages get dispersed away from these targeted goals and I think that ultimately harms children with disabilities uh and getting them the essential services that they need is it a a true that the federal government has never met their obligation in terms of of providing resources for the
▶ 0:58:45uh uh idea I can't remember the percentages off hand but we have never met what we established as the goal between the federal and uh State match that's right the that's right ranking member the the amounts have never come close to the 40% authorized level and 4% of the authorized 40% of the authorized level we have never met that goal is this right in terms of the number of about 7 million students with disabilities how many children
▶ 0:59:15were dealing with with disabilities I believe so I could get you the exact numbers but we know that um that number it's high and consistent across districts that every District has significant percentages so that in fact they're they could be essentially losing what their rights are in terms of what we have passed with the Ida legislation and turning that around and we all know what block ranting means we don't have to be educated with that everybody
▶ 0:59:45on this committee both sides knows what block ranting is you take it you send it and it's less money and it's you don't you don't deal with Federal resources just make one more comment my time is long over do um uh but this this is a pattern we're seeing yesterday there was a vote on a budget reconciliation package with the the end result of that would be in terms of Medicaid funding which again would affect kids with disabilities so it seems to be a pattern here thank you Mr Kim yield back Dr Harris
▶ 1:00:16thank you the only pattern is misleading from by the other side that's the only pattern that's clear so let me uh discuss some of the things look if our education system were succeeding with the with increased funding this has been true year after year after year we probably wouldn't be having this hearing the fact of the matter is our public education system is a dismal failure on the world stage a dismal failure you can look at the oecd numbers you can look at all the numbers versus our competitors we
▶ 1:00:46don't we don't compete period And if we hope to compete and if we hope to compete on a global stage we better fix this problem and more money and the and the Department of Education is not going to fix it you know the uh someone on the other side of the aisle said we put put your name on a bill if you want to want to delete the Department of Education my name's on a bill we don't need the Department of Education so
▶ 1:01:16why is the Department of Education failing well because it spends its time instead of promoting Reading Writing and arithmetic oldfashioned as that might be because r dismally failing on the reading and arithmetic part of the Nea na which I'll get to in a second uh it spends its time promoting gender identity men in women's bathrooms Men playing women sports yeah look the title 9
▶ 1:01:46uh regulation was published on a Department of Education letterhead that's why we don't need a Department of Education because it's not concentrating on what we should do which is making sure that our students read and write and know arithmetic that's what we should be concentrating on so I'm going to ask the first question and uh miss gentles the uh OSP in in uh Washington DC you know I'm a proponent of it I have been for years since uh Mr Boehner left and asked me to
▶ 1:02:16advocate for it could you tell us what percentage of those uh people in that program are non-white because we we did talk about this Gap what percent of that program is non-white non-white in the DCP I haven't looked at those numbers for a while but I feel like it's like 98% yeah it's either 98 or 99 so let me see this is a voluntary program where a parent who feels their child is not getting an adequate public education goes to a system funded by the government
▶ 1:02:47uh where they have the choice to go to another school and it's overwhelmingly done by minority don't we see the signals that what Co showed to us is that our Public School Systems aren't in the business of Education they're in the business of supporting teachers unions making sure men can go into girls' bathrooms and men can play in girl sports that's what they that's what they do in the Department of Education we don't need it we simply don't need it let's talk about na
▶ 1:03:17na uh any predictions on what the nap results would be for this year is it going to show us stunningly going to number one in in international competition no it's going to show continued stagnation and we don't do anything with that report because it showed that for years it shows no progress we do exactly the same thing and I think the chairman alluded to this we expect a different outcome na is a waste of money if you're not going to do anything with it and we've
▶ 1:03:47done nothing with it for years and years that's the facts let's talk about block grants why are block grants a good idea because Mr Kim we have A2 trillion budget deficit we better control the growth of spending and one way to control the growth of spending and reduce federal government regulation is block granting it to the states where you trust and I know this is a foreign concept inside the Washington DC Beltway that local people actually make better decisions about how to educate their children and then in my county of Dorchester County I trust my board of education not the State
▶ 1:04:17Board of Education which by the way supports the concept of gender identity education in kindergartens now in Maryland and wants to make sure that they restrict the ability of parents to opt out of that kind of that kind of thing I trust my local County much more and that's why block granting makes sense because we can control the growth and we can control the growth of uh of growth of federal spending uh that way uh finally it was said that 45% of uh of school Personnel are
▶ 1:04:48teachers I don't get it I thought that's what a school was all about it's about teachers and students so you pile on more money you pile on more admin ministrators you pile on more regulators and what do we end up with students who can't read they can't write and they can't do math and they will never compete in a global environment it is high time that we greatly reconsider what we're doing in the Department of Education here and we should do it for our children and we should do it for the children for the parents of those
▶ 1:05:18children who are in failing Public Schools they are crying out for that and I'm a full supporter of occe included in our in our budget reconciliation which will put uh which will put the uh school choice tax credits into our code so that we so that we take the position that President Trump has taken which is every parent deserves the choice of sending their child to a successful School a
▶ 1:05:49back well one could spend a lot of time responding to that uh don't bother but I don't have time uh the fact of the matter is I hope everybody in this room agrees that we need to do the best we possibly can in educating our children uh Frederick Douglas said it is easier to educate young people than to repair broken
▶ 1:06:20men uh miss gentel you I think made a comment uh that special education teachers we need to pay more agreeing with the concept that Mr Kim put forward that money matters there is no doubt that money matters uh at the local level and state level education is largely funded
▶ 1:06:50by property taxes in my view a very for poor form of Taxation in indicating what people can pay uh at the federal level we have a much greater ability to fund uh education and other objects and carry out the concept that our Pledge of Allegiance says that we're
▶ 1:07:21indivisible and we know that children move from Miss Mississippi to Maryland to Maine to Florida to California with a lot of uh incidents of that movement so that we want to have American children educated in a way that they can compete not only with those States but as Mr Harris points out who doesn't want to participate
▶ 1:07:51in the debate apparently uh AC Ross the world and we need to do better and I want to thank you Miss Coleman yours was I think a very positive contribution to this debate and a recognition of how difficult this is because some of it is focused on who's going into whose bathroom I asked people at Town meetings when was the last time you were in the bathroom
▶ 1:08:21with a man if I'm talking to women or when was the last time you were in in a bathroom with women if I at talking to men and they look at me like I'm crazy maybe some of you are looking at the same way because they how would I know how would I know because that's the issue but we spend time doing politically I I I was going to say a different word but uh
▶ 1:08:52which the governor of Utah Republican said was so somewhat irrelevant because there were three or four or five people that it might affect in Utah and you pointed out look we need to deal with all the children I have some sympathy with Charter Schools a because I think they perform a competitive role which ought to get us to higher competition so I don't have a problem with that but I do have a problem if they become draw Downs of resources on
▶ 1:09:22public schools because Public Schools have made great that's what has made America great that's the great leveling not bringing people down however I have a grandson-in-law I suppose it would be called uh who's going to go animite he's 18 he's going to go to animite next year he's at School uh he got I think perfect on math
▶ 1:09:53in the SATs and and uh like a I guess an 8 a 750 or something on the English he went to a public school they must be doing right uh but let me ask you Mr Kim quickly because as I say not enough time to deal with this subject it needs to be dealt with we need to do better we're not doing as well as we should do and by the way Mr Kim am I correct that we cannot at a federal level tell Local Schools what curriculum they ought to be
▶ 1:10:23following that's right the federal government is statutorily prohibited from getting involved in or influencing curriculum and that's been the case for decades in fact Mr Kim am I correct that if we try to do that uh to withhold funds because of curriculum that's illegal that's right the the the the the laws clearly uh allow state the law states that that uh States and
▶ 1:10:54districts are the ones that have autonomy and control over their own curriculum states do most of the work the federal role is very limited already uh the states are the ones that um U manage their operations uh hire teachers establish their own curriculum and standards through their state legislatures let me in closing Mr chairman I know I've gone 23 seconds over say that I'm a strong supporter of Head Start I think it ought to be in the Department of Education frankly Not
▶ 1:11:24Human Services kids are at three and four years old ready to learn uh the first Head Start program that was cancelled for non-performance from 1965 to 1995 the first one that was cancelled was by Donna Shala in the Clinton Administration for non-performers we need to hold Educators accountable because they're doing some of the most important things in our country and we ought to have a positive discussion
▶ 1:11:54on it but I do not see how doing away with a department that is focused on the importance of Education being done away with is accomplishing that objective thank you Mr chairman thank you Mr chairman and thank you for holding this hearing uh I uh I want to just start with just sort of some philosophical questions and I wanted to ask all our panelists uh
▶ 1:12:25do we agree that it's about the kids would you answer that question absolutely yes yes only okay and I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland talking about the best we publicly possibly can educating our children and I I think we're all in agreement on that so I guess the next question I have is do you believe that parents are the primary educators of their children and should
▶ 1:12:55have the opportunity to choose the best educational fit for their children yes I've dedicated my career to that belief okay yes yes yes okay well that's impressive um so if we were in a situation and I know in our constitution in Michigan it talks about a free and appropriate education a education and I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Maryland
▶ 1:13:26that you don't want to take resources from one group of students and divert them to another group of students but let's say we were able to fund this group of students in public education and also able to fund using dollars this group of educate students for an education because those parents felt that they wanted a education that may have a religious component
▶ 1:13:56or something like that and it was not diverting money would you support that kind of an educational system I'm supportive of Education Freedom okay yes every dollar we spend should be student centered and follow children to schools that work for them and are the right fit for them and align with their values okay there should always be options for private and religious education for students uh the the question here is is how do we preserve and Advance a public education system and then as you
▶ 1:14:26mentioned uh representative to not divert dollars uh meant for public education to that seor but if the funding was there for the public schools would you prohibit a family from sending their child to a private school or or a school simply based on you didn't think that the government should fund that parent if funding there is there for public schools that is the one thing that we're talking about today
▶ 1:14:57uh absolutely parents always have the right to attend they already legally have the right to uh raise and educate their children how they say fit in any kind of school environment public private or homeschool and using public dollars you would support that the the primary purpose of government is to fund uh education and to and what I think the focus of this hearing is how how important is it to preserve and protect sir if I could interrupt
▶ 1:15:27you a second I feel like you're dodging my question I mean you're an attorney and you're probably uh trying to figure out a way to say you do not support public dollars going to a private school is that a fair statement it's not fully uh there's Nuance to that because there's always uh public dollars that go toward private education for example with our student loans they help students go to private schools as well and many private uh institutions
▶ 1:15:58receive that funding so it's not a um a unilateral question that I can answer in that particular way all right M I believe that those decisions should be made at the state and local level which we're seeing all across the country today and then there's something called a Blain Amendment are you familiar with a Blain amendment is that sound familiar yes that was an anti-catholic uh provision that was put into many state constitution during a very ugly time in our nation's history in do you believe it's discriminatory
▶ 1:16:281800s um absolutely yeah it was intended to be discriminatory um against Catholics and having their uh alternatives to the to the public school which was which were Protestant schools at the time and then yes I would quote the Supreme Court they've said the Blain amendment was discriminatory that it was quote born of bigotry and should be buried today and thankfully we've moved in that direction and 38 States initially had Blain amendments if you look at a map it was largely States out west as western expansion
▶ 1:16:58took place uh in the the late 1800s more and more States as a condition of admittance into the Union had to adopt what were known as baby blind amendments and they stuck around for many many years over a century but now we've finally seen that chiseled away and we have States across the country that have adopted school choice the Supreme Court has held time and again that that is legal and permissible and the way forward for publicly funding and I should add Public Funding of Education does not mean government delivery of schooling there's a difference between public education
▶ 1:17:29education for the public and public schooling okay thank you very much uh Mr chairman I know I'm over my time I you back thank you Mr chairman and thanks to the witnesses today I kind of liked how you did that represent molard like the quick questions going across so I'm going to try that as well I'm GNA try to follow your example so I think you all would consider yourselves experts in education funding correct is NAD your heads is fine for a quick one you're not so sure you're an expert
▶ 1:17:59I'll ask you the question what percent of Education funding could we cut Federal funding just a percent quick and easy just a number not a sentence a number that's up to you you all are the appropriators so you don't have a number okay next I'll say 90% 90% wow all right that's almost as much as some Republicans talk about genitalia in this committee okay uh next Mr Kim I can say a negative number but I I would say zero okay and Miss Coleman
▶ 1:18:30I honestly don't know yeah so you know what I agree with you those you don't really know offand because it's kind of like a general like you just throw something big out last night we had a bill in front of Congress that cut 45% $330 billion dollar from education now Burke you know you think they're halfway there for everyone else I mean I think the problem is it's not an easy thing to do because if you start going after Ida and Title One funds in places like Wisconsin
▶ 1:19:00where 40 some per of the the children benefit from that either you get bigger class sizes or fewer teachers for students or you're just going to shift that to the property tax so we're already going to steal essentially um you know trillions four and a half trillion dollars from the middle class and those aspiring to be to give a tax break to Elon Musk and Donald Trump and everyone who can belong to Mara Lago but now we're going to also transfer some funding potentially to their property tax that people already just got stolen from so they can pay even more but through a different
▶ 1:19:30form of tax so that Elon Musk and Donald Trump and all those people who belong to marow get a tax cut so I I just was interested because you are experts I consider you all experts on education funding I appreciate your honest answers on that there's one area that I do and Mr Kim you brought it up I want to do a little deeper dive on is and on vouchers and I really think there is a difference between public charter and private charter schools so I appreciate your comments as well miss Coleman so thank you for that but you know Wisconsin was one of the first states that tried this experiment and it
▶ 1:20:00didn't go so well to be honest uh you know originally we gave funding to schools where people who opened up schools uh said they could put their hand on a book and read it they put money towards Cadillacs they didn't you know use it for Education there's been all kinds of problems but right now state after State the Studies have shown 75% of the people who get vouchers already have kids in private schools so that's more tax policy than education policy once again we're back to tax policy and dealing with that also um in recent State voucher programs in Arizona
▶ 1:20:30and Florida families with the highest income brackets got those vouchers so it kind of runs counter I think to what we're trying to do around public education and make sure that everyone has access in Milwaukee when we actually did studies on this we found that the rates of students who exit their voucher schools approaching 20% annually and that uh many of those former uh voucher students saw academic Improvement when returning to public schools so we've been doing this massive I would call scam
▶ 1:21:00to private schools I think it's very different for public Miss Coleman so just know when I say that I'm putting a big Aster on this but there's a lot of schools that aren't performing very well we also had a study in Milwaukee uh that showed uh that there was no better performance levels in fact uh likely just the opposite in certain areas like math and other states right so my question Mr Kim is you know there's a directive by President Trump to put even more funding into transferring this but if this is going to people who already are
▶ 1:21:31sending people to private schools we're not getting any better performance out of these schools and ultimately these are folks who have the most wealth by all the studies we have what exactly are we doing in this experiment thank you for the question um vouchers are spreading at a rapid Pace throughout the country um there are 13 states right now that in which any student no matter whether they've ever been to public school can uh use uh taxpayer
▶ 1:22:01dollars to attend private school to uh be homeschooled and so forth and so there's a lot of issues here one is the amount of of of State resources and then if this federal law moves forward then there would also be Federal resources and programs um they they take money away from the public system and convert them to uh uses for the private sector now nothing against the private sector but here's what's happening
▶ 1:22:32vouchers uh uh transfer those monies they're actually overwhelming for State legislatures once you start a voucher program we see this in Arizona the the money uh spent for that required for that program was 10 times above the estimates for for the expenditures of that program most of them already paying for students already in private schools as you mentioned and when we have these programs and a massive transfer of students from public to private what else goes out the door there accountability teacher standards
▶ 1:23:02what uh students should be taught according to academic standards that um the state has autonomy in the public school system to uh to uh uh prescribe or to set forth what is important to be taught in education and civil rights goes out the door too because in many cases federal civil rights laws are either limited or non-existent as applied to uh private schools so we lose accountability we we lose the ability to ensure equality and a free and openness
▶ 1:23:33of any student no matter what their background uh no matter what their uh uh sexual orientation or gender identity no matter what their disability status is uh no matter whether they have learned English growing up or not and this is what we are transferring um the public system into is that unaccountable system and I will also add that in voucher programs when the money goes and the the resources and the the of the state FIS goes toward
▶ 1:24:03that sector you also lose the ability under federal laws to ensure that states maintain their own contributions to education because many of our federal laws they require not only here we're going to help you out for your most vulnerable students but we're going to require that you maintain your effort in those areas yourself self um as a state and uh without the ability to do that not only does the federal money eventually go down for Education uh and
▶ 1:24:33state money but the state's own contribution goes down for education and this is a snowball effect that we can't let happen in this country because every competitive industrialized nation in the world has a strong and vibrant public education system we do not want to go down the road of Chile or Sweden where there's an erosion of public education and a a transfer to a private system that is not free and open to all students well thank you m Mr
▶ 1:25:03chairman I just think I'd be remiss if I didn't say in Milwaukee over a 15-year period 41% of these schools failed and the average school only lasts about four and a half years so thank you for all your comments Mr Kim I yield back thank you Mr chairman and thank you for the witnesses for being here this morning um I appreciate the opportunity to talk about K12 funding um first I want to say that it was mentioned earlier um Miss Gentiles that uh providing resources for teachers is important and I want to reiterate
▶ 1:25:33that uh we need to empower them certainly with special education uh teachers they deserve uh Kudos in every way shape or form because it is a difficult job also want to give a shout out to my sister-in-law who was a teacher at a charter school in Oklahoma City who does remarkable work and so uh thank you for uh acknowledging our teachers the Department of Education and it's sort of been mentioned here earlier has expanded Way Beyond it is its original intent when it was established in 1979
▶ 1:26:04it was intended to provide targeted support not to dictate education policy from Washington and Mr Kim you just talked about accountability and accountability in vouchers uh uh in States the reality is States should be holding uh their uh districts accountable parent parents should be holding their districts accountable it's interesting to me that we're asking Washington to hold my estate accountable I don't want you to do that I
▶ 1:26:34want you to give those dollars to my state and let them do what they do best within their districts you talked about block grant funding goes down uh and and doesn't actually you know get to the student you know why bureaucracy bureaucracy is the reason that those dollars don't get down to the student um you've seen programs like No Child Left Behind Essa and others that um they the the requirements to get those dollars are so stringent that states have to file
▶ 1:27:04exemptions to be able to get some of the dollars because they can't meet the criteria um it doesn't make any sense I want to reiterate one point we we keep talking or hearing about student funding being slash uh by by Republicans that is not happening let me just say this one thing state and localities 86% of school funding 86% is is coming from the local communities to fund education
▶ 1:27:34Federal o overreach has haded added bureaucracy restricting local decision making and limiting School flexibility and despite increased federal spending student achievement has not improved and we heard that from Dr Harris earlier nape scores are declining gaps in learning persist schools struggle to meet students needs and let me say this was happening uh preco Co has exacerbated that because kids were not in classrooms they were not they were trying to learn via Zoom which was not effective
▶ 1:28:04for most students the solution is not more Federal funding it is smarter policy and less regulations we need to ensure that federal dollars where they are needed are spent efficiently with a focus on results why not incentivizing incentivize States who are doing exceptional work why not reward them for good behavior that's the kind of thing we should be looking at we need policies that prioritize accountability flexibility and most importantly Student
▶ 1:28:35Success um a couple of questions um Miss gtil I want to ask you in what ways has Federal oversight restricted local schools from implementing effective reforms well we've been talking about onerous and burdensome reporting and monitoring and I I I do think we need to be clear that in some states we hear figures like 50% of the staff is allocated to just filling out those forms that go into some drawer somewhere in the US Department of Education and nothing's ever done
▶ 1:29:05with that so that that increase in the um in the administrative staff at the state and District level just for compliance purposes takes away resources that need to be allocated to ensuring that students are successful and that they're receiving what they need um Dr Burke if I could ask you can can you elaborate on how federal education spending has increased while student performance has remained stagnant well it's it's tripled in real terms inflation adjusted over the past half century and student performance let me ask
▶ 1:29:36so to cl to clarify more money doesn't solve our issue correct correct and if if I could take 30 seconds because a lot of myths have been thrown out at this hearing just to address a few of them particularly on Ida um Mr Kim U mentioned earlier that students with special needs were were prior to 1975 mistreated terribly and I agree Public Schools mistreated kids with special needs terribly prior to the Protections in federal law in 1975 nothing that we've talked about or
▶ 1:30:06suggested would change anything in federal protections for kids with special needs what we're talking about is putting funding for Ida Under New Management it has utterly failed and that management is parents right these Public Schools Mr Kim talks about alleged unaccountable private schools the only entities that are unaccountable are public schools these are incredibly unaccountable Public Schools if you're a parent of a child with special needs too often your only hope to getting the services to which you are entitled
▶ 1:30:36under federal law is to be able to afford an attorney to go through a very litigious process to get these Services again to which you are entitled that is complete unaccountability we're talking about Ida not title one so Ida funding as I said we're not talking about touching the funding this is the law that governs it that we're talking about that provides the protections for these students and Mr lauro you mentioned earlier that there is an alleged gap between the appropriation and the authorization you will know as a member of Congress that there
▶ 1:31:06are numerous programs at the federal level for which the appropriation is under the authorization Congress often authorizes spending lots of money we don't have M understand that very very I reclaim my time Mr chairman I'd like to reclaim my time though I I've You' had your opportunity but I I I Rea my then I'll take it up at another point Thank you very very much for time to answer a question I Mr chairman my time has expired so I want to uh yield back but I want to thank the witnesses and certainly Miss
▶ 1:31:36Coleman for your at champion of public charter schools schol schol is it my turn okay all right okay thank you thank you thank you just thank you to the panel I'm Lois Frank I'm from Florida that's who I am okay thank you for being here appreciate discussion I I'll I'll agree with something my colleague just said which is you know funding is not the only important issue obviously
▶ 1:32:07in educating our children obviously educational policies the culture of the area right of the country quality teaching um but I I want to say something uh I've heard some ranting and raving about how uh United States that the students here don't keep up with I guess their counterparts in other countries and I want to just respectfully suggest that so many of these countries where children are doing
▶ 1:32:37well they have very well funded public education all right so that that that is something to note now and and I I do not reject uh private education or the chart of schools I'm I'm for parents having choice but I do to reject sending them tax dollars that's where I stand because I believe that quality education is one of the cornerstones of our democracy it equips young people regardless of their background with knowledge critical thinking
▶ 1:33:07uh and opportunities so they can fully engage in society okay I've given you my point of view of Palm Beach County my people have told me that if the Department of Education is eliminated uh we're going to there'll be reduced funding for tutor in Services teacher training Social Services students and families and college readiness program so of course I think that would be a mistake to do that with that all said Mr Kim I want to take advantage of the fact that you
▶ 1:33:37once were in the uh office of civil rights uh because I there are a lot of things going on today on school campuses both K through2 and college that really concerned me um the anti-Semitic incidences which have drastically and dramatically risen all over the country uh and uh we know that there's that there's something like I think there's something like 12,000 investigations
▶ 1:34:08that were currently going on regarding discrimination racism uh gender violence those kinds of things and all that has been paused by this Administration for what I think are some reasons that that one of my colleagues uh noted before anyway I want to ask you based on your experience first of all uh why is it important if it is important for the Department of Education to take the lead on civil rights
▶ 1:34:38complaints in schools um does the when if ever doeses the uh office civil rights get to investigate a private or a charter school and uh I know that we do have justice department in a different agency but there's certain functions that the Department of Education I know perform before you even get to litigation I'd like to you to talk about that yes thank you
▶ 1:35:08um it is important for the federal government to have a strong civil rights enforcement role here in enforcing federal civil rights laws um the the office for civil rights handles a number of of civil rights laws related to the Civil Rights Act uh the title 9 uh several disability rights laws the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act also the Age Discrimination Act
▶ 1:35:39so there's a number of different um statutes here at play and so the federal government um is uh is has a responsibility frankly to uphold the will of Congress as set forth by multiple decades to ensure equality in this country equal rights uh and to make sure that there's equal educational opportunity in our schools um the OCR 32,000 uh complaints across the country last year that is likely
▶ 1:36:09a vast undercount because as we know not every student or parent who has an issue with how their child was treated is going to have the wherewithal or the time or the courage to file civil rights complaint with the federal government and so U when you think about um shifting that burden that responsibility and and burden because it's a big job down to the States now we have to go canvas our states
▶ 1:36:39what are your civil rights departments like can you handle that volume of complaints I come my organization's uh from a fairly well-resourced state in the state government uh in New Jersey but I can tell you for a fact that they do not have the resources to handle civil rights complaints at that uh of that volume um the the just quickly OCR does have some ability to um as to Charter Schools charter schools are public schools and so the civil rights laws freely apply
▶ 1:37:10to to um charter schools and Charter School enforcement with private schools um it's a different matter you know in in higher ed for example we know that because they they receive federal assistance that there is an ability to enforce civil rights laws in private in higher ed to some extent but at the K12 level largely um uh the civil rights laws application is more limited or non-existent and so there is a difference between public and private and so it relates
▶ 1:37:40to this whole conversation we're having today about the shifting of our public education system to the private sector um then you you foreclose a lot of the federal civil rights enforcement activity uh around uh discrimination by race uh English learner status uh By Sex and all the disability rights laws under multiple laws and and sort of basically upholding the purpose of the idea as well um and then I finally I'll just mention
▶ 1:38:10that you know there's talk of dispersing civil rights functions to other agencies like the Department of Justice I just want to say that that um it's IND um I want to share that that there's a benefit to civil rights enforcement in education happening in an education department many of the enforcement uh uh resolutions that come out of these investigations rely uh not once you determine that there's a legal problem that needs to be remedied the remedies actually um
▶ 1:38:41apply uh what comes to bear in those remedies are is education policy for example uh civil rights investigation involving multilingual Learners well let's say the district has to do something to better improve the outcomes for English Learners that that requires education policy uh knowledge of what best practices are to serve those uh students uh whether they need uh dual language immersion whether they need other related services to what extent they can should they
▶ 1:39:11be pulled out of regular classrooms versus being integrated in classrooms so there's education policy involved in those remedies and also U data and research best practices informed by data and research uh not to mention the interaction with school districts and universities all around the country that kind of relationship and expertise is why civil rights enforcement um can't just be handled by any other agency when it comes to education it should be integrated within the other units of
▶ 1:39:41the department thank you so much your back thank you Mr chair thank you chairman and uh thank you to our Witnesses for being here today I appreciate uh the opportunity and the discussion on whether increased Federal funding uh in K through 12 schools truly improves student outcome or whether it doesn't for decades we've seen Washington pour more and more money into our educational system operating under the assumption that simply spending more will lead to better student performance uh since
▶ 1:40:11the 1960s taxpayers have spent nearly three trillion on federal education funding that's a lot of money per pupil spending in public schools has skyrocketed since then yet test scores have failed to meaning Yul improve reading and math scores have either flatlined or declined and K through2 Public School enrollment has been on a decline and the co pandemic has actually accelerated this trend remote learning was a disaster and $90 billion I think as was mentioned
▶ 1:40:41uh was um was wasted meanwhile the US continues to spend more per student than nearly any other developed Nation yet American students are falling behind their International peers the data is clear simply increased spending is not the solution rather than continuing to throw money at a broken system I think we should focus on what actually works empowering parents giving States the flexibility to innovate and expanding school choice so families aren't trapped in failing schools based on their zip code and I want to give a shout out now to my
▶ 1:41:11home state of Georgia who literally just passed last year and will Implement as of March 1st this year the promise scholarship program now they have uh capped the amount of money at1 about $140 million but that means 22,000 students that are in enrolled in public schools right now in a failing Public School can actually their parents now have that opportunity to send them to a school that is not failing so they get a good education so we're seeing that now the result
▶ 1:41:42okay is the state is taking charge and taking action all right it's not the federal government so school choice whether through vouchers Charter Schools technical education or homeschooling forces the schools to be more accountable to students and prepare them for the workforce when families can choose the best educational environment for their children then the students succeed we've seen this in states that have embraced school choice where students outperform their peers in traditional Public Schools so I think we need an approach that prioritizes
▶ 1:42:13student achievement reduces Federal overreach and spending and ensures that every student has access to highquality education American students deserve a better system than one that prioritizes bureaucracy over results so miss gentles first question for you you highlighted that academic performance is at such historic lows such as 70% of fourth and eth grade students unable to read proficiently and only 28% of eighth graders proficient in math given this undeniable failure
▶ 1:42:44how do you think the money should be best allocated the federal money yes and I'd like to reiterate that when we talk about 30% of students being proficient we have 4 % who are below basic so more students are below basic than are proficient and that is alarming we have a crisis on our hands allocating funds uh needs to be done in a way that's student centered and I think it was misinterpreted that I was arguing for paying special education teachers more as an argument for increasing funding willy-nilly no
▶ 1:43:14we need to be smart about how we're allocating funding so a state like Louisiana that's uh celebrating education and embracing education Freedom providing options Ops for students embracing science of reading improving literacy both training for teachers but and um and then also implementation at the school level um but then also like when they uh have experienced a challenge with recruiting special education teachers math and science teachers at the high school level they've
▶ 1:43:44uh um they've been paying them more so that allocation matters not just a big number going up while test scores go down which chart after chart state after State shows um but allocating in a in a wise way but absolutely at the core that that education Freedom has to be there okay thank you very much um Dr Burke uh you noted that only 65 cents of every federal education dollar actually reaches the classroom
▶ 1:44:14which is a stunning statistic with the rest swallowed by bureaucracy meanwhile the Department of Education has ballooned in size and emping thousands of bureaucrats who dictate policy from Washington in your view what specific Federal programs should Congress immediately eliminate to cut waste and what steps should we take to ensure that federal education dollars if they must exist are spent directly on students rather than expanding bureaucratic payrolls yeah thank you for that question uh the owner should be on the
▶ 1:44:44department of Ed and on on Congress to justify the continued existence of this failed agency in terms of what programs to cut we have used a three-part test to determine what programs to keep so I'll give you the inverse answer is a program ineffective is it duplicative or is it inappropriate for the federal government to run if checks any of those boxes the program should be cut that means as I mentioned earlier about 90% of federal programs that the Department of Education runs would fail that test meaning they would need to be cut those are largely the programs that are competitive Grant
▶ 1:45:15programs not the larger formula funded programs like Ida and title one where funding would be kept but would be managed by other gencies in the case of Ida moving it to HHS uh same with Title One For example uh data collection was mentioned at length move that over to the Department of Commerce under the Census Bureau where it would make more sense for data collection to take place and if I could just quickly on nape because nape is come up uh quite a few times during this hearing just to put the facts out there what was cut was not the main nape
▶ 1:45:45assessment for nine-year-olds and 13y olds it was the 17-year-old long-term Trend assessment so it's two different assessments that we're talking about I just wanted to to put that out there to to clear the record and then um just finally on the research on education Choice which Miss gentle talked about uh very nicely we have studies that are good and studies that are bad the studies that are good are randomized control trial evaluations that show the effectiveness empirically of a given school choice program there are 16 of those of those 16 studies rcts that have
▶ 1:46:15been conducted over time 10 show positive benefits for all or some students in terms of academic achievement four show no results no difference between the uh uh private school choice program and the public system and then two show negative results indeed two show negative results those two results are unique to one state that heavily regulated its school choice programs such that quality private schools refuse to participate and so that's a lesson on overregulation not on the efficacy of school choice thank you very much and I'm
▶ 1:46:45over my time I yield back thank you Mr chairman thanking thank you ranking member and I thank all of our guests today the guests in the room and the guests who have testified uh before us I'm a former educator I'm melene Dean from Suburban Philadelphia I'm a former educator myself I'm also a former state representative who paid close attention to education funding when I was there uh and I am a firm believer that how we educate our children determines not just their future
▶ 1:47:16but our own I truly truly believe that uh and so I will tell you that I'm a little puzzled by the opening predicates and some of the arguments from colleagues on the other side of this dis reciting Grim statistics of failure uh of students struggling uh and then the conclusion cut Federal funding to me that is just an extraordinary non sequor uh it doesn't follow that if you are worried about our students that you want to
▶ 1:47:46reduce funding to our students you want to reduce that which we know programs that we know are working so I question both the dark statistics and the extremely odd conclusions I would think I believe that elected representatives ought to be fighting for greater investments in our students sure look for the waste look for the redundancies but look for the Investments that are making a difference whether it's in counselor special ed Ida investments in our children investments
▶ 1:48:17in our families so I'm going to try to get in quick three questions uh let's see where I was going to start um I want to tell you a little bit about Pennsylvania funding for Education as I said I care desperately about it for K through 12 Pennsylvania schools receive $ 4.67 billion uh the American Rescue plan I was very proud to be a part of uh provided this is 2021 provided Pennsylvania and many many other states uh Pennsylvania with5 billion doll in emergency funding
▶ 1:48:47to deal with what we were dealing with and what families and schools were dealing with uh to uh support longer term recovery of Education following covid and yet take a look at where we are project 20125 page 319 reads quote federal education policy should be limited and ultimately the Federal Department of Education should be eliminated that is the wish of this Administration that is the path that they are on I don't support
▶ 1:49:17that path it is a failure to invest in our kids it's a failure to invest in ourselves uh Mr Kim how has education federal education funding affected Pennsylvania's students that's my first question and then I'm going to ask you about idea and then I'm going to ask you about Federal support for uh some of my colleagues federal education support for some of my colleagues States so number one what what difference have we made in Pennsylvania I think uh you know school
▶ 1:49:47funding in and Pennsylvania has been really affected and benefited by by um the investment of federal funds uh particularly uh in the wake of the pandemic um I would say that uh we know that of those funds now there there may be some here who say that that those funds have been wasteful or not well spent but the research actually doesn't bear that out that we we know that those funds have been uh led to uh improvements
▶ 1:50:18uh of uh G recovery from learning loss uh we have to acknowledge that the pandemic was very harmful in terms of student learning loss and so there was about a half year of learning loss uh experienced uh by students all around the country due to the dev devastating pandemic but the rescue funds did help school districts recover about 20 to 30% of those losses that is even greater for low-income students uh the the recovery
▶ 1:50:48for low-income students and I I think you know in cities like um who really did use those funds well to provide uh things like before and after school learning um summer programs the Philadelphia School System Philadelphia schools um academic supports the gains were much greater they were um upwards of 50% recovery from learning loss so the research shows that that that states like Pennsylvania and other states really did benefit
▶ 1:51:18from those that infusion of funds it's a it's a small um it was a bump up in the federal share for Education uh in the wake of the pandemic but usually historically if you look at the last quarter Century um f the federal share of education has been around between seven and 9% but it's during times of an emergency where the federal government has the ability to help rescue states to help them provide critical education and services after the great dep
▶ 1:51:48uh Great Recession um and after the pandemic those were the two times where the federal share went up to help states to recover and that that's why it's so critical to have a robust Federal role especially in times of emergency when we're all scrambling to um recover to get our kids back in school to provide to provide them with the mental health supports the the and the education that they lost during that time I thank you for that and my time's going to be so tight here
▶ 1:52:19uh just I'll I want to just note that I wish we would fully fund idea my parents in my district uh wish we would do that and they are gravely concerned about cuts to idea finally tell us about red States versus blue States in uh federal education funding uh and what would it mean if uh the red States suffered uh an extraordinary Wipeout of federal funding for Education well I will say that um in 2022 the last
▶ 1:52:49um full year for which we have full data available um about a third of the states in the country uh relied on federal funds to provide one sixth or more of the cost of running their K to2 schools this is like well above the national average um and if you uh the the states are you know I can read them if you want but they are um they are largely you know uh states that uh are in the South and states
▶ 1:53:20that just a second here if I can pull it up just going to test my uh organizational abilities here very quickly so the states that disproportionately relied on federal funds um could you make it real brief we're you're you're already over time yes um Mississippi South Dakota Arkansas Montana Alaska Kentucky North Carolina Louisiana Oklahoma Tennessee Arizona West Virginia North Dakota Texas Idaho
▶ 1:53:52Florida and New Mexico so representatives from those States who are arguing to shut down Federal funding for Education are doing it at the risk to their own students they are the highest riers Reliance of federal funding and also um most of those states are the lowest in terms of the state contribution to education Mr thank you Mr chair Mo thank you Mr chairman and thank you for the hearing um this is certainly
▶ 1:54:23a subject that's really interesting to me I was previously the state treasurer of West Virginia just a few months ago uh before coming here to Congress where I set up and stood up one of the most expansive educational school choice programs in the country called The Hope Scholarship program which has been hugely successful in our state now obviously you mentioned my state on that list we are one of the poorest states in the country that's right um and I will tell you that this
▶ 1:54:53has had a tremendous outcome it has raised our educational outcomes for our students that have used this program now this isn't a voucher program this is completely school choice we set up a digital wallet where people can take their their portion of state tax dollars and apply it to private school home school whatever school they want to go to and it has really I mean just
▶ 1:55:23saved people's lives and we have people in the southern coal fields of West Virginia that are driving an hour and a half to go send their kids to some Catholic School which they're certainly not Catholic many of them to try to get a better education now you are right Mr Kim you know for West Virginia our per pupil St student funding formula onethird of it is State money 2third of it is fed Federal money now
▶ 1:55:53for me I I don't think there's any requirement I don't know why we need to have the Department of Education I'd vote every day of the week I am here to eliminate it if it were possible what I think you need to do is not I'm not talking about getting rid of the funding block Granite back down to the States and let the states control the money it just makes all the sense in the world for us to have control of those and educate our kids
▶ 1:56:23the best way that we see fit and we've seen the educational attainment since Hope Scholarship has come come online rise but in the public schools we did at the exact same time by the way three successive teacher pay raises in West Virginia and continued to watch educational attainment decline it it's not working it's just not working it's not and we got to give parents
▶ 1:56:54the ability to have choice in this country now guess what if you're rich you're already sending your kid to private school this is not what this program is about you got that choice you have a choice by the virtue of being rich you do whatever you want this is about those families that are living in the coal fields of West Virginia to have the ability to be on an even playing field with these rich folks which we don't have a lot of them in West Virginia by the way but to have the ability to be able to go to those type of private institutions or educate
▶ 1:57:24your kids at home so uh to that point uh I not heard anybody talk about this but Miss Burke if you could touch on this I I'm a big believer in national school choice I think we need to have National access to educational savings accounts across the country and for us in West Virginia it'd be great to be able to tap into those federal dollars uh for our students that are have selected School choice and be out there could you talk a little bit
▶ 1:57:54about national school choice and what you think that could look like thank you for the question uh Congressman Moore and if I could just say West Virginia was truly a Pioneer in advancing a universal Esa for families here I mean we for so long the movement just waited with baited breath for a state to finally do a universal school choice program and West Virginia following Arizona did that so it was just tremendous to see for those families and to your earlier question you could imagine a situation in which we block grant
▶ 1:58:24the bulk of existing federal dollars for title one for idea Etc back to West Virginia West Virginia policy makers could then decide we want to take that block grant and leverage it into an additional pot of money for families to marry with the existing scholarship program in West Virginia you could really plus up the funding for that program on your question about Federal options for advancing school choice there are many options there are considerations around a federal tax credit scholarship there are other options that are out there uh more interesting
▶ 1:58:55and newer options uh like conditioning a state's Municipal Bond exclusion on whether or not they have a private school choice program there are populations over which the federal government has clear jurisdiction esas for military families kids from active duty military families are assigned to whatever public school is closest to the duty station to which their parent is assigned give them school choice that's a national security imperative kids in Washington DC make the District of Columbia which is under the jurisdiction of Congress an all school choice District Universal
▶ 1:59:25formally funded formula funded Esa for every single kid in DC and then finally Native American children who attend the worst performing schools in America that was actually the title of a political article a few years ago in 2015 how Washington created the worst schools in America those schools are run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs give those children the opportunity to attend a private school of choice now that makes all sense in the world my time's about to expire but I I think we need to have Universal school choice for these kids and
▶ 1:59:56look we've not had everybody leave the public school system in West Virginia there's a lot of benefits public school system that provide whether it's extracurriculars or maybe certain type of curriculum and things that they do where they're going to stay in public schools but the end of the day to me if we don't make these dollars competitive right and I've heard you know I got sued by teachers unions over this and everything else and every time they complained and were screaming about this it was always about what it was doing to them and no one was talking
▶ 2:00:26about what it's doing to the kids and they don't have their own Union just to be clear so we need to have national school choice in this country there's got to be access for everybody no matter what everybody can access these funds thank you Miss watman Coleman thank you chairman thank you for being here to all the witnesses um I don't want to do a preamble I just need to ask a series of questions the first one is a yes or no
▶ 2:00:56do you support the elimination of the Department of Education yes or no yes or no yes yes no can't do a yes or no most important is to maintain the the funding streams and critical programs thank you in Char schools you can accept a student into a charter school if that student doesn't work out like in October September and November can you send that child back to
▶ 2:01:27the public school from which that child came Char yes or no it's state dependent L by state state by state but largely no if if they do if they do send the child back does the money stay with the charter school no does it go back okay in New Jersey it stays with the Charter School Mr Kim are you are you located in New Jersey yes our organization is located in New Jersey New Jersey to me has one of the most segregated
▶ 2:01:58school systems in the entire country and we've been trying to figure that out and I've worked with the education Law Center from the time I was in the executive branch to the legislative branch and I can't quite figure out why we can't get there other than we don't want to confront the biggest monkey in the room and that monkey is racism I believe in choice I believe in public choice I believe you you should be able to send your child anywhere you want to send your child in
▶ 2:02:28the public school system because you're paying taxes in that state but that's not what have we have all kinds of strange things how to get them into to parochial schools how to get them into private schools Mrs um gentles is that right you what is your vision for for funding education where would that be if it were not in
▶ 2:02:58the Department of Education and can I have short answers because I've got that question to ask of another person so for federal education funding uh the title one and um and the idea could go back to HHS if needed um I I think it's worth exploring that that's of course where it started when there was an H W before the Department of Education something that we haven't talked about is the incredible burden that the competitive grants
▶ 2:03:28cause uh I've heard statistics within the Department of Education that uh even though the competitive grants are only like 5% of the funding that half the staff over at the US Department of Education are working on competitive grants so block granting those competitive grants sending those straight to the states and when you block grant then where would you put them the department how does the funding I don't have a strong opinion on that but I don't know that uh labor HHS there's plenty of options
▶ 2:03:59thank you do do you miss Burke Dr Burke have a strong opinion on where the money would go yeah so at the end of the day every single dollar should be controlled by families full stop so how does it get to them the best way to do that is a two-part um path one is block granting these large formula funded programs and then giving States the option to make those student centered important so what I described a minute ago as the West Virginia example and again I think keeping the formula a lot of the large formula grant programs not
▶ 2:04:29all of them and moving them to more appropriate receiving agencies HHS uh I would say that OCR at Ed should go over to doj OCR that it is duplicative so there are places not this department of justice for there are places for programs to go that are more appropriate so Mr Kim is is not an important function of the federal government as it relates to civil rights and education was to make sure that the states who had no respect
▶ 2:05:00no desire to see that CH poor children black children Brown children non-english speaking children weren't getting the same access to equal education is that not the function one of the functions of the office of civil rights that's right the office for civil rights enforces multiple laws that came up through the Civil Rights era war on poverty era um to make sure that that across the country that there was um
▶ 2:05:30enforcement and equality on these protected categories and so that was what Congress intended um and then that's why the enforcement responsibility stays at the federal level in the department so Mr cim what's impact of the elimination of the Department of Education on equal access to education even though we've that's a goal and we've not um met
▶ 2:06:00met it yet what is the impact of the elimination of the Department of Education and the accountabilities in it on actually ensuring that our children get an education that prepares them for the future so that they can take care of me when I get old the function of equal access actually runs throughout the department if you know when when we
▶ 2:06:30it's not just OCR although OCR is a critical agency there's also units that deal specifically with students with disabilities with multilingual Learners and uh even the elementary and secondary unit all of those programs essentially are trying to ensure access for the most vulnerable students so to lose that that ability to focus on the most vulnerable and ensure equality would be really devastating to this country uh we have to remember that first of all the department is the smallest
▶ 2:07:01agency by far uh uh minuscule compared to the larger agencies that have hundreds of thousands of employees there's not a lot of fat in this agency um so it was it was really the this the dispersion the dispersing the functions to different um agencies would be really harmful to the public because they would have to schools would have to go to multiple different agencies to seek redress or help which is really inefficient for
▶ 2:07:31state and local actors as well Kim I understand uh because of the history of the amount of time you've given other colleagues that I've got at least three or four more seconds that I will use um I've tried to be lenient to the to both sides I've just I know and and and M Mr chairman you you are but I've been listening and I've been watching and so I know that I had a few more seconds I almost forgot
▶ 2:08:01the point that I wanted like said it's not a magic number I just try to sort of cut off so we have a lot to do to ensure that our children get a decent education I agree with you when you say it's not all about money it's how the money is spent one of the things I want to raise is that some of that money that's going to schools now are for things like magnetometers
▶ 2:08:31and police officers because our Republican colleagues won't help us get guns off the streets of the United States of America and perhaps if we did that we could put more money into counseling and teaching and less into having to protect and I thank you and I yield back yeah like I said let me clarify I I try to be fair and I guess I may just have to go back to the five minute so I I Goodbody yeah we're I think
▶ 2:09:01you've set the record now so it's over so miss Leto thank you Mr chairman and thank you to all the witnesses for sharing my passion for education I think we can all agree uh in this room that if you educate a child you give them a future and so I thank you for all your efforts in that uh it's no secret that I a huge proponent of char schools and um as I visited uh my Charter Schools it's been increasingly clear how tedious and costly and long the administrative processes for starting
▶ 2:09:31new charter schools and it's important that new schools are high quality and up to serving our students as these schools are shaping our Future Leaders it's also important that the Department of Education is not create creating overly burdensome hurdles to the point where it discourages prospective Charter applications and hinders Innovative approaches to education so to address these concerns last Congress I introduced the empowered Charter Schools Educators to lead act a bipartisan bill which authorizes States who receive grants through
▶ 2:10:02the charter school program to use a portion of their funding to support the application process and the development of new Charter Schools I'm in the process of reintroducing that bill very soon Mrs Coleman as head of the National Alliance for public charter schools how could access to a planning Grant and increased technical assistance ease the way for additional charters schools to open in my state of Louisiana and across the country thank you so much for your leadership on this issue we're incredibly grateful for you thank you um it is incredibly
▶ 2:10:32difficult to open a new charter school today between the increasing political nature of the authorization process and the cost of new buildings and as you mentioned the really complex and burdensome requirements that the Department of Education is putting on new Charter Schools it's harder than it has ever been to get new campuses open so the work that you're doing to ease some of that burden is incredibly valuable for our community um the way that those planning grants will work is um helping I for uh existing
▶ 2:11:02teachers today in our Public Schools who have an idea and a dream about how they could do something a little bit different or a little bit better to make a a school community that would serve their children uh or their Community um well to make that dream a reality uh would require today Educators to quit their job and spend a full year or more in the application drafting process that's that's unreasonable um it's a
▶ 2:11:32burden that teachers should not have to bear just because they have an idea about how to serve kids better so these planning grants would give them the support they need while they are drafting their application um so that they can turn in an application to their state authorizing agencies to get approval for those new schools and be ready to roll as soon as the state um the state authorizing entity says yes to them they can open the doors more quickly and more effectively thank you for your answer I'm so hopeful this legislation will get
▶ 2:12:02through I was inspired by a charter school that uh was opened in Northeast Louisiana called the ace charter school and I know that the founders spent over two years in the planning process 250 Pages back and forth and this is a charter school to provide education for autistic students and the waiting list is uh through the roof as far as students trying to get in so I'm hopeful that we can work together to get that uh passed um okay my next question is so over the last few years under the previous administration we've witnessed parents being pushed to the side even being
▶ 2:12:32labeled domestic terrorists however parents truly desire to increase transparency around their children's education and simply have a seat at the table it's common sense and rather than opening the doors to welcome parents and as partners some of my colleagues outside aacy groups and teachers unions would rather slam them shut and have the government bureaucrats make the decisions I worked in education before I came to Congress and I'm also a mother and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that when schools attempt to educate children without buying from parents it leads
▶ 2:13:03to disastrous results and I personally don't know a teacher who doesn't welcome parental involvement last Congress I introduced and worked with my colleagues to pass hr5 the parents Bill of Rights Act which was about finding ways that we can put parents and Educators at the same table and have a productive dialogue about how we can help our children succeed Mrs gentles thank you for the shout out to Louisiana earlier and Dr Burke I understand you both are longtime education policy leaders how does parental involvement in child in
▶ 2:13:33their child's education improve Student Success and outcomes well I think everybody uh in the room would agree that parental involvement is essential Studies have shown that um it's just a fact in education policy there's things that are fluid over time with education policy there trends that hold steady that holds true and unfortunately we do have a culture now that often is Union controlled bureaucratic controlled and the system takes priority over over the student and the parents are are
▶ 2:14:03shut out and so there are going to be uh steps that need to be taken at the federal level to address furpa to address PPR things that you tackled in the parent Bill of Rights and I look forward to seeing what you do in this congress with that and and if I could just add you know the secret sauce of school choice isn't necessarily Shifting the funding but it is is about increasing parental involvement that's what it does at the end of the day is it puts the dollars in the hands of the people who care more about their children than anybody else in the whole wide world and enables them to make that decision and you know one of
▶ 2:14:33my favorite education policy quotes of all time was from Dr Patrick Wolf at the University of Arkansas who said that what school choice really does is it moves parents from the margins to the center of their children's academic experience so I think that really is key thank you so much to all the witnesses I harder thank you so much chairman aderhold for holding this hearing today uh this is a very personal issue for me uh growing up my brother David had an IEP and I've seen firsthand how the special education
▶ 2:15:03funding uh provided by our federal government had an enormous role in his life uh I saw how transformational and lifechanging it was to see all the Investments his teachers made in him and into the man that he is today uh and I'm grateful for that and I think not just was it the right thing to do it's actually saved our community and our country a lot of money by making sure that him and others were able to get on the right path and life and I
▶ 2:15:33think it's a little frustrating to hear some of the comments that we've had in this committee today about how what we're talking about today is block granting special education funding to States shifting funding around when we're sitting here the morning after a vote that would cut three $30 billion out of the education department uh so this isn't shifting funding we're not talking about keeping levels the same and just giving the responsibilities to somebody else we're talking about massive Cuts
▶ 2:16:04uh cuts that would be dwarfed by the current amount of resources that we have to Ida and title one uh dollars that would mean fewer teachers it would mean fewer counselors it would mean fewer special education AIDS larger class sizes less Behavioral services and ultimately worst educational outcomes for kids like my brother the most vulnerable kids in our classroom and frankly it makes me a little angry uh when I hear folks talking about moving the ball around and trying
▶ 2:16:34to hide what this funding is actually meaning when in reality we're talking about cutting resources for the kids that need it most so I'd really just love to to have a little bit more clarity from our Witnesses here today about what this is going to mean for our students and whether or not they actually support what we actually saw happen in Congress last night which was a cut to the Department of Education and a massive cut ultimately to special education resources that are going to kids
▶ 2:17:04Dr Burke do you support gutting and cutting funding for special education yes or no no I support putting those dollars in the hands of parents great so you you would have you would have voted no on the bill last night no look that's not what was in the bill first of all this is a reconcil Bill where you can only tackle mandatory you support cutting $330 billion from mandat and so all that was tackled to in that budget bill was higher education spending so I think we're probably talking about two different proposals so you do not support
▶ 2:17:35cutting $330 billion from the Department of Education First of all 330 million you said or billion billion billion the department of Ed budget's less than 100 billion so there's literally no way they could have cut 300 billion from the Department of Ed over The Bu so the budget there's no way that they cut 330 billion from the Department of Ed with discretionary spending because that cannot happen in that particular proposal so but I would support taking those existing federal dollars for students with special
▶ 2:18:05needs and putting those dollars in the hands of families to choose an appropriate public education or private education for their children your opposition is is uh is is noted and thank you I I'm great it's great to hear that you do not support cutting Ida funding uh which is in opposition to where most of the members of this committee are Miss Coleman do you support cutting uh higher education funding or or special education funding rather no tremendous Miss gentles absolutely not as you might have seen
▶ 2:18:35in my testimony I had a child with an I cried in my car after every meeting I don't think that the Ida process is working I know it's not parents have to sue to get services and accommodations but uh Ida is essential and let's get that funding allocated in a way that serves students great Mr cim absolutely not and we need to also worry about um how Ida funding Not only would be reduced with the upcoming budgets but also converted into block grants or
▶ 2:19:05vouchers because that would then frustrate the idea itself because those entities receiving those grants if if they remained for special education purposes would no longer be subject to the idea so there's a lot of danger here in not only reducing but in Shifting the way the money is distributed that could lead to an exodus from the Civil Rights protections that this federal government has erected over the last 60 years well thank you
▶ 2:19:35but I think the most important point that I'd like to make is that we're not talking about a shift we're not talking about keeping funding levels the same I think it's a little disingenuous to act like that's what the discussion is actually about when we are the morning after a vote that would Advance an agenda to cut enormous amounts of money from education and ultimately from Title One and special education programs because there's only one way that we can make that work thank you Mr chairman and I yeld back okay well thank we had a very good hearing oh Mr Laur I think you will make some closing
▶ 2:20:05but I have literally I am speaking and I have got to leave in about a minute so if you could keep your comments to a minute it's G to be yeah I like be very clear um um Miss colan first of all I want you to know I do support Charter Schools I do not want charter schools to supplant public education where 90% of our kids are but there is a role for public Charters but the fact of the matter is is that we can't move in a direction that supplants our public education uh system
▶ 2:20:36you should know about this subcommittee um on on the on the Republican side there was an amendment a number of years ago um uh the Massi Amendment and that said let's cut all federal funds for K through 12 self education I don't know if any of you agree with that but I will tell you there was one person who was not in the Congress at the time and there are eight people on this committee one was not here but five of the seven remaining people voted to
▶ 2:21:06take out federal resources for K through 12 education to reality 166 Republican members did that five of seven on this committee it's about $42 billion so the notion that we can just willy-nilly cut education it's consistent it's not a oneoff and so forth now you know Dr Burke authored the project 2025 a peace on education so quite honestly it doesn't surprise me that we
▶ 2:21:36you would look at things that mislead Us in terms of justifying uh what is an ideological goal of cutting public education for 50 million American Kids you would cut 90% mostly competitive grants six billion of the 44 billion are competitive grants K through 12 special education are competitive grants so to be straight with us 90% cut to the department means Title One and idea are on the chop chopping block
▶ 2:22:06in terms of Appropriations and the bills that are coming up right now there is a $4.7 billion cut to title one I will just say Ida is level funded there is a claim that 40% of the budget supports teachers National Center for educational statistics shows teachers and principles 66% of all school systems that doesn't count instructional coordinators custodians or bus drivers now this is an effort that Mr mus mus
▶ 2:22:37would like to cut my colleagues have talked about the $330 billion just this last comment of uh Mr chairman the crossroads report Secretary of Education uh Richard Riley and I quote him it is disheartening to see some of the same people who work to abolish the Department of Education using these kids of desperate last minute attacks to undermine our work to build effective strategies for improving student achievement the goal the overall goal that is represented
▶ 2:23:07here in some respects not everyone and members of this committee and on the other side of the aisle and what we're seeing coming forward with what happened last night is there is a deliberate attempt to cut the funding for public education in this country and it is where 90% of our students are and it is where and that cuts back the American dream and that means let's move to private education let's take it out of the realm of public education
▶ 2:23:37and serving every single child in this country and not those few who can get a you know it was Clayborne pel Clayborn pel to the manor born who said let's give the opportunity for low low income kids middle inome families to get their kids to school you some of you here would deny that opportunity and clearly the Republican majority in this Congress would deny that opportunity for our children thank you Mr obviously everyone has a lot of strong feelings on education and thanks all
▶ 2:24:07of our panelists for being here have a great uh afternoon and uh we look forward to working with you as we uh work on trying to make education uh great again thanks
▶ 2:24:49e e