▶ 0:11:50The subcommittee on early childhood, elementary, and secondary education will come to order. I note that a quorum is present. Without objection, the chair is authorized to call recess at any time. Over the past 25 years, charter schools have emerged as the single most impactful reform in American public education.
▶ 0:12:09Designed to provide public tuitionfree alternatives with increased flexibility in exchange for accountability, charter schools have grown from a handful in the early 1990s to over 8150 schools serving more than 3 mill7 million students nationwide by 2024.
▶ 0:12:27In addition to providing parents with meaningful choices for their children, research shows that charter schools have been have particularly benefit benefited low-income students and students of color in urban areas, creating new and innovative education models, extended learning time, and higher college readiness rates. Indeed, a 2023 study from Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes showed that in math, charter school students learn the equivalent of an additional six days per year and in reading added 16 days of learning.
▶ 0:12:58The results are especially striking for atrisisk students. Students in poverty achieve an additional 23 days of learning in reading and 17 days in math. Many charters have narrowed or even eliminated achievement gaps. Results like these are remarkable. As the recent nation's report card made clear, our education system has been in a state of steady and alarming decline. But charters are a rare bright spot.
▶ 0:13:25It's uncommon to find widespread education innovation that succeeds, helping millions of students year after year. But charter schools do exactly that. And the benefits of charter schools go beyond just academic results. Charters open doors to innovation for teachers and administrators. Charter school autonomy encourages teachers to pioneer fresh teaching methods, schools to develop better hiring practices, and educational boards to innovate in budget management.
▶ 0:13:52Charter schools also make it easier for parents to find schools aligned with their family's values. Perhaps that's why a national survey found that 81% of parents support expanding the number of slots in existing charter schools in their area and 78% want more charter school offerings in their area. Today we'll hear testimony about charters across the country that are getting amazing results for their students. We'll hear that charter schools are among the best educational options for high poverty and minority students.
▶ 0:14:23We'll hear expert testimony that charter schools actually motivate traditional public schools to improve because of the healthy effects of competition. Indeed, there's a tipping point for charter school enrollment in a given region that lifts up all students whether they're in charters or not.
▶ 0:14:39Yet somehow, despite this incredible record of success, charter schools have come under attack from certain elected officials and special interests who were intent on keeping students trapped in failing schools. Nowhere is this more evident than in my home state of California, a state that once led the way on charter school expansion, but is now ground zero for the assault on educational freedom.
▶ 0:15:06California has more charter school students than any other state with over 700,000 children attending 1,281 schools. These schools serve over 12% of all public school students and overwhelmingly serve low-income and minority families. But since taking office, Governor Gavin Newsome has led a relentless campaign to dismantle the charter school success story.
▶ 0:15:28His administration has signed laws to block new charters, deny renewals, and choke existing schools with red tape and funding cuts. The two-pronged strategy is playing out as we speak. First, use state law and district politics to block new charter schools and deny renewals and expansions for existing ones.
▶ 0:15:50Second, strip successful schools of their autonomy and bury them under the very bureaucracy and labor constraints that have paralyzed traditional schools. The goal is clear. Protect a failing monopoly by eliminating competition. Instead of replicating what works, politicians in California and other states are punishing success and students are paying the price.
▶ 0:16:17Yet, at this moment, we have an opportunity to support charters in powerful ways and expand their enrollment nationwide. Congress can pass the Highquality Charter Schools Act, which through strategic tax credits aims to vastly expand the numbers of proven successful charters across the country.
▶ 0:16:36Specifically, the bill establishes a 75% federal track tax credit for charitable contributions toward the startup costs of nonprofit charter school organizations that have a proven track record of excellence. If the highquality charter schools act were to become law, we would see tremendous schools like Success Academy and KIP multiply across the country with up to six million more students enrolling.
▶ 0:17:01This would be an enormous benefit not only to those students but to all students as the expansion of charter schools along with the private school choice enabled by the educational choice for children act would be a powerful force for education reform across the country.
▶ 0:17:17And I do have to say I was very disappointed when the text of the reconciliation uh bill for the ways and means committee came out a couple days ago that there was nothing for charter school families in that text.
▶ 0:17:33It was a tremendous victory to see uh the tax credit envisioned by the ECCA included, but it was incomprehensible to me that the bill would not seek to use this perhaps once in a generation opportunity to expand the charter school movement uh across the country.
▶ 0:17:54We have Democrat politicians like Gavin Nam or politicians in New York who have been attacking charter schools relentlessly despite their incredible success. And if Republicans are not willing to stand up for charters, then I don't know who will be. So, I am strongly encouraging my colleagues to assure that the final text includes tax incentives to vastly expand the number of charter schools across the country.
▶ 0:18:23With that said, I'm looking forward to today's hearing. I'd like to thank all of our witnesses to attending and I for attending and I yield to the ranking member for an opening statement. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here. Uh, charter schools, as a reminder, are public schools that receive taxpayer dollars. At their best, they offer potential for innovation, flexibility, and responsiveness to community needs.
▶ 0:18:47But at their worst, and too often in practice, they operate without adequate oversight, without sufficient safeguards for civil rights, and without the transparency required of traditional public schools. That matters because the consequences fall heavily on black and brown students. This Saturday marks 71 years since the landmark Supreme Court Brown versus Board of Education decision. Yet, our nation still struggles to provide equitable access and opportunity for all students. Without meaningful guard rails, charter schools can become a driver of segregation.
▶ 0:19:17And we've seen this before. After Brown, resistance to integration took many forms. Private segregationmies, neighborhood school policies, and later school choice plans. Today, we must ask whether we are repeating that history under a different name. The data is sobering. Charter schools on average are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in nearly every state and major metropolitan area. Research shows that the expansion of charter schools has measurably increased school segregation.
▶ 0:19:46It's reduced the likelihood that black and Hispanic students attend school with peers of other races. And that racial isolation is often paired with economic isolation, compounding inequality. This is not a theoretical concern. Segregated schools are underresourced schools. They're more likely to employ less experienced teachers, offer fewer advanced courses, and struggle to provide essential student supports. This harms not only students of color, but the entire promise of public education. Research shows that many charter schools face additional challenges.
▶ 0:20:16For example, teachers tend to be less experienced and have higher turnover rates than those in traditional public schools. Charter schools close at a higher rate than traditional public schools. and they have found in some cases to have higher risks of waste, fraud, and abuse than traditional public schools. I served in the Oregon legislature and I was on a committee formed to examine Oregon's charter school policies and practices 10 years uh after our enabling statute passed.
▶ 0:20:41And we have many questions then that remain unresolved today, including how are charter schools determining which students to enroll, who serves on their boards, to whom are they accountable? What happens to students when charter schools close? And how can we prevent charter schools with poor outcomes, especially online charter schools, from proliferating?
▶ 0:21:00A November 2024 report by the National Center for Charter School Accountability and the Network for Public Education called Doomed to Fail, an Analysis of Charter School Closures from 1998 to 2022 found that more than 25% of charter schools closed within 5 years of opening. This increases to 49% within 15 years of opening.
▶ 0:21:21Several audits by the Office of Inspector General in the US Department of Education identified problems with charter schools and charter management organizations, including conflicts of interest, lack of accountability of federal funds, waste, fraud, and abuse, and failure to provide students the services that are required by federal programs, and also unresolved compliance issues, among others. This hearing is not about attacking charter schools as a concept. It's about a responsibility to every student.
▶ 0:21:48Our responsibility to guarantee that the growth of charter schools does not come at the expense of equity, inclusion, and civil rights and the rest of the more than 90% of the students who attend traditional public schools. It's our responsibility to examine whether current policies help us move forward or if they reinforce the barriers we spent generations trying to dismantle. Congress has tools to advance these goals.
▶ 0:22:12We have the strength and diversity act and the equity and inclusion enforcement act that offer targeted supports to school districts that are working to develop, implement and expand desegregation initiatives. And the bill I co-lead with Representative Deluro, the championing honest and responsible transparency in education reform or charter act would prevent for-profit entities from managing charter schools and siphoning taxpayer dollars from children for their financial gain rather than for the benefit of the students they enroll.
▶ 0:22:40Together, these bills would help close achievement gaps, support integration and accountability, and fulfill the vision laid out in Brown. But we also must look beyond charter schools as part of the conversation. We should be asking what we can do to improve our nation's public education system for all students in all public schools to help them succeed to their best of their abilities. In 2015, we passed the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act. That law intended for funding to be directed to those most in need to address address achievement gaps.
▶ 0:23:10ESSA provides flexibility to states and districts to determine how to make improvements and it focuses on a well-rounded education that includes the arts and better quality assessment. But ESSA has never been implemented with fidelity since it was signed into law. That I submit would be a worthy task for this committee. It's also important to address the other issues that affects students ability to learn, including hunger, mental health, and access to facilities that are free from lead and asbestous.
▶ 0:23:37It would be I would be remiss if I didn't mention the irony of my Republican colleagues continuing their hearings about closing gaps and opening doors in education. While the president is actively dismantling the Department of Education and terminating grants for public education initiatives, uh, President Trump's budget proposal invests additional funds in charter schools, but slashes 4.5 billion dollars from other K12 education programs where, again, as a reminder, more than 90% of the students are enrolled.
▶ 0:24:05Republicans on this committee just voted to cut $330 billion dollars from higher education, ending the student loan programs that truly opened doors of opportunity for underserved uh committees. So, I hope today we see a real commitment to making public education accessible, accountable, and exceptional for every student. Schools that receive public public dollars must be part of a public education system that is accountable, transparent, and committed to equity. We cannot afford to ignore the evidence.
▶ 0:24:32If we're serious about giving every child, regardless of race or zip code, the opportunity to thrive, we must design our school system to deliver on that promise. I also look forward to the conversation, and I yield back the balance of my time. Pursuant to committee rule 8C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5:00 p.m. 14 days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements.
▶ 0:25:02and other extraneous material uh noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I note for the subcommittee that some of my colleagues who are not permanent members of the subcommittee may be waving on for the purpose of today's hearing. I'll now introduce our four distinguished witnesses. Our first witness is Mr. David Griffith, the associate director of research for the Thomas B. Foreom Institute in Washington DC.
▶ 0:25:23Our second witness is one of the truly great education leaders in America today, Miss Eva Moscowitz, the CEO and president of national strategy and advancement for the success academy charter schools in New York City. Our third witness is Dr. Genevie Seagull Holly, a professor of educational leadership at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. And our fourth witness is Mr. Daryl Cobb, the president of the Charter School Growth Fund in Chicago, uh, Illinois.
▶ 0:25:51We thank the witnesses for being here today and we look forward to your testimony. Pursuant to committee rules, I would ask that you each limit your oral presentation to a threeminut summary of your written statement. The clock will countdown from 3 minutes as committee members have many questions for you and we'd like to spend as much time as possible on questions. However, pursuant to committee rule 8D and committee practice, we will not cut off your testimony until you reach the five-minute mark. I'd also like to remind the witnesses to be aware of their responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. I'll first recognize Mr.
▶ 0:26:20Griffith for your testimony. Thank you, Chairman Kylie, Ranking Member Bonomichi, and distinguished committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is David Griffith, and I'm the associate director of research at the Thomas B. Forom Institute, a nonprofit think tank committed to advancing educational excellence for all students.
▶ 0:26:43In the past decade, I have been involved in more than a dozen empirical studies of charter schools, which are also the subject of my forthcoming dissertation and book. As the charter school sector continues to grow, it's vital that we understand not only how these schools affect the students they enroll, but how they affect public education systems as a whole. Today, I'll share the latest findings from my own research, as well as the work of other leading scholars. Collectively, these studies paint a clear picture.
▶ 0:27:11Highquality charter schools can produce meaningful systemwide benefits for students. In recent years, numerous studies have found that enrolling in a charter school generates significant academic benefits, particularly in urban areas and for traditionally students. Importantly, this research suggests that unlike nearly every other K12 education program, the charter sector has improved as it has expanded for at least four reasons.
▶ 0:27:39First, the percentage of charter schools that are relatively new has declined, and new schools tend to get better over time. Second, a growing percentage of charters are affiliated with missiondriven nonprofits like Success Academy, and these charter management organizations have a particularly strong track record. Third, charter school policy has improved as states and localities have learned from one another's experiences with more choice-based systems. Finally, many low-performing charters have closed.
▶ 0:28:09Critics of charter schools often claim that they harm traditional school districts. Yet, research by the Forom Institute and others suggests that districts revenues per pupil often increase as charter market share rises due to so-called hold harmless policies. Moreover, a substantial literature now suggests that district-run schools tend to improve in response to competition from charters. If both enrolled students and students in district schools benefit from charters, their systemwide effects should be positive.
▶ 0:28:39So, in a recent national analysis, I examined how marginal increases in charter school enrollment or charter market share affected the average achievement of all students in a public school system, including those in traditional public schools. Overall, the results suggest that these enrollment increases are linked to systemwide gains in both reading and math achievement by the end of middle school, especially in urban areas and for traditionally disadvantaged students.
▶ 0:29:06In short, charter schools are not a silver bullet, but they have demonstrated their ability to raise student achievement and improve public education systems. Broadly speaking, charter schools thrive under policies that prioritize quality over quantity, promote transparency and accountability, and provide equitable funding. I urge this committee to support such policies. Thank you very much. I'll next recognize Ms. Moscowitz for your testimony.
▶ 0:29:37Thank you. Uh thank you, Chairman, and members of the committee for having me. It's a great opportunity and I appreciate being here. Uh my name again is Eva Moswitz. I'm the founder and CEO of Successmies. I started 19 years ago with 165 kindergarteners and first graders. Today I am educating 22,000 children across K through 12.
▶ 0:30:03Success Academy is the fourth largest school district in the state of New York. Uh but what I'm most proud of uh is the academic outcomes. Uh so we are number one in the state of New York in mathematics including outperforming the most affluent school districts in the state of New York. We are number three in reading again uh not just closing the achievement gap but actually reversing the achievement gap.
▶ 0:30:34100% of our students for eight years in a row have gone off to fouryear colleges. Um whereas in America only 22% of students take at least one AP at successmies 95% of our students have taken and passed one AP.
▶ 0:30:56Uh, and I'm here today to talk about what is that secret sauce because it's much simpler than I think sometimes policy makers or the American public uh make it seem to be. There are lots of tools in the toolkit from small class size to more money.
▶ 0:31:14I would argue that providing a structured, joyful, focused learning environment with an exceptional teacher training and education training program is really our secret sauce. Not only do we have rigorous academics in elementary school, but we have robust arts and athletics. And I should just clarify that 94% of our kids are black and brown.
▶ 0:31:4280% live below the poverty line. And I'm sure as you can appreciate living just below the poverty line doesn't mean that if you are slightly above it, you are a wealthy uh person. Our kids come from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and yet the bar is held high and they do exceptionally well. I appreciate chairman your um advocacy of the highquality charter schools act.
▶ 0:32:09I don't see how we can be for universal school choice if we don't include both private school choice and public school choice. And unfortunately, that was left out of the equation. And I'm hoping that it can be uh put uh back in because this is a unique opportunity to materially impact the lives of children. This bill would create and benefit up to six million children.
▶ 0:32:38And we can talk about policies in the future, but we are losing the global educational competition now. America is at a low point, a historic low point when it comes to educational outcomes. And so there's, I feel, a tremendous sense of urgency to correct course quickly.
▶ 0:32:59And these companion bills would um give us a a an opportunity to pragmatically in a common sense way um advance the cause of children. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'll next recognize Dr. Seagull Holly for your testimony. Good morning chair and members of the committee. My name is Genevieve Seagull Holly and I'm a professor in the School of Education at VCU.
▶ 0:33:30I'll be testifying in my personal capacity today. Over the past decade and a half, I have studied school segregation and policy options for addressing it because charter schools grew rapidly during that period as well as broader interest in the idea of school choice. Both have been an important focus of my work.
▶ 0:33:50This morning, I will outline the persistence of deep inequality and lack of civil rights protections in our charter schools and how the federal government could better protect students, families, and their communities. My written testimony goes into considerable evidence-based detail about these issues, and I of course welcome further questions from the committee.
▶ 0:34:11Today, when I speak about civil rights protections or guard rails, I'm talking about the protections that are supposed to ensure that all of our children have equal access to educational opportunity irregardless of their backgrounds. These rights are protected by our federal government through legislation like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act passed by Congress because of exclusionary practices in our schools and communities. My basic argument today is this.
▶ 0:34:42Charter schools receive public funding and therefore should be equally available to all students. Allow me to draw your attention to the persistence of inequality and lack of civil rights protections in charter schools along several key dimensions. Charter school segregation by race and class is stark and related to unequal educational opportunity.
▶ 0:35:03Black and Hispanic charter school students are more likely to attend segregated schools with draconian discipline, fewer challenging or college prep courses, higher likelihood of closure, higher teacher and leadership turnover, and less experienced teachers than black and Hispanic students in our traditional public schools. While the charter sector disproportionately serves students of color, charter schools can also act as havens for white and middle class flight.
▶ 0:35:30Charter schools are also less likely overall to educate students with special needs, and when they do, charters tend to educate students with less severe disabilities. Charter expansion impacts public school segregation and resources. In large districts where the charter sector expanded the fastest, school segregation increased the most. Resources funneled to the charter sector negatively impact public schools in both urban and rural districts.
▶ 0:35:59Importantly, charter school segregation isn't just a result of family preferences who, for the record, support racially integrated schools. According to polling conducted on the 70th anniversary of Brown, charter school segregation is also a result of charter schools choices, their preferences for certain kinds of students and families.
▶ 0:36:21Charter schools choose through targeted outreach, niche programming, requiring families to provide their own transportation, providing limited educational services, requiring family involvement, and arduous or criteria based application processes. Even though charter schools can shape enrollment to their advantage, unlike traditional public schools that must serve all assigned students, charter school student achievement and outcomes remain a mixed bag.
▶ 0:36:49Civil rights guardrails for school choice can explicitly counter some of the ways charter shape enrollment and segregation. We already have long-standing bipartisan support for the federal magnet schools assistance program which is designed to create diverse learning opportunities. Four civil rights guardrails are imperative before any additional funding is allocated.
▶ 0:37:11First, comprehensive outreach and interestbased unified user-friendly application systems so that all families can understand their choices and are able to easily apply for them. Second, free transportation to schools that have been carefully cited so that a racially and economically diverse set of families can readily get to them with geographic enrollment preferences that encomp encompass a similarly diverse group.
▶ 0:37:36Third, accountability for enrolling a diverse student population to include enrollment caps to slow growth linked to overall school segregation. Fourth, careful attention to student retention and belonging, including the provision of crucial student support and educational services for students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and for children who come to school hungry.
▶ 0:38:00Charter schools can be part of a thriving public school ecosystem, but the federal government has a crucial role to play to make this so. For charter schools to live up to their ideals, and I think my fellow panelists would agree with this general point, we need smart regulation and oversight. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, lastly, I will recognize Mr. Cobb for your testimony. you. Uh, good morning, Chairman Kylie, Ranking Member Bonamichi, and members of the committee.
▶ 0:38:29Thank you for the invitation to participate in today's hearing during National Charter Schools Week. I'm Daryl Cobb, president of the Charter School Growth Fund, where I've spent the last 15 years focused on growing our nation's highest performing charter schools.
▶ 0:38:42Founded in 2005, the Charter School Growth Fund is a national nonprofit organization that identifies the nation's best public charter schools, aggregates philanthropic capital to fund their expansion, and helps to increase their impact to prepare all students, in particular students from underserved backgrounds to realize their full potential.
▶ 0:39:03The Charter School Growth Fund portfolio includes over 1,400 high-quality charter schools serving more than 760,000 students across 34 states. And 75% of those students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. We support a diverse set of educational models, college prep models, STEM, classical, language focused models, health centered models, career connected models, and everything in between.
▶ 0:39:32At the Charter School Growth Fund, we are model agnostic, but we believe in strong leadership and strong results. And the evidence of these results is clear. The same 2023 study that the chairman rec um recognized found that charter school growth fund portfolio schools add an additional 61 days of growth in reading and 69 days of growth in math compared to their traditional public school peers.
▶ 0:40:00That's more than a third of a school year of additional growth every single year. In 2024, the Progressive Policy Institute found that cities that are significantly expanding charter schools have seen lowincome students, whether they attend a charter school or a traditional public school, begin closing performance gaps with their peers statewide. It is clear that charter schools lift the tide for all students.
▶ 0:40:32Last year, members of the Charter School Growth Fund portfolio opened 61 new charter schools and increased enrollment by more than 60,000 students across the country. Over the last few years, a quarter to a third of all new charter school openings annually are by members of the charter school growth fund portfolio. Many of these openings are fueled by the federal CSP program, which is administered by the Department of Education.
▶ 0:40:59CSP has been instrumental in fueling charter schools growth. Also, the access to suitable facilities and federal taxexempt private activity bonds which allow reduced borrowing costs remain critical to fueling charter school growth across the country. As you pursue your policy agenda, I'd like to leave you with three things.
▶ 0:41:22One, public charter schools have shown benefit to all public school students in charter rich environments, even those not enrolled in charter schools. Two, students from traditionally underserved backgrounds have benefited the most from the innovations and the hard work of leaders founding charter schools.
▶ 0:41:43And three, the federal government has and must continue to have a role in providing the policy environment and resources necessary for charter schools to thrive. Thank you for the time. Thank you very much. Under committee rule 9, we will now question witnesses under the fiveminute rule. Uh I will uh first recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Wahlberg uh of Michigan for five minutes or for for his questions for five minutes. Thank you, Mr.
▶ 0:42:09chairman and thanks for holding this hearing and uh thanks to our witnesses for being here. I think we u we heard great evidence on why charters are good for everybody. You know the premise of of of my experience in education says to me that when you take care of the student, the parent and teacher, you'll succeed. And I think um Mr.
▶ 0:42:37Cob, your concluding statements clearly indicated that that's what's going on in charter school and thank God it's also helping the traditional as we call it public school students as well because the competition any information that goes away from that reality is flimflam. That's a technical term Mr. Chairman that that I just throw threw out there.
▶ 0:43:03I mean if you go back in the most recent NAPE, which segment of education, which one which one uh segment of public education showed positive educational outcomes? The answer is charter schools. And Michigan, what I looked at in NAPE was horrifying.
▶ 0:43:26to a state that led this nation in so many ways in technology and manufacturing STEM areas and we're falling behind because we're throwing caution to wind about supporting quality quality education Um Mr. Griffith, in your testimony you mentioned that high poverty students tend to do especially well in charter schools. Why?
▶ 0:43:58Well, I think there are many reasons, but I'll just highlight two. Um, first of all, many of these students are coming from some of the worst traditional public schools. Um, so, you know, the counterfactual is not great. Um, and they are looking for a lifeline and they're looking for, um, you know, just a place where they can get a basic basic education. Um I think the second thing that I would highlight is just high expectations.
▶ 0:44:26Um we did a study of uh charter schools in North Carolina and we found that teachers in charter schools had systematically higher expectations of their students. Um and we all know that uh you know if you have low expectations for students uh they will sink to those expectations but if you hold high expectations for them um you know they will rise to meet them. So those are the things I would highlight. surprise.
▶ 0:44:54Basic basic educational modeling. Thank you. Uh, Miss Moscowitz, the success academy seems to be living out the name of the academy. Um, what do you think are the key ingredients of the success academy model that could and should be replicated in other charters? Yeah, and I I would just uh echo uh my fellow witness and make it more concrete.
▶ 0:45:20Um we don't refer to our uh kids as kindergarteners, but the college graduating class of 2041. And that's because as soon as they arrive on our campus, we are expressing our love for them, our belief that they can, and that self-esteem is going to come through achievement. It is only through the learning and the struggle that you build self-confidence in the schooling environment.
▶ 0:45:51And so we do have extraordinary expectations for students. It doesn't mean that their journey is linear. Uh and we have kids who can be really successful in third grade and then they get to middle school and they struggle with chemistry and physics which we teach in middle school and they need more tutoring.
▶ 0:46:10Um but fundamentally we believe in structure, order and teaching the habits of mind that are going to lead to success and that is discipline, hard work, focus and joy in learning. Yeah. Some sometimes it takes failure to breed success as well. Thank you. Um Mr. Cobb.
▶ 0:46:32Um, could you talk more about why charter schools can be created around a unique vision and values whereas that's harder to do in a traditional public school? Sorry to give you only 30 seconds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I think that's the basis of what makes charter schools so powerful.
▶ 0:46:49uh for every charter school that's created, there were a set of parents, a set of educators, and a set of board members who came together and said, "We have a vision for how we can serve students better, and we're going to craft that vision into a school that specifically meets the needs of those students, their parents, and that community." Um, so that's what all charter schools are rooted in is that specific mission and vision for the students that they educate. Amazing.
▶ 0:47:20Competition in America might work. Thank you. I yield back. Ranking member Bonamichi of Oregon is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to extend a warm Oregonian welcome to Mr. Griffith. Nice to see you. Thank you for being here. Uh, Dr. Seal Holly, thank you for mentioning magnet schools. Um because magnet schools as we know offer choice within the public school system and the district in which I live, the Beaverdton school district has many wonderful magnet programs and so you really have a level playing field there.
▶ 0:47:49But I wanted to ask you about something I mentioned in my opening statement and that's the statistics about closure of charter schools about 25% closing within five years 49% closing within 50 years. So Dr. Caholly what effect do these closures have on students and their families? What options do they have when the school closes? And what happens if a charter school closes in the middle of an academic year? How does that affect students, families, and the local public And I can ask you to be concise because I have some other questions. Okay.
▶ 0:48:19Thank you for the question. You know, my work hasn't specifically looked at the causes of the closure, but we have picked up on it in our study of suburban charter school segregation. We found that new charter schools were increasingly likely in suburban areas and that charter schools were increasingly likely to close in suburban areas in our largest US metros and that particularly impacted black and Hispanic students.
▶ 0:48:48I think we can look at qualitative and quantitative research to understand that the disruption that students, families, and their communities experience in the wake of abrupt closure is damaging. You know, if if strong schools are built on trust and care and relationship, severing that relationship, especially midyear, is really problematic. Is it fair to say it's disruptive to the students and to the public school system if a charter school closes middle of the year? Yes. Thank you.
▶ 0:49:18Um, so so several of you have have um mentioned the the CTO report, the 2023 Credo report, but I want to direct my questions to Mr. Griffith and and Mr. Cobb. You cite that Credo re report for the premise that schools do better, students do better in charter schools than in traditional public schools. I'm sure you know that the methodology and conclusions of that study have been scrutinized and criticized by multiple education experts, including Diane Ravich and other education experts.
▶ 0:49:45So we know that parental involvement contributes to student success and some charter schools actually require or mandate parental involvement. So even assuming even assuming that the credo report shows some benefits from charter schools, how do you factor in that students in charter schools typically have more involved parents and could it be the parental involvement rather than the charter school model that makes a difference? Mr. Griffith and Mr. Cobb, I'll ask you that question.
▶ 0:50:11Yeah, I think the first thing I would say is um that we don't actually observe parental involvement. I understand that there is a certain amount of parental involvement that is involved in applying to a charter school. Um but that's also true when you are um picking a house or choosing um what traditional public school you want your kid to go to. Um so, you know, I don't think we observe that directly in the data.
▶ 0:50:34I guess the other thing I would say is that um you know CTO's methodology has been evaluated multiple times um including by NCS um and the upshot is uh that you know its estimates are essentially indistinguishable from those of a randomized control trial. Um so you know when it comes to these test based outcomes I think we should take it seriously. Um thank you. I mean I'm sorry to cut you off but I want to get to Mr. Chicago briefly and then have one more question.
▶ 0:51:03Yeah, I'll I'll comment on your um question around parental involvement. I think I would flip that around and I think a lot of times people view oh uh our charter schools have parents who are more involved. I think charter schools are intentional about creating more paths for parents to be involved in their students education. So many of the schools that we work with, they go out of their way to create a multiple pathway model for parents to be involved. For parents who have lots of time, there are opportunities to be engaged in school.
▶ 0:51:32For parents who have less time, they create a multitude of ways for those parents to be understood. I submit that that would be a positive thing to do for the 92 or more percent of students who are in public traditional public schools as well. Miss Mosquet, Success Academy seems to place a lot of focus on test scores. It's something I've looked at for a long time, including NAPE and Pisa scores. I have to say that comparing Pisa scores with US scores is worse than comparing an apple to an orange.
▶ 0:51:57It's more like an apple with a forest of trees because we have 50 education systems and the Pisa countries have one. They also have paid family leave, universal healthcare, and these policies clearly affect student outcomes. And regarding the NAPE scores, wealthier students typically do better than low-income students. And I submit that we should be focusing on poverty and these other policies if we truly want to improve public education. So, I want to ask because your focus seems to be on getting high test scores. What happens to students in your school if they don't get high test scores?
▶ 0:52:27Well, I I would uh uh disagree that the focus is just on test scores. We wouldn't do block play. We wouldn't treat games as a subject. We wouldn't have the investment in art and music, chess, uh dance, and athletics uh if we were just interested in test scores. But we do think preparing kids for tests are important.
▶ 0:52:51And we frankly think that the New York State tests and I would argue most around the country are table stakes. If our kids can't pass those tests, we are in deep, deep trouble because the tests are not that hard and what they're going to have to do in life is a lot harder. So I think we do need to pay attention to the low bar of state tests. We need to pay attention to the math scores, the SAT math scores.
▶ 0:53:20They're actually quite easy and the fact that our students are not acing those tests should be a national embarrassment that I yield back. Thank you for letting me go. The representative from Utah, Mr. Owens, is Thank you. Um, Mr. Chairman, appreciate it. Um, I want to start off uh with a shout out to my home state of Utah.
▶ 0:53:48Uh we lead in in education because our teachers lead. Uh we have a culture in which our students are first and I think every state, every district that takes that on can see a great amount of improvement. We have one of the highest uh high school graduation rates in the nation. Utah students consistently outperform national averages on on critical benchmarks like the national report card from fourth and fourth grade math and and uh eighth grade reading.
▶ 0:54:13One example of of ana exceptional uh Utah school is America Preparatory Academy whose results uh consistently rank among the highest in Utah and won the award for the best charter school in the state. As a nation, we've entered a very exciting new era where every child, not just the the lucky few, can access uh access opportunities that fit their unique needs and abilities. And we're finally starting to view education the way we view other parts of our economy through the eyes of the American consumer. It is a culture built on capitalism.
▶ 0:54:43Competition drives innovation, accountability, and better outcomes. Uh in too many cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and New York, the education bureauc bureaucracy shield themselves from competition and a failed uh failed the very students they claim to serve. With 70% of eighth graders reading below proficiency, the choice is clear. Do we empower families with options or keep listening to the same broken system? Uh I want to thank u Mr. Griffin, M. Masawitz and uh Mr.
▶ 0:55:12Cobb, thank you for your passion. Uh appreciate what you guys have put into what you do. You're risktakers, you're innovators. You think outside the box and you bring the entrepreneurial spirit to something that we need to do so much better in education. So, thank you for doing that. Uh my parents, by the way, were educators. So, I totally get that to understand where that comes from. And um I would say success academy is a remarkable place to visit. So, thank you for that opportunity to do that. Also, Mr. Griffin.
▶ 0:55:35Um, those who have committed to the one-sizefitit all complain about offering competition uh complain about offering competition to u neighbor public schools, neighborhood public schools. What do you what does your research say about competition in public schools improvement? I'm going to cite the the broader literature instead of my research here.
▶ 0:55:55Um by my count there are 13 uh studies that use student level data that find positive effects, seven that find neutral or mixed effects and four that find negative effects. Um so the preponderance of the literature suggests that traditional public schools tend to improve.
▶ 0:56:16And you when you kind of look at it just to make a statement if you think about competition um when when when anything is competing they try to find the best way to make sure the customer comes to them. That's the way it works in in the capitalism system. So I'm not surprised. I think we need to understand that public schools also lifted when uh when there's competition. Mr. CBY mentioned that cities aggressively expand highquality charter schools saw their their students improve including those in traditional public schools.
▶ 0:56:44Uh, I've long thought it's been misleading and inaccurate to say that charter schools are are an attack on traditional public schools. How do you respond to someone who says that your work uh is is undermining uh the public Well, the first thing I say is that charter schools are public schools. They're part of the fabric of public schooling in our country.
▶ 0:57:05They offer parents and students an opportunity to identify the school that is right and best fit for them and a school that is designed to meet their particular needs. We see all over the country, including in your home state of Utah, several schools that specifically focus on students who have been left behind or not had success in the traditional system and schools built for them and those students thrive.
▶ 0:57:30I can think about a school Wallace Stegner Academy right there in Utah where they have a student population that is much more disadvantaged than the rest of the state and their student outcomes actually outperform the average student in the state of Utah. So schools designed just like that are what uh are the reason why uh charter schools are part of the education system and need to be expanded in all parts of our country. Thank you Miss McCositz.
▶ 0:57:59If just real quickly, I have only 30 seconds. Um, we talked about demographics of your school. Could you kind of highlight that because I think it's important for people to realize those who are not familiar with New York, how many parents are waiting on a list to to try to to come to a school like Success Academy. Just a little background on that, please. So, last year we had 28,000 applicants for 3,000 spots. And it's quite heartbreaking.
▶ 0:58:23The parents who lose the lottery love their children as much as the parents who win the lottery. So we don't have a demand problem. We have a supply problem. Okay. I just want to say that I've visited your school. I remember going upstairs where success academy was than going downstairs of public school system and the list was so much longer for those downstairs trying to get upstairs. So thank you for everything you do for your innovation. Um I'm thankful that we'll finally put our kids first in our culture.
▶ 0:58:52So, uh, with that, I yield back. The representative from Pennsylvania, Representative Lee, is recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, as a proud, uh, product of public schools, I'm deeply committed uh to a public education system that supports every child's success. So, I stand with all the students, the parents, the families, the educators, the community members who are working tirelessly to save their neighborhood schools from an administration that is determined to dismantle them.
▶ 0:59:21For many families, neighborhood schools aren't just an option. They are the best option. And if we're doing our jobs right as government officials, it would be the best options everywhere. I've toured neighborhood schools uh public schools that have expansive libraries, state-of-the-art uh facilities, athletic and performing uh performance facilities, central heating and air conditioning, and so many school counselors that some focus exclusively on college admissions.
▶ 0:59:48I've also gone to neighborhood schools with curriculums that quite frankly fall short of some of their students uh needs or erase their history of lived experience. Taught by educators who were grossly underpaid in crumbling buildings with lead paint, no ventilation. And the only difference between some of those schools most of the time is the zip code. These highquality schools are proof that we actually do know how to adequately resource uh neighborhood schools.
▶ 1:00:14Our country's refusal to to equitably invest in black and brown schools, our students neighborhood schools, is an intentional and systemic choice. So when my colleagues across the aisle hold a hearing about how we need charter schools to replace failing neighborhood schools, we cannot let them off the hook from confronting why some schools are failing. So uh Dr.
▶ 1:00:36Seagull Howley, based on your work examining school segregation, why is it that schools in poorer black and brown neighborhoods have systemically fewer resources than more affluent communities? And have charter schools generally improved this disparity or made it worse? Thank you for the question.
▶ 1:00:55You know, I think your your comments highlight deep and ongoing inequality in our traditional public Um and I think the conversation here today reflects different diagnosis of the issues of the causes.
▶ 1:01:11So on the one hand we have a diagnosis related to um the lack of competition more competition will spur improvement in our traditional public schools and then on the other we have a diagnosis that racial segregation and concentrated poverty are the root causes of educational inequality.
▶ 1:01:30Um, the research would suggest that those root causes remain in charter schools that don't adequately address them are are not systematically creating better opportunities for our most marginalized children. Thank you. Black and brown students neighborhood schools are not destined to fail a as you as you seems you are saying, but they've been sabotaged and charter siphoning money from neighborhood schools is a part of that sabotage. even as we can recognize the success of some charter schools.
▶ 1:01:58Don't get me wrong, plenty of charter schools are great schools with diverse enrollment, inclusive curriculums, and countless resources. But when a new fancy charter opens, I think about the students left behind in neighborhood schools now tasked with delivering the same educational services, but with fewer resources.
▶ 1:02:13where charters can rely on zero tolerance policies to expel students they deem too difficult or implement untenable academic uh requirements to push out students they decide can't keep up or simply not offer the services required by a student's IEP neighborhood schools continue to accommodate every student's needs by law. Also think about the students that never had access to charters in the first place.
▶ 1:02:34students who are unhoused or transient or in foster care systems without a stable home, who don't have a parent with Wi-Fi or endless time to research schools and fill out complicated applications. Um, Dr. uh Sequo, very quickly, based on your testimony, it seems clear that charters don't consistently outperform neighborhood public schools academically, even while discarding the students neighborhood schools still have to serve. What concerns should we have about expanding a schooling model that often excludes the highest need students and can't consistently assure students academic success?
▶ 1:03:04I think we need to pay careful attention to the way that charter schools are choosing their families. We can talk about school choice, but we need to understand how charters are choosing their students and families and put into place stronger oversight and accountability for the civil rights protections and guard rails that would ensure that all children are able to equally access them. Thank you.
▶ 1:03:27I just want to say that the chair of this committee opened by saying that we need to protect a failing monopoly by eliminating competition. And and I want to remark that public schools are not a monopoly because public schools are not a business and they should not be governed by a a business model. We shouldn't have school leaders who call themselves CEOs. This kind of thinking is how we end up with the secretary of education who donated uh with a who donated over a million dollars to a charter school network yet doesn't know what IDA stands for.
▶ 1:03:55The Trump administration is doing everything in its power well beyond its power to dismantle neighborhood public schools, cutting funding and so much more. And when this rampid disinvestment from public school impacts neighborhood schools, my Republican colleagues will hold yet another hearing about how the only solution for the children that they failed is to expand a schooling model that discriminates, we can do better. We can invest equitably in public education and serve all students while doing so. Thank you and I yield back. The representative from Guam, Mr. Moan, is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:04:24Our students are our future and we should as a nation be investing in that future. But these actions go beyond just spending. We need to make it easier to succeed and give our students more pathways by empowering families to make the decisions that are right for their students. Academic choice is important and we should empower parents and families to make the choices that are best for their students.
▶ 1:04:50As elected officials, it is a duty to give our nation's students the best chance to succeed. In many cases, charter schools can offer something different from traditional public schooling. In Guam, there are two fantastic examples of this. Chief AC Academy offers something no other school does. Chammoral immersion learning programs like these respond to the unique cultures of the student bodies they serve.
▶ 1:05:19contribute to our rich cultural landscape and help restore and revitalize our native languages. Career Tech also leads being the only trade centered high school on the island. CEK empowers students to enter workforce with in demand skills, college credits, and nationally recognized certifications.
▶ 1:05:39Programs like these prepare our youth for all all options after completing high school from highpaying trade jobs to college degrees beyond. Mr. uh Mr. David, uh thank you for being here today and early congratulations on finishing your PhD. Uh in your testimony, you discussed charter schools positive outcomes and serving traditionally under underserved populations.
▶ 1:06:07What have you seen in your research about charter schools advancing social mobility compared to traditional public schools? Well, again, I'm going to cite the vastly larger charter school literature that goes beyond my own work. Um, I' we focused a lot on test scores today and that's partly because that's where the data is and we can account for things comprehensively when we do that.
▶ 1:06:35Um but there is also uh substantial literature on other outcomes uh including high school graduation, post-secondary outcomes, labor market outcomes, civic outcomes like voting. Um and essentially uh that that literature overwhelmingly shows that charter schools have positive effects. All right. Thank you. Um Moitz, thank you.
▶ 1:07:02Um, you highlighted in your testimony Success Academyy's 100% college acceptance rate. How does that compare with New York City's traditional school system? Uh, it's a it's a little hard to uh tell exactly because there's a very high dropout rate in the district. Uh, but it's about 70% higher than most high schools in New York serving comparable populations.
▶ 1:07:31So it um as a followup in your experience, what has been the main driving factors for parents and families to choose charter schooling over traditional public schooling? What makes charter schools so attractive to parents?
▶ 1:07:45Yeah, I I wish I could say that parents are choosing success because we have science five days a week and because we have a robust chess and back gaming uh program and uh we send 100% of our kids uh to college. But actually, it's safety. It's the lack of safety in the district school system. There are food fights in the lunchroom.
▶ 1:08:12there are massive teacher um absences in the schools. Uh you know it's not uh you know we offer something really robust but most of our families are trying to escape a multi-generational failing school. Their grandmother went to a failing school and then the mother went to the failing school because that is the only option.
▶ 1:08:38And finally, when success goes into neighborhoods and other charters of course too, there's finally an option, a non-disorderly option. Now, once they come to success, um, you know, we show the robustness of our program, but the motivators are actually fairly basic. I thank you. I I'll yield back. Thank you. Thank you very much.
▶ 1:09:08Uh, Representative Wilson of Florida is Thank you, Chairman Kylie, Ranking Member Bonamishi, and thank you to our witnesses for your testimony today. I must state upfront that I find your claims that charter schools outperform public schools to be not only misleading, but entirely deceptive and I'm a former public school teacher,
▶ 1:09:38a public school principal, a school district executive director, and a school board member. The local public neighborhood school is the heartbeat of the community, and you're destroying that. Public schools are meant to educate everyone.
▶ 1:10:00students with disabilities, the gifted, the wheelchairbound, the sick, the struggling, the shut in, the orphan, the ungovernable, everyone. It's a big tent. Charter schools, on the other hand, cherrypick and fall short of the promise.
▶ 1:10:22And I can tell you that that is The nation's first charter school was established in my district by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the Liberty City Charter School. It lasted three years.
▶ 1:10:44And in my home state of Florida, we see charter schools exacerbate patterns of resegregation along racial, ethnic, and lines. Poor children are lumped together as for some kind of experiment. They are put into a petri dish.
▶ 1:11:10and they say that's good as long as they don't have to go to school with my white children. As we approach the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education this Saturday, we cannot be in the business of rolling back the time and contributing to segregation supporting charter schools. This is shameful.
▶ 1:11:37On top of this, poorly monitored charter schools have shown to deliver subpar academic results to snatch money from our public schools and then wash their hands clean of any responsibility.
▶ 1:11:57During my years as an educator and an elected official, I have never found one charter school that had the same success as public schools.
▶ 1:12:12And I'm still looking this and teachers do not have the same educational credentials, training, nor experience as public school teachers. It's privatizing education for a profit.
▶ 1:12:38profit by greedy nonprofits, religious groups, and segregationists. It's a shame that we continue to push our black and brown children to these schools. The marketing insane. So, as a former teacher, let's recap what we've learned.
▶ 1:13:03We've learned that charter schools are good at snatching taxpayer money that should be going to public schools, leaving the public school deprived of necessary resources. Then they pedal substandard education and never deliver.
▶ 1:13:24And when the damage is done, they shut down, close the doors, and leave nothing but chaos in their wake. That is what we get with charter schools. We simply cannot continue to regress into an educational landscape where we fail to keep the promises we made to our children. With that, I have a few questions. Dr.
▶ 1:13:54Seagull Harley, you mentioned that some charter schools engage in severe policies. I can expand on that by pinpointing the receivers of that severe discipline of black boys. Isn't corporal punishment contradictory to the goal of promoting students mental health? I'll note that the representative time is expired, but I'll permit you a brief response. Yes.
▶ 1:14:24My response is yes. And I think traditional public schools and charter schools have work to do on discipline disparities um and and eliminating corporal punishment. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll recognize myself for five minutes. Uh my good colleague Mig Wilson just said she is still searching for any charter school that outperforms any traditional public school. Well, I have good news. Your search is over.
▶ 1:14:48Sitting right in front of you is the leader of a charter school network that is literally number one uh of all schools in the state uh of New York. Uh so uh Miss uh Mositz, you mentioned that you got 28,000 applicants and uh but for only 3,000 spots. So based on what I've heard uh from this side of the deis uh perhaps from our Democrat witness, I'm sure what you do is you just do like an entrance exam. You take the 3,000 who do best and you say you guys get the spots. Is that right?
▶ 1:15:15Uh it's a random lottery and we wouldn't know uh how well a 5-year-old is going to do on a state test. If you have those powers of prediction, you're a better educator than I am. Uh so it's random lottery. We get what we get and uh we educate every kid. And you know, we have 16,000 special needs, 12,000 homeless students. Um you know, uh very high percentage of non-English learners.
▶ 1:15:42Um, our demographics look very similar to our colllocated schools, district schools. And is that that's the law, right? You have to do a lottery or at least That's the law. That's the law. So, um, you uh uh you so you you do the lottery. Have you ever I know there have been studies done that actually look at what happens then to the students who win the lottery versus those who don't. It's sort of a natural controlled experiment. Uh, have you ever looked at that by the way for Success Academy? Yeah, we've we've done a couple of them.
▶ 1:16:09They're a little outdated now, but uh winning the lottery has a outsized impact on uh academic success. And we got some statistics here from uh from your schools. You've had 22,000 students. Number one in New York in math. Uh you outperform all of the most affluent schools. Number three uh in reading. Your students 100% go to four-year colleges. 95% take an AP class.
▶ 1:16:34uh you have a structured focused joyful learning environment with arts and athletics and chess and bat gamon and this all despite the fact that 80% of your students uh are uh below the poverty line. Given this incredible success, I'm sure that in Albany uh that there's just universal uh bipartisan uh overwhelming support for success and they're always asking you what more could we do for you to help your schools expand. Is that what you've experienced? Uh no.
▶ 1:16:58uh being in a blue state uh has its challenges and it's been a 19-year battle just to exist. Um I've been sued constantly. The teachers union has uh made life uh very very difficult. Um there's a sort of deep connection in New York between the unions and the local elected officials.
▶ 1:17:24um you know everything from uh trying to shut the schools down uh to barricading not allowing children into the school building uh people have referenced Brown Board of Ed. I'm experiencing sort of the opposite where union operatives have not allowed children to get into the building. So it's a pretty venomous um uh debate which is really really unfortunate because I do think this issue is bipartisan.
▶ 1:17:52I think we've got to put away some of these grand ideological battles. We are running out of time to materially improve the lives of children. Um and you know the all the international data we can argue Pisa TIMS all the international data indicates we are in the bottom cortile. Why do you think it is that uh there isn't the level of universal support for what you're doing that there should be?
▶ 1:18:22Well, I I think that it is um there are narratives that are super convenient. Uh if poverty is the explanation, and don't get me wrong, poor kids are harder to educate and have challenges that many of us in this room couldn't possibly imagine unless we ourselves have come um from poverty. It is it is a factor to be sure, but it it isn't dispositive.
▶ 1:18:49you can outperform your zip code if you provide rigorous curriculum, if you have loving, nurturing teachers and principles. Um, but I think the reason it's so um there's so much animus is because entities like success are proving that there's nothing wrong with the children and that is super politically threatening. There is a problem with a system of delivery.
▶ 1:19:16Uh you mentioned congressman um that you know we are colllocated at success. So on one floor you have a failing district school and then you have our school that is super successful. In the school you visited we had a 100% of the kids pass the test and the colloccated had zero. So it's not a small gap.
▶ 1:19:38It is a giant giant gap and we have to take that seriously and start to offer pragmatic concrete solutions to this problem or we won't have a great nation. Very well said. Uh thank you very much. I'll now recognize the ranking member of the full committee uh Mr. Scott of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Griffith, you said you're doing research.
▶ 1:20:03Has that research been Generally speaking, no. Um, and you con I think we can assume that there's some good charter schools and some bad charter schools. Um, you concluded the charter schools had a positive positive effect. Did you um rule out rather than an effect it was a correlation? Yeah, I think you can rule that out.
▶ 1:20:33Um I we probably don't have time to get into the methods, okay? But um what is compelling for me and the reason that I'm here uh is that when you look within a school district and you just look at the correlation um between the level of charter school penetration for a particular cohort of students um the cohorts with higher levels of penetration consistently outperform those with lower levels of penetration um in both subjects and for
▶ 1:21:03every subgroup. Uh, so I feel confident charter schools. Well, you you acknowledge that that poor performing charter schools tend to close. Yes, that's right. That leaves the good ones. Okay. And how long do students have to attend get to attend poor performing schools before they close? Well, I think it How long do these poor performing schools stay open before they close?
▶ 1:21:29I think it varies but I think one thing that's important to note is that closure rates have declined uh since the beginning of the movement. Um so if you would ask me the question you know 20 years ago I think there were higher rates of closure but as the sector has um as it as it's matured uh the closure rate has declined and it's less than half of what it is what it was um in the beginning.
▶ 1:21:53So, uh, I also would defend, uh, the notion of, um, some performance-based closure just on the grounds of consumer protection. You'll acknowledge, I guess, that students were were attending poor performing schools, then they closed, but until then, they just got a poor education. Miss Seagull Holly, um, Virginia, welcome. Good to see you.
▶ 1:22:20Um, are charter schools required to comply with state requirements on teacher qualifications? Thank you for the question. If I may circle back to underscore something that you mentioned around peer review. I've been thinking about that in this conversation because the um we've been sort of talking past each other with some of the evidence and there's questions about whether or not it's flim flam.
▶ 1:22:48Um, and I just want to say that peerreview is the bedrock of scholarship. Um, because even though it takes a long time and even though it isn't always constructive, it is the opportunity for a fresh set of independent eyes to look at and evaluate and strengthen your work.
▶ 1:23:07Now I know policy cycles move really quickly and it can be hard to get the peer-reviewed evidence in front of policymakers in time and that is why there is a role for other times other kinds of research that can be quickly disseminated. Um but I think we have to put a premium on the peer-reviewed evidence and I haven't necessarily heard that today across all of the conversation in terms of the question about teacher quality in charter schools.
▶ 1:23:36You know, I I do think that there is a large and growing body of research evidence suggesting that charter schools employ younger, less experienced, and lower quality teachers and that they leave faster, creating churn that is disruptive for students and their learning. Thank you. Um, can you say a word about whether or not charter schools lead to more or less seg racial segregation? I think the research on this is also clear.
▶ 1:24:05You know, charter schools have been around for 30 years. And over time, many, many, many different studies across contexts have shown that charter schools are more segregated than our already segregated traditional public schools and that they increase overall segregation. Do discipline policies have an effect on that? Do discipline policies have an effect on that? They can in different ways. Um, charter schools can push students out.
▶ 1:24:33they are not required to educate them and then um that leaves the traditional public schools to educate those students. As more and more um students go to charter schools, what happens to the public support for public schools? I've been thinking about this during the conversation today too.
▶ 1:24:52you know, the idea that that we could and should create niche schools that cater to different famil family's interests, beliefs to the exclusion of other families um is is antithetical to what the Supreme Court said unanimously in Brown about education being the very foundation of good citizenship.
▶ 1:25:15It is really hard to learn how to care about and share with people who are different from you if you are in schools where you're divided into these niche sort of systems. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. I'll now recognize uh the ranking member for a closing statement. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses. This has been an incredibly thought-provoking conversation this morning.
▶ 1:25:41Uh we know as federal policy makers that the federal role in education is about equity, really equity of opportunity. And we can't ignore the racial and economic segregation that continues to define too many of our schools. We can't pretend that the consequences of inequity are theoretical when they are in fact visible in outcomes in teacher turnover and resource access. This is about more than charter schools. It's about whether the public education system is serving all students.
▶ 1:26:07And although we may differ on the solutions, uh we should all agree that innovation may never must never come at the expense of civil rights. Charter schools should not be exempt from the responsibilities that come with public funding. They must be subject to the same standards of accountability, equity, and transparency as traditional public schools. That's not about limiting choice. It's about promoting fairness. And I'll note that we recently introduced a bill to ban corporal punishment in schools across the country. I invite anyone to join us on that.
▶ 1:26:35We also must move beyond the false choice between improving traditional public schools or holding charter schools accountable because we can and must do that do both. The schools must work for every student in every classroom in every co zip code. And that means investing in proven strategies, strong AC accountability systems, diverse and inclusive schools and retaining experienced educators uh and comprehensive student support.
▶ 1:26:59And again, magnet schools have that uh potential to offer choice within a public school system with this a level playing field. So, Congress must pass the strength and diversity act, the equity and inclusion enforcement act. And also, as someone who is here along with M Mr. Scott, Mr. Wahlberg and others in 2015 when we pass the Every Student Succeeds Act, that must be implemented with fidelity and not in name only. But legislation alone is not enough.
▶ 1:27:26we need to the will to enforce it and have the courage to follow the data especially when it challenges the the status quo. We owe that to the legacy of Brown versus Board of Education and more importantly to the millions of students depending on us to have a public education system that delivers on its promise. And and Mr.
▶ 1:27:43Chairman, I I've been on this committee for almost 14 years and we over the years we've had many many conversations and I heard it again today references to escaping failing schools or the worst schools and I still don't know what that means. Mr. Chairman, a school is a building. If the students are not doing well in a school, we need to ask the question, as Miss Moscowit said, do they need art and chess and athletics? Are the class sizes too big? Are they hungry? Are there are they homeless? Is there lead in the water?
▶ 1:28:13Are there challenges facing them at home that need to be addressed? And again, a reminder, more than 90% of the students in this country go to traditional public schools. Our role as policymakers must be consider all of them, not just the small percentage of students whose parents have advocated for them for a charter school. So, let's focus on how do we improve all public schools in the country. And I look forward to continuing that ongoing conversation. And I yield back. Thanks very much. Thank you very much to all of our our witnesses.
▶ 1:28:44Uh you know, I'm struck by the numbers uh for a success academy. 28,000 applicants, 3,000 spots. Put yourself in the position of a parent uh who knows that by and large, there are certainly exceptions, but uh New York City traditional public schools do not achieve good education outcomes. Uh many are unsafe.
▶ 1:29:00But then you hear about a school uh also a public school uh tuitionfree uh that not only provides a good education but outperforms all of the other schools in the state and fosters a good culture uh and is safe and parents can uh have peace of mind when their child goes to school. Uh but the uh the very difficult thing is that you know your odds are so low just because the school uh is so popular. the odds 3,000 out of 28,000.
▶ 1:29:29It's not all that much better than than an actual lottery ticket. And based upon that turn of chance, uh a big part of your child's future uh hangs in the balance. And uh their ability to succeed in school, to go to college, to succeed in life comes down to uh the drawing of a lottery ball. But what it what if we made it so it wasn't that way? What if we had a school system throughout this country where all 28,000 of those applicants could actually get a seat at a school like Success Academy?
▶ 1:29:59What if every child in this country had the opportunity for that kind of education? We can start working towards that vision right now. We have an opportunity right now to catalyze a school choice revolution in this country. We already have as part of the reconciliation bill uh a uh groundbreaking form of private school choice with the educational choice for children act. But we need to assure that charter schools and public school choice uh is in that bill as well.
▶ 1:30:27What hangs in the balance is not just the future of millions and millions of students but the future of our country as well. As we've heard today, the nation's report card shows that our public education outcomes across this country continue to decline. and think about what that's going to mean for our country 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the road. We have an opportunity to reverse that decline right now and begin a new era of educational excellence uh in America. It's just a matter of mustering the political will to do so.
▶ 1:30:56So, thank you again to our uh witnesses for testifying before the committee. Without objection, there being no further business, the committee stands