Hayes Slams GOP Over School Choice: ‘The Idea Of Private Voucher Programs Is Absolutely A Sham’

2 hours ago

During Tuesday’s House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing, Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) questioned experts about the effect of private voucher programming on public school students.

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Transcript

00:00The representative from Connecticut, Ms. Hayes, is recognized for five minutes.

00:04Thank you, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I want to

00:08first frame my comments with the information that I was a public school

00:14teacher before I came to Congress, 16 years I taught as a high school history

00:18teacher. And I just want to provide some context for much of what you're

00:24hearing. This hearing is about school choice, yet they're

00:31trying to position it as vouchers and public charter schools are the same

00:35thing. They are not. Vouchers are very different, and that is not what we're

00:40talking about. At the top of the hearing, the chairman talked about 81 private

00:45school programs that serve 1 million students, yet the school that he

00:51highlighted as being successful, Success Academy, is in fact a public charter

00:57school. Will the gentlewoman yield? No, I will not. Many public schools offer school

01:02choice to parents, and that is not what we are talking about here today. I heard

01:08quotes from an economist from the 1950s, 70 years ago. So much has happened in

01:14public education. I would encourage you to engage in that conversation. And yet

01:21again, we have witnesses at the table right off the White House guest list.

01:26And your testimony where you said, Mr. Blanks, that you failed an entry test two

01:35times before they finally decided to allow you to access to this school, just

01:41reiterates the fact that these schools are not for everybody. It is a system of

01:46winners and losers. And to the idea about segregation in schools, the

01:51Department of Education actually protects civil rights. If we're talking

01:56about the most important reform Congress can make, it is increasing the funding

02:00for IDEA from 16 percent to the 40 percent that Congress promised that it

02:05would do. Schools are funded locally, so local property taxes decide many of the

02:12decisions that we're talking about here today. I do have a few questions, and I

02:17want to move quickly because I have lots of questions. But Ms. Clark, just yes or

02:21no, you said that you had to do an independent educational assessment

02:26for your children in order to understand their academic needs. Did your family pay

02:31for that out-of-pocket? No, the district did. It's part of the law. Thank you. You

02:35talked about you homeschooled your three children. Was your family able to do that

02:40because you had stable income? No, my husband was in law school at the time. We

02:46were on loans. Okay. $7,500 was given to your family to cover your children's

02:52dyslexia educational supports. Was that the total cost of those supports? It

02:59was $7,500 per student, and yes, it was the full cost of those supports, half of

03:04the public school funding. So $7,500 in total for dyslexia funding

03:10educational funding for the entire year for one student? Yes, that's correct. I

03:15would disagree with that because, and I can tell you why, public schools offer

03:21many of the wraparound supports and services. So it's not just what happens

03:24in the classroom. It is the occupational supports, the technical supports, the

03:29social workers, all of those things. I know, and anyone who's ever looked at a

03:33public school budget knows that those services are not provided for $7,500.

03:41Ms. Levin, can you explain, just briefly, go into a greater detail, why private

03:48schools are not mandated to follow the same reporting requirements as most

03:52public schools? Yes. Thank you for the question, and I come from a family of

03:56educators, so I thank you for that as well. It's because of a deliberate

04:00choice in the statutes. Legislators choose not to put accountability

04:04measures in these bills, and you have to ask yourself why. And when a student is

04:09not accepted to these schools, because I've yet to find one charter school, one

04:14of these private voucher programs that supports all of the special education

04:19needs of these students, and part of IDEA says that students need to be educated

04:23alongside their non-disabled peers. When those children don't have success in

04:28those schools and go back to the public school system, can you explain a little

04:31bit about what happens in that case with their funding? So often the student

04:36returns to a public school, but the money has already gone to the private schools.

04:39So the public school now has less money, and it has a higher concentration of

04:42higher needs students to serve with those fewer resources. Can the public

04:46school refuse to accept those students now that the funding source is gone?

04:49They cannot. They cannot. That's what I thought. I mean, everybody knows that. But

04:54again, I would caution people. Yes, we want parents involved. Education is a

04:59partnership between parents, families, their teachers, everyone. But this idea of

05:04private voucher programs is absolutely a sham. It's moving taxpayer monies to a

05:11profit source for the billionaire class. That is not what public education is

05:15supposed to do. I yield back.

Hayes Slams GOP Over School Choice: ‘The Idea Of Private Voucher Programs Is Absolutely A Sham’

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