[Senate Hearing 105-364]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 105-364
A PROGRESS REPORT ON THE REFORMS IN D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF
GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING,
AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 8, 1997
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
44-136 cc WASHINGTON : 1998
_______________________________________________________________________
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office,
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee, Chairman
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine JOHN GLENN, Ohio
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas CARL LEVIN, Michigan
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
DON NICKLES, Oklahoma RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania ROBERT G. TORRICELLI,
BOB SMITH, New Hampshire New Jersey
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MAX CLELAND, Georgia
Hannah S. Sistare, Staff Director and Counsel
Leonard Weiss, Minority Staff Director
Michal Sue Prosser, Chief Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MAX CLELAND, Georgia
Ron Utt, Staff Director
Laurie Rubenstein, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Esmeralda Amos, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Brownback............................................ 1
WITNESSES
Monday, September 8, 1997
Hon. Richard K. Armey, Majority Leader, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 3
Jeanne Allen, President, tHE Center for Education Reform......... 10
Nina Shokraii, Education Policy Analyst, Domestic Policy Studies,
The Heritage Foundation........................................ 14
Kent B. Amos, President, Urban Family Institute.................. 16
Bruce K. MacLaury, Chairman, Emergency Transition Education Board
of Trustees, District of Columbia Public Schools............... 26
General Julius W. Becton, Jr., (Retired), Chief Executive Officer
and Superintendent, District of Columbia Public Schools,
accompanied by Major General Charles Williams, (Retired), Chief
Operating Officer.............................................. 28
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Allen, Jeanne:
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 51
Amos, Kent B.:
Testimony.................................................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 81
Armey, Hon. Richard:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 43
Becton, General Julius W., Jr.:
Testimony.................................................... 28
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 88
MacLaury, Bruce K.:
Testimony.................................................... 26
Prepared statement........................................... 83
Skokraii, Nina:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 62
APPENDIX
Prepared statements of witnesses in order of appearance.......... 43
A PROGRESS REPORT ON THE REFORMS IN D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS
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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1997
U.S. Senate,
Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring,
and the District of Columbia Subcommittee,
of the Committee on Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam
Brownback, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Brownback.
Staff Present: Ron Utt, Staff Director; and Esmerelda Amos,
Chief Clerk, and Joyce Yamat, Professional Staff Member.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWNBACK
Senator Brownback. I call the hearing to order.
I would like to welcome everyone to our second hearing on
the District of Columbia public schools. This hearing is timely
as the 1997-98 school year will soon begin. The purpose of this
hearing is to hear about the progress of the education reforms
of the District's public schools.
The Subcommittee would like to revisit many of the issues
that were raised in our last education hearing which was held
on April 17 and hear about the progress made on these various
reforms. We would also like to examine the issue of management
in the District of Columbia public schools. There is definitely
no shortage of improvement opportunities in management when it
comes to the D.C. public schools. But the central office has
implemented changes, and I am anxious to hear what improvements
have been made and what we can expect in the upcoming school
year.
I am also pleased to see that the charter school
application process is underway. Since enactment of the charter
school legislation in the last Congress, however, the District
has only two charter schools. There is obviously plenty more to
be done.
At our last D.C. education hearing, one idea that was
raised was for D.C. public schools to take advantage of the
resources of the Federal Government and the expertise, such as
the Smithsonian museums. I am interested to see if the D.C.
public schools are using these opportunities and if the Federal
agencies are helping them to do that.
We just received this morning word that of the seven
agencies in the Federal Government asked to help the District
with establishing and working toward charter schools, only two
have responded; we need a lot more response and help from the
Federal Government and the Federal agencies.
On the issue of school choice, I am a cosponsor of
legislation, that is, S. 487--and we will hear about companion
legislation from the House shortly--that would provide
scholarships to low-income students who choose to get a quality
education at a private school. Every child has a right to
quality education. If they are being denied that right in their
public schools, they must be given the option to make sure they
receive the quality education they deserve. That is a
fundamental and a paramount right. If people are to be able to
experience the fullness of education and be able to make the
most of themselves, they need to have access to a quality
education. A bureaucracy may be able to wait years for its
improvements to take place, but a child, however, cannot. They
have to receive that quality education when they are in the
school system.
In 2 years, first and second-graders learn the basics of
reading and mathematics. We cannot put off learning basic
reading and mathematics skills for those children. S. 847 would
provide an immediate option to maintain these learning
standards for children during the 2 years of improvement.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses for coming to
testify at today's hearing, and I just want to say as well as I
conclude my opening remarks that I am very concerned about
where we are on District of Columbia public education. In the
reconciliation bill that just went through Congress, we did a
lot on improving the District of Columbia. We addressed the tax
issue; we put in zero capital gains for property held for 5
years; first-time homebuyers. There has been a lot done on the
crime issue in the District of Columbia. I think there is more
that needs to take place. We need to address the management
issue in the District of Columbia. There is a lot of
consternation and concern, but there are a lot of needs to
manage better in the District of Columbia.
I think some of the fundamentals are being addressed--of
crime, of growth--but the one that we have not adequately
addressed yet is education, public education. And that is my
deep concern and commitment, that we need to move forward for
the D.C. public schools for the children. They just are not
getting the chance for the quality education that they need to
have. That is what we want to examine at this hearing, and I
have a number of questions for our witnesses, particularly for
General Becton, on running the schools.
Our first witness is the Majority Leader of the U.S. House
of Representatives, who has been following and working on this
issue for some period of time, and I am delighted to have
Representative Dick Armey here to testify.
Representative Armey, thank you for coming over to this
side of the Hill and testifying. I look forward to your
presentation and a few questions.
Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF HON. RICHARD K. ARMEY,\1\ MAJORITY LEADER, U.S.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. Armey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here, and I appreciate the fact that you are
holding these hearings. I want to especially thank you for the
opportunity to talk about the question of education in
Washington, D.C.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Armey appears in the Appendix on
page 43.
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As you know, I am a sponsor of school choice legislation
for D.C., which will soon be taken up in our own body in the
appropriations process. I have long been a supporter of the
concept of choice for families in the education of their
children. But I have to tell you that this current effort that
I am working on has brought me into closer contact with the
real families and the real children than I have been in other
efforts.
And you are absolutely right when you put the emphasis as
you do on the children. One of the things that I have learned
in the last few days is that Washington is a city full of
beautiful children, and every one of these children have a
once-in-a-lifetime period in which they should and must get
their education. It is so critical that we understand that for
each individual child, it is now.
And as George Allen--a person that we in Dallas do not
always quote--I mean Coach George Allen--used to say, ``the
future is now,'' and never is that more true than when you look
into the face of a beautiful child looking for his or her
chance to get through the third grade this year, because they
know that this is the year to do so.
I would like to talk about that in some more personal terms
without naming any names. I want to tell a true story about an
African-American family living in Anacostia. Through the
generosity of some anonymous donors, six children in this
family began attending a Catholic school in the District of
Columbia last week. Up until now, they had attended the city's
public schools, and if they were still attending the city's
public schools, they would not have been in school last week.
The oldest child is 13 and should be starting his freshman
year in high school. Instead, he is starting the 7th grade. He
has tested at the Catholic school and is actually only reading
at about a 5th grade level. At 13 years old, this young man is
already 4 years behind in school and on the verge of being a
lifetime behind.
The next child is a 10-year-old girl. Although she tested
half a grade level behind, the principal at the school agreed
not to hold her back; last week, she began the 5th grade.
Also attending the Catholic school is a friendly 9-year-old
boy. Until a few volunteers took him under their wings 6 months
ago, this boy could not read. Halfway through the 3rd grade in
D.C. public schools, he could barely read a word on a page.
Because of volunteer help 2 or 3 days a week over the past 6
months, his reading level has improved to the 2nd grade level.
Even though he should be attending the 4th grade, he will be
repeating the 3rd grade. The principal only agreed to hold him
back just one grade when provided with a firm commitment that
the intensive tutoring would continue. And I must say I know
the child and I know the tutors, and I know that they made a
commitment that has been convincing to this principal.
Joining the young boy in 3rd grade will be his very bright
8-year-old sister, the only one of the six children who did not
test behind. Also attending the school will be a 3-year-old and
a 4-year-old.
If you will, I would like to take a moment to talk about
the future of these children. The young man repeating the 3rd
grade is an extremely kind and friendly child, but what will
his future look like if he continues to go to school and
continues to fall behind? He would become bored in class and
begin to disturb the other students. His self-esteem would
deteriorate, and eventually, he would conclude that he cannot
compete in school. Unable to read, he would drop out. In
today's economy, what future would this young man have?
Fortunately, these six children are now attending a school
that has an excellent record of success. Most of the students
who graduate from this elementary school go on to succeed in a
private high school, and from there, most go on to college.
Their new school is already producing results. Attitudes have
changed, both among the children and their parents. The
children are more excited to learn, and their parents are more
engaged in the children's education. Because of the opportunity
they have been given, these precious children are now going to
become something more than just statistics.
Mr. Chairman, some people may listen to me and complain
that I am guilty of argument by anecdote. Let us look at the
facts and see if the family that I have just discussed is
representative of what is really happening in our Nation's
Capital.
In the family I mentioned, of the four children who are
beyond kindergarten age, three of the four test below grade
level. According to The Washington Post, among D.C. public
students as a whole, 65 percent test below their grade level.
In 1974, 72 percent of 4th graders in D.C. public schools
tested below basic proficiency on the National Assessment of
Education Progress. Even many students who graduate have little
to show for their diplomas. Eighty-five percent of D.C. public
schools students who enter the University of the District of
Columbia need 2 years of remedial education before beginning
their course work toward their degree. A majority of public
school graduates who take the U.S. Armed Forces qualification
test fail it.
What is worse, about 40 percent of District children who
enter the public schools never graduate at all. Unable to
compete in our economy, many end up on welfare or in prison. A
report released in August showed that at any given time,
virtually half of all black men in Washington, D.C. age 18 to
35 are either incarcerated, on parole or on probation, awaiting
trial or being sought on an arrest warrant.
We simply cannot continue to allow our young people to
become nothing other than grim statistics. I have supported
efforts to improve the public schools in the District. I have
met with General Becton, and I believe he is committed to a
genuine reforming and improvement of the public schools. I
support the strong charter school law created by Congress which
allows for creative and successful charter schools.
I might also add that even though per pupil spending levels
are already among the highest in the Nation, Congress has
nevertheless provided more funding for the public school
system. But we need to do more. We must do something to help
the thousands of children like the ones I have described today
whose future depends on getting out of failing schools, not in
10 years, not in 5 years, but today.
That is why I have introduced bipartisan legislation that
would provide Opportunity Scholarships to low-income District
residents. Under the legislation, which was introduced in the
Senate by Senators Coats, Lieberman and the Chairman of this
Subcommittee, about 2,000 children would be eligible for a
scholarship of up to $3,200. The scholarship could be used to
attend the public, private, or religious school of the parents'
choosing; it would also provide up to $500 in tutoring
assistance to about 2,000 public school students.
Not only will the scholarships give 2,000 children a chance
to attend a better school immediately; they will also help
improve the public schools. The only way the public school
bureaucracy will be reformed is through the discipline and
accountability that competition will provide.
Let me quote Howard Fuller, the former superintendent of
Milwaukee's public schools: ``If you are in a system, as I was
as a superintendent, demanding change, but everyone there is
clear that whether a single child learns or not, everyone is
going to get paid, if everybody is clear that in schools that
have never educated kids, each year you are going to put more
kids in there, there is not one single thing I can do about it,
and all the rhetoric in the world is not going to change that.
What I am saying is simply this, I think you have to have a
series of options for parents. I support charter schools. I
support site-based management--that is, real site-based
management. I support anything that changes the options for
parents. But I am here to say that if one of these options is
not choice that gives poor parents a way to leave, the kind of
pressure that you need internally is simply not going to
occur.''
Mr. Chairman, in suburban neighborhoods, some pressures for
positive change exist because middle-class families have the
resources to take their children out of bad schools and put
them into private school. Thus, in a limited but important way,
public schools are forced to compete for students. As a result,
they frequently overcome bureaucratic inertia and improve.
According to a recent Washington Post article, a Bethesda
public school strengthened its curriculum in order to woo back
to the public schools private school students searching for a
rigorous education experience. This is the dynamic we must
create in Anacostia.
I would like to address two concerns that have been raised
about my legislation. Some critics of the legislation argue
that the only students that private schools are interested in
taking are the brightest and the most privileged--not the low-
income students who are eligible for scholarships under the
bill.
A similar strain of this argument is that private schools,
if they would accept poor children, would take only the
brightest students and leave the public schools with the
students who have the greatest need. It is true that some
exclusive schools like Sidwell Friends, where the President
sent his child, only accept the best and the brightest; but
under our legislation, the scholarships are awarded randomly to
parents and students, not to the schools. Parents have the
power to choose, not the schools. Parents can cherrypick the
best schools, not the other way around.
Most importantly, this argument ignores what is really
happening in this city--the six children from the family I
mentioned earlier in my testimony were all accepted by a
Catholic school in Anacostia, even though most are testing
below grade level. I went to visit Holy Redeemer Catholic
School, which is located near North Capitol Street. This school
is serving the same low-income minority student population as
attend the public schools. The same is true for the Nanny Helen
Burroughs School that Senators Coats and Lieberman visited.
These schools are not exclusives. They are not institutions in
the posh neighborhoods of Northwest Washington. I challenge
school choice opponents to look beyond the schools where they
are sending their own children and look to the dozens of
schools in poor neighborhoods that are currently serving low-
income, primarily African-American students. The entire mission
of these schools is to serve the disadvantaged students who
live in the poor neighborhoods in which they are located.
Moreover, low-income students are already attending more
than 60 area schools through scholarships provided by the
Washington Scholarship Fund. In fact, many of Washington's most
exclusive private schools have accepted poor students who are
eligible for the scholarships. The Washington Scholarship Fund,
which currently serves about 250 children, has a waiting list
of several hundred children. The waiting list of the Washington
Scholarship Fund leads me to another concern I hear expressed
about the scholarship legislation--whether Congress would
infringe on the District's home rule by providing opportunity
scholarships.
The number of children on the Washington Scholarship Fund's
waiting list demonstrates that the people of Washington, D.C.
themselves want alternatives to the failing public schools.
That support is reflected in the polling data. A recent poll
shows that by a 44 to 31 margin, District residents believe
that providing scholarships to low-income children is a good
use of taxpayer dollars. Among families earning less than
$25,000, 59 percent support the program, while just 17 percent
oppose it. African-Americans support the idea by a 48 to 29
margin. Opposition to scholarships is highest among families
who earn $60,000 or more, most of whom already send their
children to private schools.
Mr. Chairman, let me close by returning to the family I
discussed at the opening of my statement. A child who goes
through school without learning has the odds stacked against
him. Most children who go through school without learning
become grim statistics. We cannot stand by and let that happen
to another generation of children in our Nation's Capitol.
Every child in America deserves a safe, quality education and a
fair chance at the American dream.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me just make a final
personal observation. As you know, my home is in Dallas, Texas.
I do not live in Washington, D.C. I have never lived in
Washington, D.C. I will never live in Washington, D.C. My
grandchildren will not be raised in Washington, DC.
You could ask why do I trouble myself over this question.
And I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, it is not out of a concern
for Washington, D.C. But Washington, D.C. is a city that has
many very, very beautiful and very precious children, and it is
just simply not something to be ignored. Each and every one of
us who has the privilege of working in this city must be
willing to look into this city and at least look into the eyes
of these children, and anybody who works on this Hill, in this
town, who looks into those beautiful brown eyes and can say
something other than, ``You must have your chance now; you
cannot be ignored until a system reforms itself; you cannot be
allowed to be passed over by a system slow in reforming
itself,'' is failing in his or her duty to those children.
And I must say that I believe that our duty to those
children is larger than our duty to this city or to our own
home cities, wherever they are. And it is, in fact, I think,
the closest thing to a moral imperative that any of us face in
this town.
I would invite anybody who thinks that somehow or another,
the system may be troubled by this kind of an initiative to
look beyond the system and to go and look into one of these
children's eyes. And if you can get by that little 3rd-grader
who happened to be in my office the other day, and if you can
spend half an hour with that little guy, and you can come away
without him owning you in some way, then your heart is too cold
to work in this city or anyplace else.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Armey. I
appreciate very much your testifying and being here today.
It seems to me it is about the children, and it is also
about making Washington, D.C. a shining example, which is what
we are trying to do for it and for the children who go to
school here.
Let me ask you, I guess, the most obvious of questions. Why
is it that with the number of Members of Congress who send
their children to private schools and have the income and the
wherewithal to do that, with the statistics you cited of the
failings of this system toward the children, and with the
advantages of these scholarships and the bipartisan support for
this--as you noted, Senator Lieberman, who is also on this
panel, introduced the same companion legislation--why is there
resistance to either these scholarships or even to the concept
of vouchers? It seems to me that the whole situation would say
that this is the clear answer and the way that we need to go.
Mr. Armey. Well, I am frustrated by that, too, and it
strikes me that in politics, sophistry and power are all too
often compelling influences in the lives of people who are at
work.
When I look at one of these little 3rd-graders, I do not
think they are particularly enamored with the esoteric
formulations of some Supreme Court constitutional theory. They
want to know can I go to a school where I will be happy and
safe, and can I have my bright eyes lit up by the excitement of
learning.
I think that all too often, we do not get beyond ourselves
in this city, and as much as I believe that public choice and
family choice and the involvement that I see in the parents--I
met with some parents the other night, and I have to tell you
that some of these parents are just incredible in the way they
reach out beyond themselves for these children. The Scholarship
Fund provides about half the money, and an awful lot of parents
who have all they can do to just stay up with their current
needs find a way to reach beyond that and provide the other
half.
It is a precious part of the solution, but in the main, the
solution is to fix the entire D.C. school system. I think
public choice is part of that process, and I think competition
helps. I think that once the school system knows that I do not
have an automatic command and control over who will fill my
halls, whether they are winning or losing here, they will in
fact reach out as the school I cited in Maryland did and
encourage people to come back by demonstrating greater success.
So I do not want to understate the importance of public
school choice or school choice in terms of the encouragement it
gives to public schools to get better and in the end, the
improvement of the overall performance of the public schools is
what must be done. I think General Becton is committed to this.
We have visited about this, and while school choice is a
precious part of the answer, it is not the full answer. But we
have an obligation to have our eyes opened to all the answers,
all parts of the answers, that can be.
Senator Brownback. General Becton raised a question about
the scholarship proposal, suggesting that his big concern is a
lack of accountability in a scholarship type of system. Do you
have concerns about that in the legislation, whether there is
going to be sufficient accountability if some of these
scholarships are used for private institutions?
Mr. Armey. No, I do not have any concerns about that. We
have a school system here in this city that has got to be
understood to be very likely the most tragic failure of any
school system anyplace in America. I do not think anyone is
sitting around, worrying about the lack of accountability of
this system. This system has gone on for too many years without
people worrying about accountability.
I have been to the schools, I have seen these children. I
have seen people who have taken resources that are sometimes as
little as one-third of the per-child resources, and they have
turned on these children to learning. I sat in one school, and
grade after grade after grade, I asked the children, ``What is
your favorite subject,'' and grade after grade after grade,
they said, ``Science and math, science and math.''
I defy you to go into any public school in America and find
the majority of children in the school saying their favorite
subject in the 3rd grade is science or math.
I think people who worry about lack of accountability ought
to visit the schools, look at the children, see the excitement
in their young faces, and see the dedication of those teachers.
I have said it before, and I will say it again--there is
absolutely nothing more precious than a dedicated, loving
teacher, and that is what you find here. These people are
generally teaching and working at salaries that are
considerably less than they get, and they are in it for the
love. And for us to think that an abstraction like
accountability should negate a recognition of their good works
is, I think, a failure on our part to, in fact, do the job that
we need to go out and see for ourselves.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much for being here with
us today and for sponsoring this legislation and the suggestion
that you will be putting it in the appropriations bill coming
through the House. There will be similar efforts on the Senate
side as well. I think that it is important legislation to move
forward.
Thanks for your leadership, Majority Leader Armey.
Mr. Armey. Thank you. I might add that I have spoken to the
Subcommittee on Appropriations that has jurisdiction over the
city, and I am very confident; I believe they will in fact have
this legislation in the House. As you know, both the chairman
of that subcommittee and the ranking Democrat on the
subcommittee are both in support of the legislation. So I think
we will have it properly placed in the legislative process, and
as we gain public recognition and understanding of the value of
this in the lives of the children, we will be able to take
ourselves beyond the needs of systems and institutions and get
to the ground we must stand on.
I thank you again for holding these hearings.
Senator Brownback. And I might note, too, that it actually
may well save money even though this is in addition to the
current public education--the scholarship is $3,200 versus
$7,000-plus that the public education system spends. So it is
not taking money out of the public education system, and it may
actually cost less in delivering a better education for these
children.
Mr. Armey. I believe that is right on a per capita basis.
By the same token, I have encouraged the subcommittee, and I
think the subcommittee is fully committed to the proposition
that whatever funds are made available for this scholarship
program in Washington, D.C. should not be gained by reducing
funds available to the D.C. public school system. While we hold
so close to our hearts the importance that this can have to the
number of children who benefit from it, I think we should never
lose sight of the fact that the large task, the more important
thing for the greatest comprehensive care of all the children
of this city is the rehabilitation of the D.C. public school
system so that it performs at such a level.
I think the competition engendered by choice helps in that
process, and I do not want to see this choice program funded by
reductions in revenues for D.C. schools themselves. I do not
think that will be the case.
Senator Brownback. Good. Thank you very much. I appreciate
your coming.
Mr. Armey. Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Our second panel consists of Jeanne
Allen, President of the Center for Education Reform; Nina
Shokraii, an Education Policy Analyst, Domestic Policy Studies,
at the Heritage Foundation; and Kent Amos, President of the
Urban Family Institute.
We certainly appreciate all three of you coming to testify
today. What I would like to do if I could with each of you is
to have your full testimony put into the record; if you can
summarize your statement, and then let us have a good
interaction back and forth and even amongst the panelists. If
you hear comments from other panelists that you would like to
react to, please feel free to do that.
Have you agreed upon any order of presentation, or are
there any needs that individuals have to testify first? If not,
I will just go down in the order in which I called you.
Ms. Allen, President of The Center for Education Reform, we
very much appreciate you being here today, and the floor is
yours. And welcome back, I might say.
TESTIMONY OF JEANNE ALLEN,\1\ PRESIDENT, THE CENTER FOR
EDUCATION REFORM
Ms. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Allen with an attachment of a
statement from Malcolm Peabody, Chairman of Friends of Choice in Urban
Schools, Inc., and Lex Towle, Managing Director of the AppleTree
Institute for Education Innovation, Inc., before the Subcommittee on
the District of Columbia Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of
Representatives, appear in the Appendix on pages 51 and 55
respectively.
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First, I want to say that I applaud Congressman Armey for
his sentiment and his passion over this issue. He, like
Congressman Flake and hundreds of lawmakers across the country,
both Democrat, Republican and in between, embrace the very
concept that he came here to talk to you about, and in fact,
preliminary results from the Center's 1997 poll which will be
released next week indicate 86 percent support among African-
Americans alone for some sort of school choice option that
includes private schools. It is clear the time has come, and I
am delighted that you have focused on the issue.
I came back today, though, having been here 6 months ago,
to primarily focus on the quest for charter schools in the
District and related issues which the District has been
grappling with.
I have to say that the effort remains slow and encumbered
by what I see as bureaucratic foot-dragging. I think there is a
lack of clear vision of what the officials in charge think
about what charters can do for D.C. school children. I believe
it is still being looked at and approached very much as an
aside, a fad, an additional thing as opposed to how it is being
considered across the country, which is a reinvigoration of
public education and the opportunity for real people, teachers
and parents and civic leaders, to create schools responsive to
needs in communities and make that part of, as I said, sort of
revolutionizing the public education system.
In the city, no less than four major business and civic
groups have been working full-time to clear hurdles and send
positive signs of encouragement throughout the city. For an
area with the third-strongest law in the land, the dearth of
charter applicants and action to me is appalling, and I
certainly do not think it was Congress' intent.
Meanwhile, Chicago, which is not 2 hours away by plane, was
plagued with problems one could consider worse than the
District's. Their major legislation replaced the ineffective
school board with a CEO and a Board of Trustees and gave them 4
years to turn around a city where the dropout rate hovers
around 50 percent. Chronic truancy in Chicago is two times the
State average.
Not 2 years after the changes were made, already dramatic
reforms and efforts are beginning to be realized. The new
trustees have fired 12 principals from schools with poor
academic results; they have reconstituted seven schools
entirely--most of those people were asked to reapply; most of
them were not rehired back by the CEO in charge, Paul Vallas.
Chicago Trustees also begin to recognize that reading
problems, which Congressman Armey also referred to in the
District of Columbia, were the direct result of a lack of
traditional, fundamental reading instruction. They pushed a
``back to basics'' effort that emphasized phonics. They also
required homework in every grade--the higher the grade, the
more homework--and social promotion is not prohibited.
Any child not able to pass muster or be guaranteed a place,
say, from 4th to 5th grade the following year was required to
sit in summer school this year to make up deficiencies, and I
am told that progress was enormous this summer given the
concentration and the focus and the fact that those people
teaching summer school and those children going knew that if
they did not pass what was required of them, they would not
have that grade to go into in the coming year.
Serious accountability is being taken in Chicago, and it is
something that I think we can learn a great deal from, and I
refer to several other incidences and effects of the Chicago
Reform Act in my testimony.
Chicago also has charter schools, as Illinois passed a law
the same year that Washington, D.C. did. There, Chicago has
already authorized 10 of the 15 charter laws permitted by law--
there is a cap there--and those schools range from schools for
dropouts rates, although the CEO of the Chicago schools, Paul
Vallas, has also instituted 26 new alternative schools for
troubled children. So in addition to those schools, there are
international baccalaureate and very high challenging curricula
for children in the city of Chicago through charter schools;
there are some ``back to basics'' schools; there are some
vocational schools; there is a panoply of very strong and
encouraging charter schools that we are going to be following
with greater interest.
One of the things that Paul Vallas also did not shy away
from was trying to use the Catholic schools there as a template
to follow. Making no bones about it, he said that he wanted to
practice the tried and true practices that the Catholic schools
there were doing, using tests and standards as a benchmark.
Over the last 2 years, there has been significant progress
among both elementary and middle-school children in reading and
math. There is still a lot of work to be done, but there have
been significant point gains where for years there had been
none.
In Chicago, there were no delays in repairing dilapidated
buildings. It was one of the first orders of business in 1995,
and by 1996, many of the most serious safety infractions were
fixed.
Is it any wonder that a district the size of Chicago, with
550 schools, can make progress when it permits itself to hire
any number of private contracts? In fact, private contracting
was something that Paul Vallas put on the top of the table when
he first went in to look at maintenance and all the various
things he had to do in the school system from, as I said,
maintenance to food service. It also pays its bills on time. He
was willing to open up to people throughout the State, and as a
result, the number of work orders completed in Chicago rose
from over 1,000 in 1 year to 16,000 just last year. So they got
their buildings up-to-speed.
Just 6 months ago, I shared with you my frustration over
the pace of already-enacted school reform here. As an observer
with a wide and deep knowledge of reforms at play throughout
the country, I recommended that some time lines be established
here for officials to carry out the intent of the charter law.
I spoke of the unparalleled potential for dramatic improvement
that charters are bringing to children everywhere. Yet, while
over 150,000 children started off to about 750 charter schools
across the country just last week, the District still has only
four, two of which are new, one of which should have been
closed long ago, quite frankly, and one that has struggled for
every penny and ounce of freedom otherwise guaranteed to the
school director by law.
I have to share with you that an acquaintance who worked
briefly at D.C. public schools recently remarked to me that he
had gone in as an avid defender of the system as is and left
reluctantly endorsing full-scale vouchers. While I, for one,
offer unconditional support for aiding low-income children with
real choices, I am not sure that drawing that support from an
experience with an ineffective bureaucracy is how I would like
to find compatriots. For if that is the impact a central
district has on its bright-eyed employees--and it does so every
day--how can it be assured that any reform, no matter how
mandated, is followed and carried through?
The D.C. Public Charter School Coalition has recommended
several steps to Congress to ensure parity and equity for
charter schools. I think their recommendations are sound, and
as a result I have appended them to my testimony. But I have
gone further to suggest that Congress make further demands and
squelch the ability of the board and the school system to suck
the life out of this critical education reform; otherwise, we
will be having the same conversation next year.
As we have seen in countless other States, if the people
controlling the purse are not advocates and are not charged
with fulfilling the law with appropriate oversight, then little
will be done to affect charter schools. The D.C. Public Charter
School Coalition, for example, has been negotiating for 6
months on the definition of ``preference'' when it comes to
facilities for charter schools. Why it takes 6 months to define
what ``preference'' should mean when Congress' intent was
relatively clear--to me, this should be perhaps several
meetings within a month's time span; get it over with, and get
it done, so that people can have access to facilities.
I think the main reason that DCPS is in this position--and
there are hundreds of other stories I could share with you of
foot-dragging--is because they have been wedded to doing
business as usual for too long; there are no incentives to push
this, and as I said, I do not think there is a clear vision and
a role for what charter schools can do for this city.
Why did it take more than 6 months, for example, as you
well know now, from one of the only two charter schools in D.C.
to get a portion of Federal charter school grant money. If two
or three people have to sign a check, to me, that does not take
6 months. Six months, countless meetings, media attention,
constant badgering--is this what we want for D.C. school
children?
In Chicago, the Trustees have fully-established, well-
publicized time lines and goals. The legislature has assigned
people to work hands-on with the Trustees to offer support as
well as hold accountable those now in power. Part of this, to
be sure, is about personalities, but it is also having a set of
six goals and sticking to them. You cannot turn around a city
with the severe problems of D.C. without doing so.
Among my recommendations as a result of my observations are
the following: First, you need to convene a congressional
briefing session for the Public Charter School Board, General
Becton and staff, the Board of Trustees and others that are
critical to this reform--some of the agencies you mentioned
earlier, Senator, that were to be helping in the charter
effort, including the Smithsonian and others--and have that
briefing conducted by leaders of a dozen or so States where
charter schools are prospering and flourishing. I just do not
think people understand or, quite frankly, get it and what can
be done here.
Second, enact measures, requirements and time lines similar
to those that are paving the way for dramatic reform in
Chicago.
Third, as I recommended in April, require 100 percent of
per-pupil funding to be disbursed early in the process so that
schools can get off and running, buy curricula, train teachers
in the summer, in four easy payments. Congress can make special
allocations from prior year funding; it would not break the
bank, and it certainly would not increase appropriations.
Fourth, assign a senior-level congressional staff person to
attend and monitor all charter school policy meetings and serve
as the liaison with the civil resource groups. This person
would ensure that the congressional intent of the law was being
fulfilled, and the DCPS would know clearly that Congress is
aware of its various moves.
Finally, establish a separate State education agency for
the District. The District is the only area in the country
where the SEA and the local education agency are one; it puts a
conflict of interest in place if they have to be one and the
same in terms of funding, and they view everything as
competition as a result.
Please understand that I do not question the motivations or
intention of General Becton, the DCPS, or his staff. It is
clear, however, that the priorities of DCPS are not consistent
with fundamental education reform and that foot-dragging and
delays will continue on every education measure unless and
until the control is reestablished. This is no doubt an issue
for the Board of Trustees, but as Congress created the board,
so too must Congress amend its plans if it fails to develop as
originally enacted.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Ms. Allen. That was
very good, pointed testimony, and I look forward to some
questions to ask you about carrying out some of these items.
I, too, am very frustrated. This was 6 months ago; it was
April 17. Much of your testimony then was similar to what it is
now. Why haven't we had more progress in moving forward on
this? Perhaps it is time for us to set those specific time line
dates and just say this is the way it is going to be if you are
not going to move forward on these proposals.
Ms. Shokraii, Education Policy Analyst for The Heritage, we
are delighted to have you with us today. Thanks for joining us.
TESTIMONY OF NINA SHOKRAII,\1\ EDUCATION POLICY ANALYST,
DOMESTIC POLICY STUDIES, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Ms. Shokraii. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to
appear before you today to discuss reforms in the District of
Columbia public schools. Much has happened since the D.C.
Financial Control Board appointed General Julius Becton as
Superintendent of D.C. Schools last November.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Shokraii with an attachment
entitled ``A Comparison of Public and Private Education in the District
of Columbia,'' September 17, 1997, appear in the Appendix on pages 62
and 68 respectively.
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The Board has acted swiftly and efficiently with many of
the dilemmas facing the D.C. school system, specifically, by
stripping the D.C. School Board of its power over budget and
policy. But, as with many one-size-fits-all solutions, General
Becton's solutions are bound to displease some people. This was
particularly apparent when they swiftly voted on shutting down
11 D.C. public schools just a few months ago, although a
fiscally sound solution, it lacked one key component--parental
input.
Nearly 2 years ago, Congress enacted one of the strongest
charter school laws in the country for D.C., yet the city has
only managed to open two. While the rest of the country, as
Jeanne noted, is reaping the benefits of charter schools, the
Nation's Capital, whose families could benefit the most, is
lagging behind.
The dismal state of D.C. public schools, coupled with the
current decrepit state of its school buildings, which has
caused a 3-week delay in opening this fall, the abundance of
violence and drugs on school grounds, and the vast but
ineffective school bureaucracy, has mobilized everyone from the
President to Congress to local activists to find ways to fix
the system quickly.
Mr. Chairman, there are many elements to an effective
solution to the D.C. school system's shortcomings. One is an
overhaul of the public schools, especially their suffocating
bureaucracy, which General Becton has taken on and vowed to fix
by the year 2000. Another is to incorporate competition by
offering charter schools within the public system, an
alternative that I hope will flourish under the General's rule.
But the best solution is to offer D.C. parents vouchers to
send their children to the schools of their choice, be they
public, private or parochial. The District currently allows
parents to choose between public schools of their choice. It is
critical to make sure that option is expanded to private and
religious schools.
This is crucial for three reasons, the first being that
private schools, especially parochial schools, produce better
results, especially in the inner cities. As shown in the
Milwaukee and Cleveland school choice experiments and the
numerous private scholarship programs around the country, low-
income inner-city children are benefiting from school choice.
Recent studies of the Milwaukee school choice program by Paul
Peterson of Harvard University and Jay Greene of the University
of Houston, for instance, show that after attending the choice
program in Milwaukee for 3 years, the gap in test scores
between whites and minorities narrowed from 33 to 50 percent.
This study was nearly replicated by Cecilia Rouse from
Princeton University, who found very similar results.
Other studies also confirm the success of choice programs,
especially in the Catholic school arena. The most important
work in this area, as you know, was done by the late
sociologist, James Coleman, of the University of Chicago, who
found that Catholic school sophomores scored 10 percent higher
in science, 12 percent higher in civics, 17 to 21 percent
higher in math, reading and vocabulary than their public school
counterparts. His study also showed that a child is more likely
to attend school with a child of another race in a private
school than in a public one and that dropout rates are
significantly lower in private schools than in public schools.
Recent studies confirm Coleman's findings with an even
higher degree of accuracy. William Evans and Robert Schwab from
the University of Maryland, for instance, found that attending
a Catholic high school raised the probability of finishing high
school and entering college for inner-city children by 17
percentage points. A study by Derek Neal at the University of
Chicago found that African-American and Hispanic students
attending urban Catholic schools were more than twice as likely
to graduate from college as their counterparts in public
schools. They also found that 27 percent of minority graduates
who started college went on to graduate, compared with only 11
percent in urban public schools. Neal's study was just recently
replicated by University of Oregon Professor David Figlio, who
found exactly the same results.
Finally, Caroline Hoxby from Harvard has found that
competition from private schools increased academic achievement
at both public and private schools. She found that greater
private school competition raises the academic quality of
public schools, the wages of the teachers in the public
schools, and high school graduation rates of public school
students.
Through choice, Ms. Hoxby concludes that both public and
private school kids would increase the amount of time spent in
school by about 2 years, while their math and reading test
scores would improve by about 10 percent. She also noted a wage
increase later on in life of 14 percentage points.
Another reason why school choice will make a tremendous
change in Washington, D.C. is the fact that more dollars will
actually reach the classrooms. The legislation that you have
offered with your colleagues channels Federal dollars in the
most direct way to parents, who then select the school of
choice for their children.
And finally, vouchers would save the public schools money
to use on public school students. According to a study, for
instance, of the cost of private school education conducted by
the Cato Institute, 67 percent of all private elementary and
secondary schools charge $2,500 or less in tuition. The average
tuition in private schools is only $3,116. This is half the
national average of $6,857 to educate a student in a public
school. In D.C., the per pupil cost is even higher. The last
estimate I have seen was $8,841, and many think that number is
even higher. The average cost of a Catholic school in D.C. is
less than half that amount. The public schools involved in a
school choice or voucher program can in turn use the extra
space and money to benefit their students by managing their
resources better or taking firmer action against unruly
students.
Mr. Chairman, school choice is the only reform mechanism
that would offer D.C. schools immediate and measurable results.
Offering the parents of the District of Columbia choices
through the traditional public education system via charter
schools and private schools will ease the burden on the
District's public schools while ultimately offering all
children in D.C. a better education.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much for that testimony.
I look forward to some questions and interactions.
Mr. Amos, President of the Urban Family Institute, thank
you for joining us today. I appreciate it very much, and the
floor is yours.
TESTIMONY OF KENT B. AMOS,\1\ PRESIDENT, URBAN FAMILY INSTITUTE
Mr. Amos. Thank you, Chairman Brownback.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Amos appears in the Appendix on
page 81.
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First, I would like to note that we will amend our written
testimony because things have been very fluid in our area in
the last few hours and given last night's conversations, which
we think will be very positive toward this end.
In the last several hours, we have been able to have a
conversation with a number of the city leaders around the
question that we bring before you today, and that is the
question of how is it that we are going to fund the charter
schools that are going to come on line in this city. We have
become part of the charter school movement by a particular
route which we will come back to a moment if time permits.
But let me start with what we are asking you to support,
and that is a change in the funding stream on how we fund
charter schools in the District of Columbia. The reason for
this request is that we believe that the one way we can really
impact this system is to bring private capital to bear.
My background is one from corporate America--again, I will
comment on that later--but we have been able to put together a
pot of money, fairly sizeable, from the private sector, which
is willing to invest in the public schools in the District.
Those dollars therefore have got to be repaid. The funding that
we currently receive does not include capital dollars. If you
want to improve the school buildings in this city, bring the
private sector heavily involved into it, and we believe we can
and will do that. But to repay the loans associated with that
effort, we would like to be able to share equally in the
capital costs associated with what comes to the District of
Columbia.
In addition, each of the teachers that we want to bring
into the charter schools that we will be representing next year
and beyond, we want to be able to be fully compensated as well,
which includes their pension costs. Currently, the formula does
not provide for the pension dollars that flow to the District
of Columbia to flow to the charter schools; we would ask that
be amended as well, and we believe that the city is going to
move to do that.
Third, right now, the funding structure is such that the
funds are predicated on the previous year's enrollment. To the
extent that charter schools are brand new, there is no previous
school enrollment, and therefore you are still a year out from
receiving funding. For a start-up organization, the initial
days are very important. Therefore, we would hope that we would
find some formula that would allow for those dollars to flow to
the charter schools as well. We think we could use the month of
September--because actually, the fiscal year starts in
October--and just count who is there the first day, so to
speak, and use that as your measurement, but if that does not
work, we can find another format.
And finally, we ask that if some point in time, the adult
education programs in Washington, D.C. begin to be refunded,
that charter schools also participate in those dollars. The
truth of the matter is our situation is such that all the
children in our community are, in many instances, surrounded by
adults who need the same kind of training that the children do,
because they have gone through these systems prior to their
children and have also not been fully developed. So therefore,
adult education at some point is going to be a very crucial
element, and we would like to combine that.
So we are asking that you support what we believe will be
an initiative by the District of Columbia leadership to, in
fact, amend the existing District resolution to accommodate
these things; if Federal law would follow that, we would
certainly be appreciative.
I come to this hearing today as a fourth-generation
Washingtonian. My grandfather taught in the D.C. public schools
for 47 years. My father graduated from a D.C. public school and
became an attorney. My mother taught in the D.C. public schools
for 32 years. I am a graduate of D.C. public schools, and in
fact, 16 years ago, I came back to Washington, D.C. as vice
president of a Fortune 50 company and put my children in the
D.C. public schools. A lot of people suggested that was not the
wisest thing that a corporate executive could do at that time,
or certainly today, but we felt it was important that we live
up to the legacy of our public education system.
We found very quickly, however, that choice that we made
may have a negative impact on our home and on our family, so we
decided to do something about it. That ``something about it''
that we did was to first of all bring corporate resource to
bear into the public system that our children found themselves
in. Through my position in the company, we were able to put a
computer lab in the school; we were able to put a summer jobs
program in the school for the children around us. But it was
not enough. We still found ourselves with children in our home
who needed the kinds of supports that only a family can provide
and that a community that surrounds it children can provided.
So my wife and I decided to open up our home and our
resources to the children who surrounded our family. To make a
long story short, Senator, we adopted 87 children over a 16-
year period, 11 of which--we had as many as 25 kids in our home
every, single day for as many as 2 years.
Senator Brownback. That $500 per child tax credit would be
a nice one for you. [Laughter.]
Mr. Amos. Any time, anywhere.
So we have sent dozens of children to college, children
whom many people would have suggested would not have made it.
We have seen a host of our children graduate from college and
go on to receive secondary degrees; we have 11 with advanced
degrees today.
But I am also here as one who has seen his children reach
those pinnacles, but has also seen his 16-year-old son gunned
down as he was heading to school. We have also been there when
our 19-year-old son, who came home from his freshman year of
college and was playing basketball on a local playground was
stabbed to death in an argument over a basketball. We have also
gone down to Norfolk Stadium in our son's junior year to bring
him home in a body bag because he was stabbed in front of a 7-
Eleven. We have seen our children gunned down, stabbed to
death, and in fact, a 16-year-old child of ours was hung on his
16th birthday because he would not sell drugs.
So the reason why I am here today as a parent, if you will,
and the reason why I walked away from corporate America to now
beg for a living, running a small nonprofit organization, is
not because we are here trying to do something about schools--
we are trying to save our society and in many ways, our soul.
The question for us is not how do you structure a school,
but how does a system as powerful as this one create the kind
of carnage that is going on in our society, and how can we do
something different about it. So we dedicated ourselves to
trying to figure out a way to change the system that is
producing the kind of foolishness that is going on in this
society today, and we believe we can do that.
We believe, as we did several years ago, working with your
colleagues in the Senate on S. 138, with then Senators Danforth
and Bradley, when we put forth a bill called at that time ``The
Community Schools Act'' to use school buildings as the
centering point for community life in many communities where
there is no centering point. That piece of legislation went
through, and we are still supporting that.
Today, we are here supporting charter schools. Why? Again,
because it comes back to the same principle: How do we organize
community around caregiving in a sufficient manner that
children end up productive adults. That is the goal. It is
really simple; it is not hard.
What we said we would do is, OK, how can we find a way to
use public buildings called schools as a part of the human
development equation. We brought corporate American to bear. We
now have, as I said earlier, a host of dollars available to us
by the corporate community that they are willing to spend on
public schools if, in fact, they have control of the assets.
And as any business interest, we have a way to repay that loan.
We figured out that for about 2,000 to 3,000 kids, at $1,500
per child--which is basically what it is coming down to with
the capital cost--we can fund some $50 million worth of changes
in the physical structure of the buildings that we are talking
about, and that is where we want to go, and we will use the
capital dollars to accomplish that.
In addition to that, we are working not only with schools,
but with families. In the last several years, we have been
working with public housing, and I know this is not the subject
of the hearing today, but you cannot talk about children who go
to schools and who come from public housing and not understand
the environment they are coming from. The truth of the matter
is they are only in school 10 percent of the time; 90 percent
of their time, they are out of school. What happens to them
there? Our argument is that we have to do something there as
well. So, working with then Secretary Cisneros and now with
HUD, we have figured out a way to bring education reform to
public housing and tie that to public schools, surrounded with
other public assets like playgrounds and with the faith
community of church and other kinds of assets, building a
continuum that sees to it that every, single child, every,
single family has a developmental paradigm that produces the
kind of outcome that we want.
In conclusion, Senator, Brownback, I would say that our
plea is one of a family that has seen pain and known joy, to
somehow bring the full weight and power of this institution to
bring the kind of joy to all families that we know is possible.
If you support the leadership of this city and the
transformational efforts that we are undertaking today, give us
the financial wherewithal, the political support and the
intellectual capital that this city has available to it, and we
can then make a difference.
Thank you.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Amos. Thank you for your
work, and my heart goes out to you on those tragedies. That is
just terrible to see.
It strikes me that what we are seeing take place here is
that we are now allowing every life every opportunity to
succeed. If you look at life as sacred, it needs to have every
chance to succeed and to grow and to prosper, and that we are
just not allowing that in this powerful system as you describe,
Mr. Amos. That is what we really want to get at, fundamentally,
is what can we change in this system to allow that beauty that
is in each of those lives to be able to blossom as much as
possible. It seems like now, we are just crushing so many of
them, and that has apparently been your experience as well.
You are strongly supportive of the charter school effort
and trying to move that forward. Do you see other things we
ought to be doing as well to grant those greater opportunities?
Mr. Amos. Yes, Senator. Let me also just be clear about my
support for charter schools. I believe that Generals Becton and
Williams and all are, as Jeanne said, and as I also believe
Nina said, well-intentioned. We are all well-intentioned. But
the system--if we wait until they do what they have to do--I
think Mr. Armey talked about his grandchildren--well, my
grandchildren will probably go to D.C. public schools--and I
have a bunch of them, by the way; I have 22 of them. But the
point is that at some point in time, we cannot wait for the
system to change itself; we have got to move as expeditiously
as we can.
I believe that the charter movement and also providing
young people and their families with enough opportunity
financially to go anywhere they can--I do not want to see a
single child left behind if we do not have to--so if we can
fund a child to go to another school while we build the better
system, let us do it. But right now, we have got to change
systemically. Again, Jeanne talked about the 750 charter
schools in the country that kids are going to. Well, there are
120,000 schools. We are not going to break this thing school by
school; we have got to build a systemic kind of change.
We have an opportunity here in Washington, D.C. that is
very, very unique, where we can put together a systemic
movement between the charter schools--there are 50 closed
school buildings right now. We are proposing, for example, with
our private resources, to acquire all 50 of those. That will
then give us a school base of 50 buildings. Then we will join,
as we already have--we are currently working with a host of
people who want to fill those buildings with new ideas, new
ventures--we are prepared to do that, and we have been working
now for several months at putting that network together. So we
think that we can work with the system and provide for it, in
many instances, changes that they cannot do, because we have
more flexibility. So the combination of what they want to do
and what we are currently doing together will bring rapid
change and thereby save more children.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Amos, on purchasing those 50
buildings and starting schools, are you being supported by the
education bureaucracy? Are you fighting it? How would you
characterize your negotiations?
Mr. Amos. I think it is the last word that you said; I
would characterize them as ``negotiations,'' Senator. I think
we are in the process of trying to have everyone understand
that collectively, we win, that fighting does not win. That is
a losing proposition.
So as I said, as recently as last night, speaking with the
chairman of the District of Columbia City Council's Education
Committee--they have the ability to write at least a ``sense of
the Council'' resolution--and talking last night with two
members of the Financial Control Board for over an hour,
everybody is beginning to understand that if we do this thing
right and together, we can bring substantive change quickly.
There is no reason why we cannot in the fall of 1998 have a
host of schools open and ready to go in a first-class way.
Senator Brownback. How many should we target to be open in
the fall of 1998?
Mr. Amos. Our goal is anywhere from 5 to 12 schools.
Senator Brownback. From your organization?
Mr. Amos. Well, it is not just our organization. It is a
combination of organizations coming together and working
together.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Allen, how many charter schools
should we target to have open a year from now?
Ms. Allen. Twenty.
Senator Brownback. A minimum of 20. And you stated four,
and I heard differing testimony here, two or four. But you have
stated four, and one should be closed.
Ms. Allen. Yes.
Senator Brownback. And I think that one is pretty well-
documented as far as the problems that it has had. But you
think 20 at a minimum, with the physical property available.
Ms. Allen. Yes. And Senator, as Mr. Amos has told you,
there is no dearth of people who want to do this. There is a
lot of lack of information. There are not as many people out
there who have stepped up to the plate as could be potentially
quality candidates, working with a variety of the resource
groups around, quite frankly, because you do not even want to
get involved in a process that just looks like a bear. Gee,
there is this application, there is that, and I hear the money
is not coming, and I hear that special education might not be
there, and I hear that, well, they had a problem getting their
Federal money--and suddenly, you have a great teacher out there
who wants to do something, and you have given that teacher no
hope. Whereas if you look at communities where we have had
charter schools in existence as long as 4 or 5 years in States
like Minnesota, they have not only become schools for, say, 150
or 200 kids, but they have become these great meccas of a
community. The Urban League has gotten involved in an after-
school program. There is before-school care by the YMCA. The
civic groups have adopted them. I mean, suddenly, people who
have wanted to be able to have input and guide children along
have found an opportunity in so many cities through charter
schools because there are no rules written saying, no, you
cannot. It is very open.
So to a large extent, while Kent is absolutely right, there
is a much larger mission in terms of savings lives of people
like he is directly involved in, the whole concept of education
reform through both school choice and charter schools helps to
build back a community and give children hope, so that those
kids on the outside are wondering what they are missing inside,
whereas right now, the kids on the inside are wondering what
they are missing outside.
Senator Brownback. And it looks like in the community, too,
as Congressman Armey was talking about, this is a way of saving
public education, and it gets fought so much.
You, though, Ms. Allen, believe that the only way we will
really get at this is by setting specific time lines for
certain accomplishments. You think that otherwise, the system
will slow-roll and crush anybody who really wants to get a
grasp on establishing charter schools?
Ms. Allen. That is my feeling, yes.
Senator Brownback. And you listed several specifics. Have
you listed specifics in your testimony on what should be done
by what time lines?
Ms. Allen. I have some that I could amend--some of the
suggestions filed from April that I could amend based on that.
Senator Brownback. I would appreciate it, and we can look
back at your testimony in April again to see about putting
those on fast-forward.
Let me ask you as well, in Chicago, you noted a similar
situation if not worse than in the District of Columbia and the
dramatic reform that took place in a short period of time. You
mentioned the firing of 12 principals in the Chicago school
system.
How many principals have been fired in the District of
Columbia; do you know?
Ms. Allen. I believe three. There were a lot of
reassignments, also.
Senator Brownback. Do you think there has been ample work
done in the District of Columbia in these restructurings, or do
you have any separate thoughts--as separate and distinct from
charter, just from the operation of the current public school
system?
Ms. Allen. The complaint that big-city officials often use,
which for a long time has been very, very valid, is that, well,
we cannot really reconstitute a staff because we have the
union, and we have a collective bargaining contract that says
X, Y, and Z, and if we dismiss staff, they will end up
somewhere else in the system, so why do this? There are lots of
excuses.
In Chicago, they have a very strong union. Chicago Teachers
Union is one of the strongest in the country. But the attitude
of the trustees and in fact of the legislature was: You can be
with us or you can be against us, and if you are against us, we
are going to profile you for just that. So get out of the way;
we are going to move in, and we are going to take care of this.
And if you have a problem because someone has tenure but they
are incompetent, why don't we sit down and talk about it in
public?
So it was real clear from the very start. I mean, there
were not words to that effect spoken specifically by Paul
Vallas, and I am not putting words in his mouth, but it was
clear all along--we have a job to do; if you are in the way, if
you have a problem, come to the table and make sure it is clear
to everybody what you are doing, because we are going to get
rid of people who are not working for our kids.
That attitude is not here. The attitude is that, well, we
have these people, and there is a separate evaluation, and they
have had several years--it is almost piecemeal.
Senator Brownback. Here in the District of Columbia, it is
too piecemeal?
Ms. Allen. Yes. And with the lack of standards and clear
tests, which were also part of the original D.C. education
reform bill, I am not sure where they stand right now. The lack
of an overall set of good tests used, with a high rigorous
standard to assess where children stand--you would be able to
see pretty quickly which schools were falling down and which
were not, and you would have been able to close failing schools
as opposed to some schools that were actually doing a darned
good job. We can assess them like that.
Senator Brownback. Do we know that in the District of
Columbia? Do we have sufficient test scoring to know what
schools are failing and which ones are succeeding?
Ms. Allen. You have your basic standardized tests, norm-
referenced tests, that most cities have, but I do not think
there is anything more specific, where in Chicago, for example,
Milwaukee and New York, you have specific reading, math and
science tests that are pegged to how much kids should know as
opposed to norm-referenced how much everybody else is doing. A
norm-referenced test simply gives you 50 percent of the people
are above average, 50 percent are below. Based on that, D.C.
test scores are pretty low. Based on other kinds of criteria,
what would it look like if you were supposed to be doing ``X''
in 4th grade in math, and children in 4th grade math were
tested, and we found out that, say, 40 percent were not there--
then people could get to work. That is what they did in
Milwaukee. They recognized that less than half the kids could
do basic math in 4th grade, and everybody got motivated and did
something about it.
Senator Brownback. But you are saying we have not
accumulated that same sort of----
Ms. Allen. Objective analysis.
Senator Brownback [continuing]. Objective, clear, specific
test data for the District of Columbia public school students.
Ms. Allen. I do not believe we have, no.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Amos, did you want to respond to
that?
Mr. Amos. No. I think Jeanne covered it very well.
Senator Brownback. Do you agree with her statement?
Mr. Amos. I would agree. I think there is a certain amount
of data that is beginning to be amassed, but unfortunately, it
is going to tell us exactly what Jeanne is saying, and I think
that, again, the system can only move so fast. And I guess what
we are suggesting is that we have got to help them move faster.
Senator Brownback. And it seems to me that the very first
thing you have to have is objective data. To really know what
sorts of steps and means and things you have to do, you have to
know what is the extent of the problem. As bad as it might
seem, you have to know first what is the extent of the problem
before you can get in and specifically begin to fight it.
Mr. Amos. I believe, Senator, that there is enough body of
data to understand the gravity of the circumstance. That is
fairly well-documented. It may not be on an individualized
school basis as it may need to be, but we have a fairly good
handle on that.
I would suggest that the first thing that needs to be done
is to pretty much believe that every child is capable, as Mr.
Armey talked about, and looking into the eyes of these children
as I do every, single day--I still see kids every, single day
and have for 16 years, and I know they are capable of something
else, and we demand of those children to be capable of
something else. The question is what paradigm do you put in
place for that to take place. Kids in my home, for example,
were all reading below level for the most part, just as has
been described here. Well, if you are reading below level, what
do you have to do? First, you have to make sure there is a
paradigm that gets you reading more. So in our house, for
example, there is a minimum of 2 hours' reading every night,
period. That was a starting point. If you watch television,
every hour of television you watch, you also have to read for
an hour; so if you watch 2 hours of television, you have 4
hours of reading--and you have to do it the same night.
Senator Brownback. But not at the same time.
Mr. Amos. No, definitely not at the same time. But what
that ended up doing was that people stopped watching
television. The formula became real easy--but it also meant
that I had to stay up later, and I had to read, too--not you do
it, and I do not do it--I have read more in the last 16 years
than I did in the first 45 before that. But that is beside the
point.
The point is that you have to create the kind of
environment. We can do the same thing in our schools. If
schools are still operating on the same paradigm--school starts
at 9 and ends at 3--and doing all the same things, well, you
are behind, and you are not going to catch up. So what we are
suggesting is that schools stay open later, or open earlier,
and that the adults in the students' lives also come there. And
by the way, some of those adults have gone through bad
experiences in literally those same buildings. So if the adult
in that child's life has gone to the same school and had the
same experience, what makes it any more attractive for them to
go back? Well, we have got to change that so that when the
adult comes back and the child comes back, there is a new day
there, there is a new encouragement there, there is a new set
of resources available to them within the same dollars. There
is not new money here; we are talking about how do you allocate
the dollars and the resources, and we believe we can do it.
One of the things we told the principal at the high school
where my kids went to school was, look, I want to make sure the
school stays open later. And the argument was that, well, we
cannot keep it open later because somebody is going to
vandalize the school. I said give me a key. I am pretty good at
unlocking doors, and I can lock it back up. He did, and we kept
the buildings open later, even if it meant just us being there,
and I took the liability.
So how do you create the kind of environment, I guess we
are suggesting here, that creates the new learning paradigm for
all of our children and their families.
Senator Brownback. Ms. Shokraii, your testimony supports
full-scale vouchers. Would you support the small step forward
on the scholarship program?
Ms. Shokraii. Absolutely.
Senator Brownback. OK. Ms. Allen, do you support a full-
scale voucher type of program for the District of Columbia?
Ms. Allen. Absolutely. I think anybody that is within an
income level should have access to the public, private, or
parochial school of their choice.
Senator let me just add briefly that over the last several
weeks, we have been meeting a number of parents and community-
based and some church-based groups who have heard about this
effort on the Hill and are very, very interested. I have long
known that parents do care, and parents do get involved when
asked, but it really never hit home until these last few weeks,
when you see people who say, I am on public assistance, and
they called me last week and told me my child is going to be in
special education, and I do not know why, because he was doing
well all year--she would love to come and tell her story to
you, by the way--and all of a sudden, they want me to do this.
What am I supposed to do? they say I have to sign these papers
and put him in a special education class, or he cannot come
back to school.
She has nowhere to go. She has no help. She has no support.
We hear stories like this every day. It is just not fair.
Senator Brownback. Mr. Amos, do you support a full-scale
voucher program for District of Columbia public schools, D.C.
students?
Mr. Amos. Again, like Jeanne, I think there ought to be
some economic question associated with it, and I think it also
ought to be on a trial basis, candidly, until such time as we
give an opportunity for the system to change itself. If it does
not, then so be it. But I think that the system is moving
toward change, and that we ought to give that opportunity. At
the same time, however, I think we ought to have some limited
scholarship program, if you will, vouchers, if you will, that
will allow children who are in need of that kind of education
right now. While we go through our machinations, if you will,
as adults to change the system, we should not hold the children
back. So therefore, I would have some limited support for that,
yes.
Senator Brownback. Well, I thank you all for coming. I must
say I am disappointed, not in your testimony, but that since
April 17, there has not been further progress made. This is a
paramount issue for the District of Columbia, how we educate
our children, and we have to start making more progress. We
need to get all the facts on the table, and we need to move
forward rapidly. We just cannot wait for a bureaucracy to crush
more kids.
I hope we can have some of you back here to be willing to
review the system in another 6 months to a year and that your
statements at that time will be much more positive because we
have made much more change. At the end, our objective always
has to be to be able to stare in that child's face and say, ``I
did everything I could to recognize you and to be able to give
you every chance you have.''
So we look for you to continue looking at the school
system, and thank you very much for testifying today.
Our final panel today will be General Julius Becton, Chief
Executive Officer, District of Columbia Public Schools, and Dr.
Bruce MacLaury, Chairman of the Emergency Transition Education
Board of Trustees.
Thank you very much for coming today. We appreciate it. We
also have with us today Chuck Williams, retired Major General,
Chief Operating Officer for the D.C. Public School System, who
has joined us on the panel as well. Thank you very much. I am
sorry we do not have a name plate up there for you, although
that may help you to not get as many questions that way.
Thank you very much for coming. I called this hearing
because I have a lot of serious concerns about what is taking
place in the District of Columbia public schools. We heard some
strong testimony before us today, and I look forward to hearing
your response to what you have been questioned about publicly
and seeing if we cannot get to the bottom of some of this.
Each of us holds in our heart the clear desire to have the
best education system possible for these kids, and the question
becomes how do you get there. I want to hear how you folks
think you are doing on getting there, and then I have some real
concerns about how the pace is going and what is happening.
As the chairman of Emergency Transition Education Board of
Trustees, Mr. MacLaury, we will go with you first if that would
be OK. We are delighted to have you here. We will accept your
entire written testimony into the record, and you can summarize
if you would like or present it in full.
TESTIMONY OF BRUCE K. MACLAURY,\1\ CHAIRMAN, EMERGENCY
TRANSITION EDUCATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Mr. MacLaury. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate this opportunity to present the views of the
Emergency Board of Trustees on the progress toward school
reform in the District of Columbia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. MacLaury appears in the Appendix
on page 83.
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As you know, the Trustees have been given until June 30,
2000 to accomplish wide-ranging and long-lasting reforms for
the District of Columbia's school system. Inescapably, we have
had to make tough choices and put safe and secure schools at
the very top of the list. If our motto, ``Children First,''
means anything, it means ensuring that students go to schools
that are safe from violence and free from leaky roofs that
could cause fire code violations and unexpected shutdowns as we
have had in the past.
This administration took over from earlier ones that had
allowed schools to deteriorate while not even spending the
admittedly inadequate capital funds that they had at their
disposal. We were given not quite $50 million to make a
responsible start toward stabilizing aging schools, and we gave
full support to General Becton when he decided that the job had
to be done right by replacing leaky roofs instead of patching
them in an endless cycle of wasting taxpayer dollars and
disruptions during the school year.
When we took on our new responsibilities, the public school
system was in meltdown. Data on students and staff were
difficult to obtain and hard to verify; procurement practices
and financial controls were lax, and standards for hiring and
evaluation were unenforced.
I begin on these points for two reasons--first, to give
General Becton credit that he has rarely received for taking on
a series of actions to rationalize an organization and put it
on a sound footing. He has worked hard over the past 10 months
to put in place the people and the systems needed to do the
job--but much of that effort that has already been made has not
been visible.
The second reason I cite this effort is because the
groundwork has brought us to the point where real
accountability is now becoming possible. Beginning with this
new school year, you and the public will know what to expect,
how soon it should happen, and who is responsible. Our
fundamental principle is that the performance of every
individual in this system must be measured by how well their
work contributes to increased student learning, and that
accountability begins with the Trustees and with General
Becton.
Over the past several months, we have obtained broad public
input on how to shape our academic plan for the coming year and
beyond. In an upcoming public meeting, we expect to ratify this
ambitious program, which includes, first, tough new academic
standards and assessments to go with them; second, performance
targets for each school in the system, plus rewards for those
that meet targets, probation for schools that are in trouble,
and reconstitutions for those that are chronically failing our
children; third, an evaluation system that bases teacher and
principal evaluations on progress that the students are making;
and fourth, a new student promotion policy, ensuring that
students in the 3rd through 8th grade have at least basic
reading skills before moving to the next higher grade. No more
social promotions.
The key to systemwide accountability is solid, quantifiable
evidence on student learning. That is why the Trustees have
endorsed not only strong standards for D.C., but also a system
of assessment that provides consistent, reliable data to
parents, teachers and administrators.
In releasing preliminary results of last May's Stanford-9
assessments a few weeks ago, we saw the power of good data to
mobilize public opinion. District residents were dismayed to
know that one-third of our 3rd graders are ``below basic'' in
both reading and math, that 29 percent of 8th graders are
``below basic'' in reading and that an astonishing, dismaying
72 percent of 8th graders were ``below basic'' in math.
Citywide, grade-by-grade results will shortly be released, and
shortly after that, school-by-school results.
Part of our charge from the Control Board is to direct
resources to the level of individual schools. The budget we
have presented takes a major step in that direction, and our
academic plan envisions going further, much further. But our
mandate is not simply to pour more dollars into business-as-
usual schools. Over the past decade, educators have learned a
great deal about what works and what does not work in
education. The work of the New American Schools Development
Corporation, the Edison Project, the Core Knowledge Foundation
and researchers such as Bob Slavin from Johns Hopkins have
provided eye-opening new approaches to the education of
America's children, and those here in the District deserve
those that are best.
In the coming years, we will encourage more schools to
affiliate with these and other effective, research-based
programs that work. But there is another way in which to
encourage innovation in the District, and that is through
charter schools. Although the Emergency Trustees bear no direct
responsibility for chartering, we have an oversight role as the
Districts State Board of Education, and our support for the
charter process is strong. We are also responsible for
approving policies responding to congressional directives to
provide a preference for charter school operators in the
disposition of excess public school property in the District.
This has not been an easy matter, because Congress has
asked on the one hand that we maximize the revenues from the
excess properties through sale or lease, and on the other hand,
that we help make them available for charter schools. I am
confident that we will be able to strike the right balance
between these conflicting purposes very shortly.
I believe that charter schools are an essential component
of reform, providing not only fertile ground for trying out
ideas and innovations that are difficult to introduce
systemwide, but providing a healthy dose of competition as
well. As we try to move from a dysfunctional, monolithic school
system to a lean, responsive system of schools, I believe
charter schools can and will be an important asset even as we
focus most of our attention on efforts to raise the standards
of all of the students in the public schools.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. MacLaury, for
your concise statement and for addressing some specific issues
on the charter schools and on testing. The issue of testing
came up earlier, and I want to explore that with you a little
bit further later on.
General Becton, thank you for coming here today on the
difficult assignment that you have. I look forward to your
presentation and some questioning back and forth if we can have
it. We welcome you to the Committee.
I might say just at the outset that during the
reconciliation bill, a number of issues were passed regarding
the District of Columbia. We tried to deal with the issue of
economic growth by putting forward a zero capital gains on
property held for 5 years, and a first-time home buyers credit
in that bill, and that went through; there was a lot of focus
on the crime issue and what we are doing for crime control; and
we focused on prisons and the changes we are making in
prisons--closing Lorton, privatizing, and trying to get some of
the prisoners out of the area, which was one of the areas of
concern.
It seems to me that we have hit two of the three pegs
pretty hard and pretty clear lately, on growth and on crime--
and we still need to do more on crime. The school peg is
another clear one that we have just got to hit well to get
people coming back into the District of Columbia and making it
a shining example. This is just a paramount issue, and it falls
squarely on your shoulders, and I know it has been a tough
assignment, and I will have some pointed questions about that
after your testimony.
Welcome to the Committee, and I look forward to your
comments.
TESTIMONY OF GENERAL JULIUS W. BECTON, JR.,\1\ (RETIRED), CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND SUPERINTENDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ACCOMPANIED BY MAJOR GENERAL CHUCK WILLIAMS,
(RETIRED), CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
General Becton. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
am delighted to be here.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of General Becton with attachments
appears in the Appendix on page 88.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You said you know it is a tough assignment. Let me put it
this way. In my more than 50 years of public service, this is
the toughest assignment I have ever had, but yet it also has,
in my judgment, the potential to be the most rewarding, not
from a personal standpoint, but for the ones whom we are
serving. So we think we are up to the challenge.
I welcome the opportunity to appear before you to discuss
our efforts to improve the District of Columbia public schools.
As you have already noted, I have with me General Chuck
Williams, who is the Chief Operating Officer, and he will be
available to respond. I also have a number of key staffers,
whom I will introduce as appropriate if there are questions
that come up in their particular areas.
Senator Brownback. Good.
General Becton. As you know, I became the Chief Executive
Officer through an order by the Control Board. Dr. MacLaury has
already identified and described that background. Let me just
comment that the Control Board took this action after
concluding that, ``in virtually every category and for every
grade level, by virtually every measure of performance, the
public school system has failed to provide a quality education
for all children and a safe environment in which to learn.''
That is a devastating comment.
Indeed, the school system was broken over time in
fundamental ways. It lacked academic standards, employed
uncertified teachers, could not pay its bills on time, and had
crumbling facilities plagued by fire code violations. And no
one was held accountable.
Today we operate in a new context of opportunity but face
the challenges of past failures that mounted over many years.
This new school year will be a very different one for the
children and parents of the District. We expect to be held
accountable for achieving our goals for them.
I believe that our success or failure will be judged on
whether or not we achieve fundamental improvement in three core
areas: (1) academics, (2) school facilities, and (3) personnel
and financial management systems.
Our priorities in fiscal year 98 for the core area of
academics are focused on accomplishing the four goals described
in our draft 1-year implementation plan, which is attached to
my written statement--first, improve student achievement by
adopting world-class standards and providing high-quality
training. Beginning this year, DCPS will have content and
performance standards that define what we expect every child to
learn and to be able to do.
Second, ensure quality school staff by ensuring that all
teachers are qualified to teach in their subject areas and
developing a corps of school leaders with skills to manage
instructional and fiscal autonomy. This school year, all new
DCPS teachers will enter our classrooms with the appropriate
credentials to teach in the area they have been assigned. If
teachers already employed by the system are not similarly
credentialed, they will be removed from the work force in
January of 1998.
Third, increase accountability through the school system.
Starting this year, principal evaluations will be tied to
growth in test scores. Schools with too many students
performing below basic will be placed on probation. We are also
ending social promotions. This year, if our children cannot
read at a basic level in grade 3, they will not move to the
next grade. In addition, we will ensure an accurate enrollment
count that is audited.
And the fourth goal is to promote school restructuring,
decentralization, and parental choice. This means moving more
resources to the school level and giving parents greater
opportunities to choose the schools their children will attend.
This also means facilitating the development of charter schools
that will serve as laboratories of change for the entire school
system. And Dr. MacLaury has already described how we believe
that that can happen.
Our priorities for the second core area, school facilities,
are guided by our Long-Range Facilities Master Plan. The first
phase of this plan is underway with the emergency roof
replacements that are essential for schools to remain open
during school year 1997-1998. While the more than 1,600 fire
code violations we have already abated would have permitted
schools to open on time, we opted for a long-term solution. I
cannot accept doing quick fixes and patches when we know that a
roof must be replaced. In this respect, we will have all
program roofs replaced and schools opened on 22 September,
which is the comment I made to you as you were riding to the
airport last Friday.
Regarding personnel and financial management systems, our
third core area, we have made major improvements. We have
verified how many staff we have and are realigning them for the
fiscal year 1998 budget. For the first time, the DCPS budget
will be constructed around programs--that is, budget amounts
for each program will be specified, allowing us to hold
managers accountable for spending. While this may sound like
common sense, it represents a major accomplishment given that
funds were previously commingled across programs, allowing for
no accountability.
We are focusing resources at the school level. Nearly 90
percent of the FTEs will be directly assigned to schools. Our
budget figures for fiscal year 1998 translate into a total per
pupil expenditure of $7,271 and a local per pupil expenditure
of $5,923.
In concluding my statement, I wish to take note of the
frustration that has been expressed in many quarters. I too
must admit that at times, I become frustrated. However, the
problems were piled deep when we arrived, and many remain. My
job is to look at the 3 years we have and ensure that we
effectively execute the essential steps to place the school
system on a firm foundation for continuous improvement. I must
make the hard decisions necessary for lasting reform. You may
quarrel with our pace, but I do not believe that you can
quarrel with our direction or our resolve. Failure to meet the
needs of the children of this city is not an option.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I am prepared to
respond to any questions that you may have.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, General.
The quarrel with the pace is that a child generally does
not get a shot the second time at the 1st, 2nd or 3rd grade, or
if they do, in many cases, there have been some failures in the
system because they get this second shot.
That is why I press you all the time about how we have to
move fast on this, because this child does not have a second
shot at it--and I realize that you are dealing with a large
institution that has lots of problems, but that drives so much
of my frustration, because the child does not get a second
shot.
General Becton. I agree, and that is why we will be working
very hard to start helping that youngster from pre-K, K, and
through the first three grades, because we expect that literacy
and reading will be paramount to what we will be doing.
Senator Brownback. Good. Let me start with a series of
questions if I could. First, you are saying that you will have
all of the schools open on September 22.
General Becton. We will have all roofs replaced, and we
will have schools opened on September 22. If we have, say, on
September 18, something like what happened to us 2 weeks ago,
when someone torched one of our schools, it may be difficult to
get that school opened, but that is what we are faced with.
Senator Brownback. OK, but absent dramatic consequences
going against you, you will have all schools open on September
22?
General Becton. We will have all schools open on September
22.
Senator Brownback. Do you still have to go through a number
of repairs and clearances by the proper authorities yet on a
number of these schools?
General Becton. Yes, we do.
Senator Brownback. How many schools remain that have
incomplete repairs and how many need to get clearances from the
proper authorities?
General Becton. Well, the smart thing for me to do is let
Chuck Williams answer that, but let me make a comment first. I
was out with Chuck Williams yesterday and Saturday as they were
working full-time, basically around-the-clock, repairing the
schools--we will have all of the schools' roofs replaced.
Following that, it is required to have a fire department
inspection and then to get the judge's clearance. So the fact
that we have the roofs replaced does not necessarily conclude
that the process is finished.
I will ask Chuck to describe how that works.
General Williams. Good morning, Senator.
Senator Brownback. Good morning.
General Williams. We expect to have all of the roofs
replaced, as General Becton said, in sufficient time to open
schools on September 22. There is a five-step clearance process
that takes time. After the contractor represents that the
building or the facility or the work is complete, we then
accept the work. Then, of course, that has to be subjected to
the fire department inspection, to be followed by a court date
and the judge subsequently clearing it.
As of this date, we have over 75 percent of the roof
replacements complete; the others are in the 80 to 90 percent
completion status. So we feel very confident that the roof
replacement will be done. And of course, as to the rest of the
process, we are working around the clock to push those
clearances as fast as we can.
Senator Brownback. OK. You have a number of steps to do in
a 2-week time period, so you are going to have to move, it
sounds like to me, heaven and earth to get things moving along.
But it has to be done.
General Williams. I understand that, Senator, and to that
extent, we have set up what amounts to an emergency operation
center in the field, working around the clock. We were there
this weekend, as General Becton pointed out, and we are doing
everything we can.
We are receiving good support from our contractors. They
worked with us this weekend, realizing the problem. It was a
massive undertaking, 57 roof replacements, but we are committed
to getting it done.
Senator Brownback. I trust, General Becton, that next year,
we will not be opening the District of Columbia schools late
and that they will be opened on time--have you projected when
you will open them next year? Most students across the country
will have been in school for a month already by the time we
will be open in the District of Columbia.
Maybe, Mr. MacLaury, that is a better question for you--I
do not know.
General Becton. No, but I will have to turn for help. What
is the program date for next year? Does anyone have that
information? If not, we will get it for the record.
Insert for the record
In general, D.C. Public School students begin school each
year on the Tuesday following Labor Day.
The answer is that we have every expectation of having the
schools open on time. Up until July 10, I had every expectation
that schools would be open on September 2, too, until I found
out that we could not have people in a building at the same
time we are replacing the roof. Because we already replaced six
roofs this spring with schools in session, so therein lies my
ignorance that we could not do that.
Senator Brownback. Well, I do not know if it is the sort of
thing where you can work on weekends next year to prevent this
from happening next year; but it just sends a bad signal when
we cannot open the schools on time.
General Becton. Senator, believe me, there is no one in
this city who is more sensitive to that fact than I. I can
assure you, I am reminded of it morning, noon and night. I can
also assure you that we are replacing 57 roofs, which has never
been done in the history of this school system before. It could
have been done with the schools open--other places do it--but
we were stopped.
So yes, I made a mistake, but I think my mistake in
judgment was based on the information which I had and certainly
not on something that was sinister.
Senator Brownback. Well, I guess we will all learn from
that, and next time around, it will not be a similar situation,
so we can open them up in a timely fashion.
Mr. MacLaury. Senator, there is one point that I am sure
you are aware of, and that is that the schools were not able to
contract with the roofers until the funds were available to
them. The reputation of the District of Columbia in terms of
paying its bills simply made it impossible to get any credit
with contractors. And we are going to be fighting that kind of
problem next year--I hope that we can handle it a lot better.
The capital funds to get the roof work or other capital
improvements done do not exist as we speak today. They are
going to be coming out of bond issues of the District and other
sources of funding. Until we have those dollars in hand and
ready to spend, we cannot enter into contracts. That is not an
excuse, but it is a fact.
Senator Brownback. Are there things that we can do here
that can help you expedite those?
Mr. MacLaury. Well, looking at the costs that General
Williams has estimated for the capital improvements for next
year--Chuck, correct me if I am wrong--the total amount of the
bill is something like $200 million for school year 1998. This
is more money than anybody has. I think the point is only that
we are going to have to be coming to the Congress as well as
other places to help us with the capital funding for the
District's schools.
Senator Brownback. Associated with that, I am getting some
questions about the cost of the roof repairs being
substantially higher than what some people would project as
market cost. What is the cost based on square footage to repair
the roofs?
General Williams. Senator, I would be happy to respond to
that. We do have a unique situation in the District of
Columbia. It is running about $11 per square foot. Normally, in
our neighboring communities, it is anywhere from $6 to $8. But
we must understand that the District of Columbia has a set of
unique features with it that impacts contractors--for example,
the access to the particular site, and the degree of difficulty
in trying to remove what we have to replace, because some of
the roofing systems here, because of neglect and lack of
attention to the problem, have been patched as many as 19
times. So it is not a simple matter of just removing what would
be considered an old roof; you have to remove several. So there
is a degree of difficulty.
There is the labor situation--Virginia, for example, is
right to work; D.C. has the Davis-Bacon law--and then, of
course, there is the bidding environment. The District of
Columbia and in particular the D.C. public school system had an
atrocious record on dealing with contractors. They did not pay
their bills--they did not do anything. So with each one of the
contractors, I went out personally and called and literally
begged them to come in and try us on faith. They are doing that
this time, fortunately, and we are paying them with the money
we have.
So that is the difficulty, Senator; it is just that.
Senator Brownback. General Becton?
General Becton. I would like to respond to your question
about what can you do to help us. If we could get a definition
of fire code violations attached to our appropriations, it
would sure make a difference to us, because right now, in
Fairfax County, where I live and where my grandchildren go to
school, they replace roofs year around. They barricade portions
of a building to keep youngsters out of certain parts. We can
do none of those things in the current environment in the
District of Columbia.
Senator Brownback. Is this because of local ordinance, or
is it because of Federal law?
General Becton. Because of a judge's decision.
Senator Brownback. Interpreting local ordinance or Federal
law?
General Becton. May I ask my general counsel to respond?
Senator Brownback. Please.
Please identify yourself.
Ms. Wirtz. My name is Cecilia Wirtz, and I am general
counsel for D.C. public schools. The situation which General
Becton has just described is the result of a court order
interpreting the local fire code law.
Senator Brownback. OK. So that if we had a definition in
the Federal law that would allow you to replace a roof during
the time that a school is occupied, that would facilitate--or,
is this a moot issue now, because you are replacing virtually
all the roofs?
General Becton. Sir, we have a lot more to go. We have a
very old system, and we need the legislative relief for the
future. And we are obviously concerned about safety. We are not
going to violate the judge's order or put any child in
jeopardy. But right now, I have not been permitted to have
principals in the schools since July 11.
Senator Brownback. Just because of the replacement work?
General Becton. That is correct.
Senator Brownback. Well, let us work with you on that to
see if we can help and facilitate that. We want to review it--
obviously, I do not want to put people in an unsafe position,
and neither do you, but let us see if we can help with that to
prevent this from happening again.
Next, I want to probe if I could some areas that you
identified, Mr. MacLaury, on testing and replacement. I have
been concerned, and I do not think we are moving fast enough,
because the situation is so desperate and so paramount. It just
seems to me like we have got to move faster.
We had people testify ahead of you about what happened in
Chicago in a similar situation, and much of this set-up system-
wide here is modeled after Chicago. There, they went in rapidly
and quickly and dealt with a number of situations.
We heard testimony earlier that they released 12 principals
in Chicago, initially going in and that they went in and did a
number of rapid changes. I do not know how many you have
replaced; earlier today, I heard it was three. And I am
concerned about some news accounts that the one school that had
attracted so much attention because of the sexual actions by
the children in the school, the principal retained his
position.
What are you doing to change the personnel in schools that
have not been performing?
General Becton. Sir, let me clarify the record if I may. We
did not reappoint eight principals because of their failure to
do what had to be done. We placed nine principals on probation
who had demonstrated potential but had not reached the standard
we thought they should reach, and they will be given additional
support to either succeed or fail, and we think we are going to
help them to succeed. We appointed a new group of 23
principals; many of those were acting principals before, and
the remainder were reappointed of the group of 146.
The principal at Winston that you mentioned paid a heavy
price for his failure to follow instructions. He was not the
person who permitted the activity in that classroom. He failed
to follow the procedure for how you report it, who interviews
whom, and the price he paid was to be right away, as I
mentioned the last time I was here, suspended without pay. He
remained suspended without pay until he was reappointed, and he
was reappointed because of his expertise, the fact that people
in the community wanted him back, the teachers wanted him back.
He was a qualified principal, but he made a mistake, and he
paid for it. I would do that with anyone else who made an
honest mistake, not dealing with the sexual thing, but dealing
with procedure.
Senator Brownback. So you have not hired 8, you have 9 on
probation and 23 new ones in a total system of how many
principals?
General Becton. One hundred forty-six.
Senator Brownback. One hundred forty-six total.
And what about teachers--what have you done in that
category?
General Becton. I will have to get the numbers. We have
hired in excess of 500 teachers. May I provide that for the
record?
Senator Brownback. Please, or if you have someone there who
can answer, if they could come forward and identify themselves.
General Becton. Yes. This is Shelia Graves, the chief human
resource officer.
Senator Brownback. Good. How many?
Ms. Graves. As of last Friday, 550 new teachers.
Senator Brownback. Five hundred fifty new teachers out of a
total of how many?
General Becton. Five thousand three hundred forty-three, or
something like that.
Ms. Graves. About 5,400.
Senator Brownback. How many wanted to be rehired and were
not because of evaluations in the system? Can you give me that?
Ms. Graves. I can tell you that there were about four who
were not rehired because of positive TB tests, and three more
were not hired or terminated after rehiring because of negative
background information.
General Becton. That is from a personnel standpoint. I
would like to provide that specific information for the record.
Senator Brownback. How many were not rehired because of
competency or just not producing the results?
General Becton. That is what I would like to provide for
the record.
Senator Brownback. Yes, please, if you would.
[Information follows:]
Insert for the record
``No teacher has been dismissed on the basis of poor
performance since this administration was put into place in
November 1996. However, several have been terminated for cause
for other reasons, which are discussed above. Beginning in the
current school year, DCPS principals, who are directly
responsible for supervising and evaluating teachers, will be
subject to a new evaluation system through which they will
specifically be held accountable for their performance in this
area. Under the new system, principals will be evaluated on the
basis of five criteria. The first and most important criterion,
of course, is academic achievement. Two of the other five
criteria--human resource management and leadership--speak to
the issue of selecting and developing quality staff, providing
staff development where needed, and using the teacher
evaluation process to weed out those teachers who should not be
in our classrooms. The new system is being communicated to
principals now and will be implemented system wide this school
year.''
Senator Brownback. OK, because it does not sound like you
have any or very many for those reasons, for competency, and I
want to check on that.
General Becton. I go back to the statement I made at the
opening about holding people accountable. We really had no
accountability on the part of the teachers or the principals
when they arrived, and we are establishing that now. Part of
the baseline for that will be our test scores that Dr. MacLaury
mentioned. We now have a base from which we can measure the
teachers as to how well they are doing. And those teachers who
can demonstrate through their students that they are competent
will be continued; those teachers who cannot, we are holding
the principals directly accountable for their teachers and
holding the principals accountable for what happens inside the
classrooms in terms of academic standards.
Senator Brownback. How long will a teacher have to produce
whatever you determine as adequate test scores from the
students? Will they have 1 year?
General Becton. It will be 1 year, because we tested in
May, and the results will be given to the principals, and we
will also have results for the students, the teachers and the
schools. That information will be made available to them when
they start on September 22. We will test again next May. We
therefore have it benchmarked at a point which they may have
reached.
Senator Brownback. What will be a failing benchmark, or
have you established that yet?
General Becton. We just brought on today our chief academic
officer, and I really do not want to put her on the spot----
Senator Brownback. This is a good way to welcome her--
putting her in front of a Subcommittee.
General Becton. No, I am not going to put her before you.
The point is that I want to really sit down and work with her
before we give you something definitive. I can assure you that
we will have a way to measure that.
Senator Brownback. There was concern in the last panel that
you are not testing enough on the basics, that you are doing
one set of standardized tests, but in Chicago, they had more
testing along the lines--if I am getting my testimony correct--
of reading and mathematics. Are you putting in more testing
requirements, Dr. MacLaury?
Mr. MacLaury. Again, General Becton will be able to answer,
but the fact is that this past year, the Stanford-9 test was
given. It was given in math, it was given in reading, across a
number of grades. Therefore, we have now, as of May, baseline
data which will be available--within the next month or so--
school-by-school, and indeed, child-by-child. The purpose of
tests is not to fail children, obviously, but to assist them
and to help provide teachers with the kind of knowledge their
classes need.
I believe, personally--and I am not an expert in this
area--that the Stanford-9 tests, which are nationally-normed,
and competency-based, give us a profile for each class of
``below basic,'' ``basic,'' ``proficient,'' and ``advanced,''
so that teachers will know that information and, more to the
point, be able to work with their students. I think we have the
tools now for the first time to use for diagnostic and
instructional purposes. I do not think we need more.
Senator Brownback. Was May the first time those have been
conducted in the D.C. public schools?
Mr. MacLaury. For 13 years, the CTBS, the Comprehensive
Test of Basic Skills, was used, and I am told that exactly the
same exam was given year after year after year, so that it was
compromised, and, from my point of view, useless.
General Becton. May I point out that we are starting out
with basic skills of math and reading, and in the testing that
Bruce mentioned, in reading, we tested grades 1st through 11th;
in mathematics, we tested grades 3rd, 6th, 8th and 10th.
Senator Brownback. And you will be releasing those grade-
by-grade and school-by-school?
General Becton. And child-by-child----
Mr. MacLaury. No, not child-by-child; school-by-school.
General Becton. No, I did not mean they would be released
child-by-child, but that information will be available.
Senator Brownback. I understand--to the parents----
General Becton. To the teachers.
Senator Brownback [continuing]. Teachers and parents. And
you will be releasing that information when?
Ms. Jones. I am the interim and acting chief academic
officer, Helena Jones just identified--in about 3 weeks.
Senator Brownback. Very good. I think that that is critical
to have out and in the public for people to be able to see--is
the school my child is going to succeeding or failing?
General Becton. We agree.
Senator Brownback. To me, it is like going into a grocery
store and seeing what is in the product. We require that
adequate labeling. I think this is a basic, and I am delighted
to hear that you are getting it out there. And I think that at
first, there is going to be a lot of screaming about it, but my
goodness, this is just basic information that people need to
have to be able to exercise their choice within the D.C. public
schools and asking, ``do I want to go somewhere else''--and for
you to be able to evaluate.
General Becton. We are trying to set the standards and
provide the information which will cause the public to
recognize that we are making a difference. But there will be a
large hue and cry come next May, when a number--which will
surprise people--of youngsters do not pass because they have
not mastered the skills to get beyond third grade.
What we intend to do, about halfway through this school
year, is to let the parents know, based upon the teacher's
assessment, where that child may be, so that the parents can do
more to help their children.
Senator Brownback. So you look for potentially a number of
children not to pass this year.
General Becton. If what has been stated in the past is
correct, yes--not because we were not making the effort, but
because there are some people, including parents and community,
who I suspect are sitting back and saying, ``I have heard that
before; there they go.'' We are going to hold to those
standards.
Senator Brownback. Good. I think you should. We have to
establish standards and live by them. I think it also applies
for teachers, and I hope you put teachers to a high standard
and require that they meet that, or adverse actions will occur.
General Becton. I think you can rest assured that that is
going to happen.
Senator Brownback. Good, because I look at each of these
children as you do. Each is a precious life, and they are
entitled to every possibility they can have. We cannot fail
them by having a systems failure taking place. And I realize
that what you are proposing can be pretty harsh on teachers, on
principals, possibly on the social standing, I guess you could
put it, of some students if they are not passing on through and
the rest of their grade goes, but I think you have to establish
good, strong standards and then stand by them.
General Becton. On a personal note, we have five grown
children in my family. All five went to school in the District
of Columbia. Two of them graduated, and of course, my movement
in and out caused some of them not to go completely through. I
have 10 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Believe me, I
am very sensitive to the subject of education for our
youngsters.
Mr. MacLaury. And I think, Mr. Chairman, if I may, that one
of the keys is not just the testing and the standards, it is
how much support the schools can provide. You cited Chicago.
They, too, have gone to a ``no social promotion'' policy, and
they have had summer school as a fallback. Youngsters in
certain grades who do not get through the gates are required to
go to summer school. We are going to have to do the same thing.
It is costly. The real test is not how many failed, but how
many you can bring to success. That is what this game is about.
Senator Brownback. Will you be providing summer schools
next summer?
General Becton. We will be providing summer schools. We
will also be providing Saturday academics for those who we
identify need additional help. We have tutors and mentors who
will be helping out. We have, to borrow an expression, a ``full
court press'' to make that happen. But it is also going to take
parental involvement and community involvement to make it
happen so that every child has that chance.
Senator Brownback. On charter schools, Dr. MacLaury, you
testified as to your support for charter schools. We have
gotten a little conflicting testimony today on the number that
have been opened in the District of Columbia. Someone said
four, somebody else said two.
Mr. MacLaury. My understanding, Senator, is that the
previous elected school board granted charters to I believe
five schools. Of those, only two opened this past year. Two
more of those five are, I believe, intending to open this fall,
and I think the fifth has withdrawn, but I am not sure about
that. There were only two operating charter schools this past
year.
Senator Brownback. And some suggestions that one needs to
be closed. Do you have any comment regarding that?
Mr. MacLaury. That is an issue for the elected school board
which chartered that school, the Marcus Garvey School. The
school board chartered that school last year, and the school
board has to make a tough decision on whether to keep that
school in operation.
Senator Brownback. It strikes me that it has been awfully
slow going on the charter schools. Some people looked up how
many Chicago has, and they have 10 charter schools in Chicago,
where the law passed at the same time as the D.C. Charter
School law. And I do not know the size, the scale, the scope of
those schools.
I continue to receive a substantial number of complaints
that the bureaucracy is trying to crush the charter school
movement in the District of Columbia, that they are being
crushed by the system, they are not being approved on time,
they are not being supported.
Dr. MacLaury, you opened with a strong statement of support
for charter schools. We had testimony earlier that we need to
establish time lines and baselines for the establishment of
charter schools, and Jeanne Allen suggested that we should have
20 open by the fall of 1998. I do not know which of you would
care to respond to those statements as far as what you would
like to see happen to move the charter school movement along a
little more aggressively.
General Becton. I would like to make a statement, and then
I would like the person who used to be on that side, not
working for us, to comment as to where the charter schools are
today--that is Rich Wenning.
The charter approval cycle is underway. The public charter
board developed an excellent application, and proposals are due
September 15. The approval cycle is off to a much better start
than last year, and we expect 10 to 20 schools to be approved
between November and January.
We are setting up a revolving loan fund with a $200,000
annual contribution. We are seeking additional start-up funding
for charter schools. We requested a $6 million grant from the
Department of Education, and I'll ask Rich, if I may, to
explain where we are beyond that point.
Senator Brownback. Please.
General Becton. Richard?
Senator Brownback. And please identify yourself for the
record.
Mr. Wenning. I am Richard Wenning, Director of Policy for
the D.C. Public Schools, and I handle charter schools. A lot of
folks are frustrated by the pace. The charter schools in the
District of Columbia are very much in their infancy. Things got
off to a rocky start last year, as you know. This year, things
are moving along quite well. As General Becton said, the Public
Charter Board does have an outstanding application together.
They will be approving schools in November, so during the
November to January time line, we are probably looking at about
10 to 20 charter approvals, and we are going to continue to
facilitate that process. With the start-up funds that we will
be getting from the Department of Education, we will be able to
provide funds early to charter schools, before September, so
they have some money to hire staff with and get started. In
addition, the revolving loan fund is going to provide some
additional funds as well.
We are laying new groundwork at DCPS with charter schools.
Implementing a congressional law is difficult, and we are
putting together the guidance to do that, and we are confident
that we are going to have a good chartering process this year.
Senator Brownback. So you think that you will be somewhere
between how many charter schools next fall?
Mr. Wenning. Between 10 and 20.
Senator Brownback. Ten and 20 charter schools approved next
year. It seems to me that you have the opportunity for some
grand charter schools in the District of Columbia, given some
of the institutions that are here. I do not know if they are
willing to do it, but a National Geographic Society-associated
charter school would be a pretty interesting place, with a lot
of selling power to it, I would think.
Are you getting some proposals along those types of lines?
Mr. Wenning. I have not heard from National Geographic. But
it is important to note that, of course, the two chartering
authorities may also be getting information from some of these
organizations. We have had some conversations with the
Smithsonian. There is a great deal of interest; there are great
resources in this city. What is very important, though, is that
all the applications for charters go through a rigorous review
process to ensure that we have high-quality schools approved,
with accompanying strong oversight.
Senator Brownback. Do we need to establish some time lines
for the approval process, or are these pretty firm ones that
you have given me today of times and numbers for approval?
Mr. Wenning. Well, there are time lines in the current
statute, and the Public Charter Board had some difficulty
getting started; I know they have submitted some language to
the appropriators and I believe to your staff. And I think that
with a few tweaks, the schedule should work quite well.
Senator Brownback. Good. Thank you very much.
General Becton. Mr. Chairman, it sounds as though there may
be an impression that DCPS controls this process--and we really
do not. Maybe we need to clarify the fact that the Trustees and
DCPS do not approve charter schools. That is done by the
chartering agency, and there are two of those.
Senator Brownback. The point in raising it here is that if
we have to do something to make sure that the bureaucracy does
not kill this, then I am going to be looking at doing that. I
think this is an important concept; it is one that you are
supportive of. In operating the current system, if there are
difficulties in doing that, or the bureaucracy is, for whatever
reason, causing slowness in it, then maybe we need to engage
and force that along more.
General Becton. I would encourage that at least
consideration be given to expanding in legislation my role as
the chief State education officer. I have four titles, and that
is one of them. In every State, there is a person or a board
that has responsibility to ensure monitoring and to ensure
certification and all those things that are important so that
they all comply with the same single requirement.
Today we have the public charter agency and the D.C. Board
of Education, which also has charter responsibility. And
technically, while I have stated we are the State education
officer, it would be helpful if there were some legislation
clearly charging me with that responsibility. We might
therefore be able to do what you would like to see done.
Senator Brownback. That is a good proposal. We will look at
that and see if it is something that would help move that
process further along. There is going to be legislation coming
forward on D.C. public schools regarding the scholarship
program that Senators Coats, Lieberman and myself have
introduced here. As you know, that does not take any funds away
from the D.C. public schools, but provides it in addition to,
and Representative Armey testified earlier today about that as
a concept that would be offered to certain income categories of
students.
We believe strongly that competition is an important
factor, and that choice is important, too, and that this can be
a positive step forward. I hope you will look at those as just
that--this is what we are trying to do to provide additional
options for people who frequently cannot afford them. Most
Members of Congress--I should not say ``most''--but many
Members of Congress take their children to private schools, and
they have that option because of their income category, whereas
a lot of people in the District of Columbia do not, and we feel
like they should have that available.
So it is not a statement toward you, but it is a statement
to the kids, to try to provide some of those options for them.
I hope you will be able and willing to work with that system
where we are able to get it in place as a scholarship program.
General Becton. Well, obviously, Mr. Chairman, we will work
with whatever law comes out. I think we are the only school
board that you have to tell what to do----
Senator Brownback. That is true.
General Becton [continuing]. So clearly, we understand
where the money comes from. But let me point out, sir, that we
have not developed a position on the legislation--when I say
``we,'' I am talking about the Board of Trustees, wearing
another hat that I wear--but I do have one or two concerns. I
am charged with the responsibility for the education for all of
our children--not 4,000, 400, or whatever may benefit from the
scholarships, but all of them. My concern is that when you say,
grant scholarships, vouchers, whatever you want to call them,
to a group, I still have to raise the standards of those left
behind. So I hope that you can understand that as I deal with
all of the students, that is my primary concern. Last week, a
member of the House Subcommittee, Duke Cunningham, asked me the
question, ``Could you support a bill that was the result of a
referendum that the public voted to go vouchers.'' Obviously,
if the public says that is what they want, we have no choice
but to do that. But right now, I am still faced with raising
the education standards for all of our students.
Senator Brownback. And that is what all of us want to do.
Some may look at it and say this does not do it; others may say
competition has been such a key factor in the U.S., in making
this a great Nation, that it should apply as well in public
education and that that is what we are about. Representative
Armey testified earlier, saying that is exactly what it is
about--it is about raising the whole--it is about a rising tide
lifting all ships and having competition being a key force in
doing that. That is the basis of that scholarship program.
I personally would like to see just a wide open school
choice program, where the child and his parents decide where
they would like to go to school, and the public schools be in
such a position that they are so competitive and so good that,
by and large, that is the place chosen. That is what I would
like to see.
General Becton. And we want to make it very tough for that
parent to make up his mind because our schools have reached the
standard that they would consider that, hey, this is not a bad
idea.
Senator Brownback. We want to push that day as quick as
possible, just so that more and more children get a higher and
higher quality of education because there is competition within
the system to try to encourage that.
General Becton. Yes.
Senator Brownback. So you are going to continue to see
moves out of this Congress to do that, whether it is a
scholarship program, trying to open up to full school choice, a
voucher type of system, because that is the way that child then
chooses. And I hope you are in a position where the D.C. public
schools get the vast majority of students because they say
these are the best schools. That is what we all want.
General Becton. We are striving for that.
Senator Brownback. And we are going to keep pushing you on
it, too.
Dr. MacLaury.
Mr. MacLaury. Mr. Chairman, I think both of us here share
your belief in competition and in choice for the schools. There
is now choice among public schools, as you know. And from my
point of view, personally, giving the charter effort the
biggest opportunity to get underway and get going is where my
emphasis would be with respect to this element of choice. I do
not want a distraction from another kind of effort.
My concern is also that there needs to be a different,
separate administration for the awarding of these scholarships
if that comes to pass. The public schools should not have
anything to do with the awarding of those scholarships. I think
that is an issue--administratively, how many different kinds of
choice can the District and its administrative units cope with.
That is something that at least I would like to keep in mind.
Senator Brownback. It is a fair point. It is just that the
school system is in such meltdown that there need to be some
radical and quick changes.
Mr. MacLaury. Yes, I understand.
Senator Brownback. And General, I appreciate your
identifying this as the toughest assignment you have ever had.
I believe it is, and you have got to succeed--you have got to.
General Becton. My last statement, sir, was that failure is
not an option.
Senator Brownback. Very good. Thank you all for coming and
joining us today. We may well try to have another hearing in 6
months or so to monitor the progress that is coming along, and
we will keep working for the good of the kids.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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