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

                    GENERATIONAL LEARNING LOSS: HOW PANDEMIC
                         SCHOOL CLOSURES HURT STUDENTS

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

                                    HEARING

                                   Before The

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
                      ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

                                     of the

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

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                 HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 26, 2023

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 118-19

                                   __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce

                     [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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

                                   ______

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    53-759 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2025

                    COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE

                   VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina, Chairwoman

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

                           Cyrus Artz, Staff Director
                  Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff Director

                                     ------

      SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

                         AARON BEAN, Florida, Chairman

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

                             C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

    Hearing held on July 26, 2023....................................     1

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

        Bean, Hon. Aaron, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood,
          Elementary, and Secondary Education........................     1
            Prepared statement of....................................     4
        Bonamici, Hon. Suzanne, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Early
          Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.............     6
            Prepared statement of....................................    18

                                   WITNESSES

        Malkus, Dr. Nat, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Education
          Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute..............    21
            Prepared statement of....................................    23
        Wray, Mary-Patricia, Parent, Baton Rouge, Louisiana..........    29
            Prepared statement of....................................    32
        Bradford, Derrell, President, 50CAN: the 50-State Campaign
          for Achievement Now........................................    37
            Prepared statement of....................................    39
        Truitt, Catherine, Superintendent, North Carolina Department
          of Public Instruction......................................    45
            Prepared statement of....................................    47

                             ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS

        Chairman Bean:
            Article dated March 31, 2020, from The Wall Street
              Journal................................................   102
            2022 report titled ``Report to the North Carolina General
              Assembly: An Impact Analysis of Student Learning During
              the COVID-19 Pandemic..................................   109
            2023 report titled ``Report to the North Carolina General
              Assembly, One Year Later: A Recovery Analysis of
              Student Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic..........   231
        Ranking Member Bonamici:
            Article dated December 19, 2022, from Education Week.....     9
            Article dated June 6, 2022, from Chalkbeat...............    13
        Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', a Representative in Congress
          from the State of Virginia:
            Article dated May 19, 2022, from NPR.....................    65
            Article dated July 24, 2023, from The Hill...............    83

                    GENERATIONAL LEARNING LOSS: HOW PANDEMIC
                         SCHOOL CLOSURES HURT STUDENTS

                                  ----------

                            Wednesday, July 26, 2023

                      House of Representatives,
      Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and
                                   Secondary Education,
                      Committee on Education and the Workforce,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:16, a.m.,
    2175 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Aaron Bean (Chairman
    of the Subcommittee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Bean, Owens, Miller, Kiley, Moran,
    Foxx, Bonamici, Hayes, Bowman, DeSaulnier, and Scott.
        Staff present: Cyrus Artz, Staff Director; Mindy Barry,
    General Counsel; Hans Bjontegard, Legislative Assistant; Isabel
    Foster, Press Assistant; Daniel Fuenzalida, Staff Assistant;
    Sheila Havenner, Director of Information Technology, Meghan
    Heckelman, Intern; Claire Houchin, Intern; Amy Raaf Jones,
    Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Georgie
    Littlefair, Clerk; RJ Martin, Professional Staff Member; Hannah
    Matesic, Director of Member Services and Coalitions; Audra
    McGeorge, Communications Director; Eli Mitchell, Legislative
    Assistant; Rebecca Powell, Staff Assistant; Brad Thomas, Senior
    Education Policy Advisor; Maura Williams, Director of
    Operations; Savoy Adams, Minority Intern; Brittany Alston,
    Minority Operations Assistant; Ilana Brunner, Minority General
    Counsel; Scott Estrada Minority Professional Staff; Rashage
    Green, Minority Director of Education Policy; Kristion Jackson,
    Minority Intern; Malak Kalasho, Minority Intern; Stephanie
    Lalle, Minority Communications Director; Raiyana Malone,
    Minority Press Secretary; Kota Mizutani, Minority Deputy
    Communications Director; Elizabethe Payne, Minority Fellow;
    Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff Director; Eli Smolen,
    Minority Intern.
        Chairman Bean. A very good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
    Welcome to your nation's capital. Welcome to the U.S. House of
    Representatives, and welcome to the Subcommittee on Early
    Learning Elementary and Secondary Education.
        This meeting is called to order. I am Aaron Bean. I am from
    Florida. I am going to be your guide, your Chair, your host as
    we embark on a journey to see what happened during COVID. What
    happened? We made a lot of decisions affecting our kids and
    schools, so today we have assembled an all-star panel to help
    us see what happened, and review what happened.
        I note that a quorum is present. Without objection, the
    Chair is authorized to call a recess at any time. The
    Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony about the
    learning loss that resulted from pandemic school closures. I
    now yield myself 5 minutes for an opening statement.
        Do you guys remember the 90's? It was a decade of new and
    innovative technology. Grunge was the fashion and the live
    music. On the radio was Nirvana, Green Day, Alanis Morissette.
    Titanic and Forrest Gump ruled the big screen and Seinfeld and
    Cheers dominated TV.
        School computers, labs were filled with Apple McIntosh's
    and if you were lucky, they were brightly colored with IMAX,
    colored red, CD ROM's where you could use your school lightning
    fast internet to check your AOL mail, or spend countless hours
    playing Oregon Trail during class. You felt like a fashion icon
    as you walked down the school's hallway wearing your Reebok
    pump sneakers on your feet, trapper keeper in hand, and disc
    man headphones around your neck.
        Great decade, but sadly our American education system today
    is stuck back in that decade. The 90's. In other words, in only
    a matter of 2 years a generation of progress was lost. The
    great irony of COVID is how a majority of parents who so easily
    predicted online education and school closures, would be
    detrimental for students, and how so many bureaucratic
    education experts with all the research power in the world took
    years to reach the same conclusion.
        The nation's report card 2022 assessment for 8th graders
    found math scores are at their lowest point in two decades. The
    same for reading, history and civic scores plummeted to their
    lowest mark since the tests were first administrated,
    administered in the 1990's.
        When you examine the data by class you see an even more
    harrowing picture. Low-income and minority students suffered
    the most, and for some students from working class families,
    school closures did not mean online class, it meant babysitting
    their siblings, or in some instances, no school at all.
        Test scores are just the scratch of the surface of this
    learning loss underseeing a set of social problems this
    generation is facing and will continue to face as consequences
    of school closures unfold. Adolescent mental health issues
    spiked, hospital visits spiked, and sadly so did suicides in
    certain regions of the country.
        It is a steep price to pay, and they are continuing to pay
    for these needless--should I say school closures? We will find
    out. I should say prolonged school closures. The mass
    shuttering of schools throughout the pandemic is one of our
    greatest education policy failures in our Nation's history.
        At the height of the pandemic school closures affected 97
    percent of K through 12 students, over 55 million students, and
    as late as May 2021, well after a year after the pandemic
    school districts in states like states like California and
    others were not back to in person instructions.
        In my State, the free State of Florida, our schools were
    back in person within 6 months. The data will show putting kids
    in the classrooms sooner than later was the right answer.
    Examining who closed, and when they closed, research shows
    unions, teacher unions disproportionately affected school
    closures.
        Brooking Institute studies found that school districts with
    lengthier collective bargaining agreements were less likely to
    start the fall 2020 semester with in-person instruction. What
    the data does not support is that shutdowns were predicated
    primarily on pandemic severity.
        Let us not forget about the money. We are coming off the
    largest investment in education during COVID. Over 190 billion
    during the COVID pandemic. What happened to that 190 billion?
    That may be a great question for our panelists. Despite what
    some people may say, money may not be the answer anymore for
    those that think money is needed, we already tried that, and
    here we are.
        This whole thing was like a jagged little pill. This set of
    facts suggests that we need to rethink our pandemic response if
    one was to rise again and how to recover. Where do we go from
    here? We have got some panelists that are going to help us
    chart that course. We start today by how it unfolded. Who knew
    what? When did they know? Then let us hold those that made
    decisions when the data reflected otherwise accountable.
        George Orwell famously wrote in his novel 1984, that the
    party's final and most essential command was to ignore the
    evidence of their ears and eyes. Parents and the American
    people, we are not going to be deceived. We must demand
    accountability for those responsible. We must decentralize the
    decisionmaking power for education in this country, and above
    all that means school choice.
        At the end of the day no solution will better equip
    American schools for another pandemic than empowering parents
    to make the best decisions for their children. Let us
    acknowledge some states made different decisions, and let the
    data reflect where they are and where those students are going
    forward.
        We will hear from who fared better than others from our
    witnesses. I want to thank everybody for coming here. We are
    going to have a robust discussion, and I look forward to
    everyone's testimony. With that, I yield to the Ranking Member
    for an opening statement.
        [The statement of Chairman Bean follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Chair Bean. Thank you to
    our witnesses for being with us to discuss how the COVID19
    pandemic negatively affected students, and how we can help them
    recover, equitably and effectively. I want to highlight that we
    are 6 months into this Congress, and this is our first hearing
    dedicated to missed learning time.
        My Republican colleagues claim they want to address this
    issue and help students get back on track, yet so far their
    legislative priorities have focused on culture wars, and
    defunding public schools, including a bill they passed last
    week that would threaten critical resources for schools that
    provide shelter for migrants in need.
        Today, I hope my colleagues can put politics aside so we
    can have a productive, as the chairman said, and robust
    conversation and move on the right direction on behalf of
    students. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
    school districts were forced to close classrooms to mitigate
    the spread of the virus, and to protect students and staff and
    their families.
        School leaders did not take this decision lightly. Parents
    and teachers knew that remote learning could hinder student's
    learning, especially in the absence of digital equity. They
    were also rightly concerned for the health and safety of their
    students, staff and their families, especially because of the
    lack of testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and
    vaccines at the outset of the pandemic.
        It was an extremely challenging and stressful time as we
    all remember. We did not know how bad the pandemic would be, or
    how long it would last. Unfortunately, the Trump administration
    made things worse by politicizing the crisis and failing to act
    quickly to implement a science driven response to COVID-19.
    Remember, it will be over by Easter.
        It is important to keep in mind that schools entered the
    crisis with a $23 billion racial funding gap that already
    existed between school districts serving mostly students of
    color, and school districts serving mostly white students. Now,
    numerous studies and national assessment results are showing
    the inevitable.
        Missed learning time hurt student performance and
    importantly, it deepened preexisting achievement gaps.
    According to recent data released by the National Assessment of
    Educational Progress, or NAEP, students have suffered a
    significant decline in achievement across several subjects and
    grade levels.
        The students who fared the worst were those who were
    already struggling prior to the pandemic, particularly black
    and Latino students and students living in poverty. In early
    2021, congressional Democrats and President Biden passed the
    American Rescue Plan Act, which delivered the largest one-time
    Federal investment in K12 education in our Nation's history. By
    targeting this funding toward the highest need learners, we
    worked with the Biden administration to reopen schools safely
    with the focus on students' academic, social and emotional
    recovery.
        In the short-term this historic funding helped schools
    bridge the digital divide and also avoid extended gaps in
    instruction. In the long-term it has provided students, parents
    and teachers with resources to address missed learning time.
        Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, school districts around
    the country, including in my home State of Oregon, have been
    able to hire teachers and tutors, keep their doors open during
    the summer for academic and extracurricular enrichment,
    renovate aging HVAC systems to improve the health and safety of
    students and staff, and design other evidence-based programs to
    combat missed learning time.
        For example, Portland public schools used COVID relief
    funds to make direct investments in students' academic, social
    and emotional success and well-being. They hired learning
    acceleration specialists, invested in summer programming, and
    implemented professional development for teachers to help them
    effectively facilitate recovery from the pandemic.
        In Oregon, American Rescue Plan dollars made and continue
    to make a difference for students and families. I want to note
    that the Care's Act in early 2020, and the Consolidated
    Appropriations Act in late 2020 were bipartisan. Unfortunately,
    the Republican approach to missed learning time since then is
    to leave schools to fend for themselves, and to make repeated
    brazen attempts to fund unaccountable private schools with
    taxpayer dollars.
        In fact, Democrats on this committee are especially
    concerned at present with House Republicans most recent efforts
    to defund public schools, including a proposed budget that
    decimates key resources for our children's education. Under
    this proposal funding would be slashed from programs aimed at
    addressing missed learning time and supporting students from
    low-income families.
        It would kick teachers out of classrooms by eliminating
    funding that helps recruit, retain, and develop high-quality
    educators. Democrats have delivered on our commitment to
    helping students, parents and schools overcome missed learning
    time, but those promises and policies are now being undermined
    unfortunately by an extreme MAGA Republican agenda that's
    putting politics over people, and culture wars over classrooms.
        Instead, I urge my colleagues on the other side of the
    aisle to join us in investing in public education, and
    evidence-based programs that address missed learning time, and
    focus on student success at every level. Finally, I want to
    remind my colleagues of some sobering COVID statistics.
        Since the start of the pandemic more than 6,216,000
    Americans were hospitalized, and more than 1,135,000 Americans
    died. Yes, my colleagues and I are deeply concerned about
    missed learning, but I also urge us to keep in mind the lives
    lost as well as the lives saved by limiting exposure.
        Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce into the record an
    article from Education Week titled Over 1,000 Educators Died
    from COVID. Here is the Story of one. From the Chalkbeat
    publication, the Pandemic's Toll, Study Documents Fatalities
    Rates of Teachers and Childcare Workers in 2020.
        Chairman Bean. Without objection, it is entered into the
    record.
        [The information of Ms. Bonamici follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and thank you
    to our witnesses and I look forward to a productive
    conversation.
        [The statement of Ranking Member Bonamici follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ranking Member
    Bonamici. The robust conversation is just beginning. Let us go
    to this Committee. This Committee--let me read the official
    statement which says pursuant to Commission Rule 8-C, all
    Committee members who wish to insert written statements in the
    record today may do so by submitting them to the Committee
    Clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5 p.m. after
    14 days from the date of the hearing, which is August 9, 2023.
        Without objection the hearing record will remain open for
    14 days after the date of this hearing to allow such
    statements, and other extraneous material referenced during the
    hearing, so it may also be submitted for the official hearing
    record.
        We both have here today, both the big Chair of the big
    Committee of Education and Workforce, as well as the Ranking
    Member. Dr. Foxx, would you like to make any opening statement?
    You are recognized.
        Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No opening statement,
    but I would like to welcome all of our witnesses today.
    Particularly, Superintendent Catherine Truitt from the great
    State of North Carolina. She is doing a terrific job, and I am
    very pleased that she is able to be here. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman. I will hold my questions until later.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let us go to Ranking
    Member Bobby Scott. You are also recognized. First of all,
    thanks for coming today. You are recognized for an opening
    statement should you wish to make one.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to hear
    from the witnesses, but I would point out that when students
    were out of school because of the pandemic obviously there was
    learning loss. The question is not whether there was learning
    loss, the question is what are we doing about it.
        As the ranking subcommittee chair mentioned, we invested
    the largest investment in K through 12 education in the history
    of the United States with the expectation that it would be used
    to make up that learning loss, so I look forward to see what
    they did with the money. Thank you and I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you, Representative Scott. Thank you
    so much. Let us get to it. Our first witness is no stranger to
    education, it is Dr. Nat Malkus. He is the Senior Fellow and
    Deputy Director, Education Policy Studies, of the American
    Enterprise Institute. He has every credential. It is a full
    page, members, it is a full page of his credentials in your
    sheet.
        Let me tell you something special. There is a special place
    in heaven for middle school teachers. Dr. Malkus spent 4 years
    as a middle school teacher in Maryland, and then earned his
    Ph.D. in Education Policy and Leadership from the University of
    Maryland at College Park. He has a BA in historical students
    from Covenant College.
        We got to meet earlier and talked about him keeping score.
    He kept score of all of the data. There was a lot. When we
    looked for what witness could bring that data before the
    Committee of who knew what, when did they know it, and how the
    decisions were made there was one guy. His name is Nat Malkus,
    and he is here today.
        For our members, I think I told you with the exception of
    Ms. Wray, welcome, I am glad to have you here. There is a 5-
    minute rule, so you have 5 minutes. I think we have a light to
    give you a guide. I will kind of--if I do this that is a silent
    signal to you to wrap it up, and you do not want to hear that.
    That means we have gone way too far.
        Dr. Malkus welcome. You are recognized for 5 minutes. Yes,
    we will go through them as they come, so Dr. Malkus, welcome. I
    am glad to have you here.

    STATEMENT OF DR. NAT MALKUS, SENIOR FELLOW AND DEPUTY DIRECTOR,
       EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE,
                            WASHINGTON, D.C.

        Mr. Malkus. Chairman Bean, Ranking Member Bonamici, members
    of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to testify here
    today. In March 2020, the pandemic abruptly shifted my work to
    studying school's response to it. That resulted in the first
    nationally representative data on district's responses that
    spring.
        The entire next year AEI's return to learn tracker
    monitored in person, hybrid and fully remote instruction of
    8,600 school districts every week. That data has proven
    critical to answering the question at the root of this hearing,
    how the pandemic school closures hurt students.
        The largest negative shock to student learning ever in the
    U.S., the pandemic's effects on student learning exceeded that
    of Hurricane Katrina, but effected tens of millions of
    students, rather than hundreds of thousands. Slowly closing for
    decades, achievement gaps widened, as poor black or brown, and
    academically behind students fell further behind.
        Multiple factors drove these losses, but chief among them
    extended school closures, a factor policymakers had control
    over. Unfortunately, reopening polarized politically early on,
    as the 2020 Brooking Institution's analysis put plainly.
        There is no relationship, visually or statistically between
    school districts reopening decisions in their counties new
    COVID-19 cases per capita. In contrast, there is a strong
    relationship visually and statistically, between district's
    reopening decisions and the county level support for Trump.
        AEI's return to learn tracker showed this data across that
    entire school year. As late as April 2021, when COVID cases
    were low, and vaccines widely available, about a third of
    districts and countries that voted for President Biden had
    fully reopened, compared to 60 percent in Trump districts.
        That year the highest percentage of Biden districts to open
    full in person, 38 percent in June, never reached the lowest
    percentage of Trump districts, 40 percent in January. The
    correlation between politics and extended closures is clear,
    but the causes are not, as several related factors were more
    predictive than were local COVID case rates.
        The connection between closures and the learning loss is
    clear. Merging education recovery scorecard data with learning
    data showed that the third of district who were most in person
    in 2021 lost 44 percent of a year's progress in math. The most
    remote third lost 60 percent of the year, over a third more.
    Losses in reading were smaller, but the relative differences
    closures made were even larger.
        Numerous studies bear these stark patterns out. Extended
    remote learning was not the only source of learning loss. The
    instability of quarantines, spikes in chronic absenteeism, and
    disruptions in hybrid learning all hampered teacher capacity
    and student learning. Even schools that returned in person
    early faced strong pandemic headwinds, not all of which have
    died down.
        Academic recovery is a major priority. School districts
    received 189 billion dollars in pandemic aid, and those funds
    went to many things, including academic recovery.
    Unfortunately, the pace of student progress is too slow. Recent
    data showed that most students learned more slowly than their
    pre-pandemic peers this school year.
        Unless that pace improves dramatically, hope for recovery
    for this academic generation is lost. I will not prescribe easy
    solutions for this daunting challenge, but increased urgency is
    an essential, if not sufficient element. Promising responses,
    such as intensive tutoring and increased learning time suffer
    from a lack of urgency.
        Though widely available, about 2 percent of students
    nationally have actually received high intensity tutoring last
    year, and among the neediest it's 4 percent. The ``if you build
    it, they will come'' model will fail without increased urgency.
    Extending school days or school years holds promise.
        Atlanta has proved it possible for districts in New Mexico,
    for states, but these exceptions prove the rule. Significant
    expanded learning time is rare. Ultimately, only teachers can
    effectively communicate the urgency needed to engage families.
    Test scores show learning loss that student's grades do not.
        Parents will not act if teachers feedback reflects business
    as usual. Communicating urgency is a difficult task to lay at
    the feet of beleaguered teachers, but if not them, who?
    Learning loss cannot be viewed as a past event. As something to
    move on from now. Pandemic learning loss has not yet cemented,
    but it is hardening fast.
        Inaction would be an abdication of our responsibilities and
    would resign students to a dimmer future. Thank you for the
    opportunity to testify in this important hearing. I look
    forward to the Subcommittee's questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Malkus follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Bean. Well done. Thank you very much for coming
    forward and getting us started. Our next witness will be
    introduced by the Ranking Member Ms. Bonamici, you are
    recognized.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my honor to
    introduce Ms. Mary Patricia Wray. She is from Baton Rouge,
    Louisiana. Today she is here testifying in her highest-ranking
    position as a proud parent. She is the owner and founder of Top
    Drawer Strategies, a public policy consulting firm. She is an
    adjunct Professor of Law at Tulane University Law School.
        Ms. Wray has served on multiple community boards, and
    currently chairs the Public Relations Committee for the
    Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton
    Rouge. Ms. Wray received her bachelor's degree from the Ohio
    State University and a J.D. from Loyola University New Orleans
    College of Law. Welcome to the Committee, Ms. Wray.
        Chairman Bean. Ms. Wray, a very good morning. Welcome to
    the Committee. You are recognized. Your microphone is--there
    you go.

       STATEMENT OF MS. MARY-PATRICIA WRAY, PARENT, BATON ROUGE,
                               LOUISIANA

        Ms. Wray. Chairman Bean, Ranking Member Bonamici,
    Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Scott and committee members.
    Thank you for the invitation to participate. My name is Mary
    Patricia Wray, and you heard my other credentials this morning.
    I am more familiar with introducing myself in the context of
    those, but I am here in my highest-ranking position as mom.
        My husband and I, Ira Wray, are parents to two beautiful
    boys who attend public school in East Baton Rouge Parish. Our
    sons, Henry Lee and Webber, are preparing to celebrate their
    birthdays next month. I have a long public history of
    advocating for public schools, teachers and support staff in my
    home State of Louisiana.
        As a mom, I am also an outspoken and frequent critic of our
    school district and our State education leaders. When I say
    they got something right you should believe me. When our world
    shut down for COVID, I was 4 months pregnant with Webber. I was
    already 2 years into my experience as the mother of a child
    with disabilities.
        Henry Lee attends school in an inclusive setting with the
    implementation of an individualized education plan, including
    speech and occupational therapy to help him overcome the
    challenges of apraxia of speech. Our district took immediate
    precautions to protect the health and safety of our children.
    Within a few weeks a schedule of virtual learning was
    implemented.
        This included small groups with our teacher, at home
    exercises to connect our kids to their curriculum, hot spots
    were provided, and nutrition programs were delivered to our
    doorstep. Henry Lee received compensatory services for speech
    and OT, and qualified for extended school year.
        Children in our district with severe disabilities and
    immune compromised conditions were the most at risk of dying.
    Our son later befriended Carter Hart, a student living with
    cortical vision impairment and other disabilities that present
    challenges to learning in person even on a good day. Because of
    our school reopening guidelines, Carter went almost 3 years
    without getting COVID, which posed an intense life-threatening
    risk for him.
        When he was fully vaccinated in January 2023 and picked up
    COVID, he only needed supplemental oxygen for 1 day. With
    Carter's mom's permission, I share this with you to fully
    explain what was on the line for our children, their lives. To
    suggest otherwise makes education conditioned upon each family
    and educator's willingness to risk their own lives.
        That coercive choice does not reflect American values or
    commitment to providing every child with the opportunities they
    need. Instead of making education accessible only for those
    with low risk, Congress supported all our children by
    allocating 122 billion of American Rescue Plan funds for K
    through 12 education, Congress recognized that extraordinary
    resources were needed to meet the moment.
        I am so grateful they did because my son's friend Carter is
    still with us. My son and every other child in America have
    suffered missed learning time, social deficits, behavioral
    health challenges, and yet unknown consequences of a global
    pandemic. It is intellectually dishonest to talk about learning
    loss without acknowledging that many students were already
    behind, and that there were achievement gaps, especially among
    students with disabilities, students of color, and low-income
    students already happening long before COVID.
        Congress has known that for generations. That is why it
    passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the
    Individuals with Disabilities Education Act decades before I, a
    child of the 90's, Mr. Chairman, was even born. The cause of
    achievement gaps are systemic, not merely the result of
    pandemic closures.
        Our public schools serve more than 80 percent of America's
    children, including more than 7.3 million with disabilities.
    Let us show these children what American problem solving looks
    like, and acknowledge that before the pandemic and after,
    schools struggled to recruit and retain qualified educators.
    Students with disabilities were already reading and performing
    in math well below proficiency, and they dropped out of school
    at twice the rate of their non-disabled peers.
        This was all before COVID. Given this reality I urge
    Congress to provide additional funding so that the lessons we
    learned from COVID can be implemented after our funding ends,
    the targeted remedial and compensatory programs that are
    happening now must continue.
        As a mom from Louisiana, I speak for the least among us.
    Our schools consistently produce the lowest ranked student
    outcomes in the Nation. Until recently, our teacher pay lagged
    behind the southern regional average for more than a decade. We
    already had challenges to improving public education before
    COVID-19 shook us to the core.
        I speak from the heart when I tell you that cutting funding
    from public schools is a death sentence for our children, who
    also experience the highest incarceration rate in America.
    Nothing is partisan about the notion you cannot do more with
    less. No one disagrees our children need more. They need more
    qualified teachers, more evidence-based services, career and
    tech ed, behavior and mental health services.
        They do not need more fighting over whether protecting them
    from a virus and keeping them alive was the right decision 3
    years ago. They need our action now. I am optimistic that you
    will also speak for the least among us, and fully fund the
    needs of our children. Spending your time focused on solutions,
    rather than blame. Thank you for the opportunity to address you
    today.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Wray follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Bean. Ms. Wray, thank you so much for your
    thoughts and for being parent. Any parent out there feels where
    you are and the hardness of the challenge that you went through
    during those times.
        Ms. Wray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you. Our next witness is going to be
    introduced by our own Judge Moran. Representative Moran, you
    are recognized.
        Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I woud like to
    introduce Mr. Derrell Bradford, a native of Baltimore. Mr.
    Bradford is the President of 50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for
    Achievement Now. Mr. Bradford leads communications and policy
    and recruits local leaders across the country to serve as
    Executive Directors of State CANs, and advocacy fellows.
        He also leads the National Voices Fellowship, which focuses
    on education, policy, media and political collaboration. He
    serves on several boards dedicated to putting the needs of
    students and families first, including Success Academy Charter
    Schools, Yes Every Kid, the National Alliance for Public
    Charter Schools, the Advisory Boards of the Alliance for
    Catholic Education at Notre Dame, and the National Association
    of Charter School Authorizers, the Pie Network, and was the
    founding Board Chair for Ed Build.
        We are exceedingly pleased to have Mr. Durrell Bradford
    here with us today. Mr. Bradford, thank you for being here.

      STATEMENT OF MR. DERRELL BRADFORD, PRESIDENT, 50CAN: The 50-
         STATE CAMPAIGN FOR ACHIEVEMENT NOW, NEW YORK, NEW YORK

        Mr. Bradford. Thank you for that glowing introduction, sir.
        Chairman Bean. Mr. Bradford, you are welcome. We are glad
    to have you here. You are recognized.
        Mr. Bradford. Chairman Bean, Ranking Member Bonamici,
    Ranking Member Scott, thank you for having me today. I thought
    about how to organize this, and I will just jump to the point
    given the amount of time that I have.
        It is sophistry that people, that the narrative things are
    like peddled in the public domain is that teachers unions had
    no role in keeping schools closed longer than they needed to be
    closed. You can look at this as the culmination of the series
    of labor actions that started in Kentucky and Oklahoma, but
    that really blew up in Chicago and in Los Angeles during the
    Democratic Presidential primaries.
        At the time those striking teachers who denied kids
    learning, which is the most common way we see learning being
    denied from families right now, is teacher strikes. They struck
    for pay increases. Democratic candidates during that election
    offered to triple Title I as a way to increase teacher pay at
    the local level.
        Teachers unions saw this as a once in a lifetime
    opportunity to sort of get teacher pay on the Federal balance
    sheet, and though they never would have been able to strike in
    a national capacity before, there was no way they could have
    afforded it, COVID provided them with that opportunity.
        I just want to say I know a lot of people do not want to
    say this is an unpopular thing to say, but Mayor Muriel Bowser
    here in the District of Columbia had to file a temporary
    restraining order against her own teachers union when she
    attempted to get schools open. Representative Bean, to your
    90's references, the truth is out there, and I just urge
    everyone to go and seek that.
        I was also a hard core school closer. I think I should say
    this. In April 2020, I was at the front of the line because
    people were scared. I was scared. I respect Ms. Wray's point of
    view, and I just want to shout out State Superintendent Truitt,
    who said at the time that we should use the opportunity to make
    change because for the past 30 years the system has failed
    millions of kids.
        It has been just a disaster. I mean I do not want to but
    hyperbole seems like firmly worth using in this instance. Nat,
    Dr. Malkus talked about it a lot earlier. In New York City,
    where I lived for a very long time, and have been for a very
    long time, 20 years-worth of learning has been erased. This is
    a generational tragedy.
        You can look at the work of Dr. Mackie Raymond at Stanford,
    who says that not only is the gap essentially insurmountable,
    without additional acceleration it will be even worse. Like it
    is not enough to simply get back to where we are. We have to do
    significantly more if we want to try to get back to where we
    are. Now I know this Committee has this question in front of
    it--of what happened to the money, and there are lots of
    anecdotes out there, and I can point you to tons of places, but
    the New York Times is a good place to look.
        I did not do this on purpose, Ranking Member, but in
    Klamath County, they are spending 70 percent of their relief
    dollars to buy turf fields, renovate bleachers, build a gym,
    and resurface a parking lot. In Newark, New Jersey, where I
    worked for a very long time, Chop Point B reported that Newark
    spent only 5 percent of its ESSR funding on tutoring.
        I think sadly what has been proven is that if you give
    American school districts 190 billion dollars in a black box
    with no accountability, they will spend the money on
    themselves. That is the lesson. There is good news, which is
    important, and a lot of State and local philanthropic examples
    that we can look to, because I do think we need to be solutions
    oriented, this is the biggest domestic policy tragedy or
    failure of our lifetime in my humble opinion.
        You can look at New Jersey and Louisiana, which have passed
    bills that provide high dosage tutoring to more children, and
    those are great examples. Mike Bloomberg and his summer boost
    program is a philanthropic effort in eight cities across the
    country to give high dosage tutoring to students.
        There have been investments in summer. Governor Ducey's AZ
    on Track, and his last term, and I would also like to highlight
    that Governor Brad Little, he used COVID relief and gave it
    directly to families. To me, if in the future you are worried
    about what happens if you make a major infusion for education
    expenses, it could be best just to trust families.
        One last thing, we do need to look at the country's
    Catholic schools, particularly urban Catholic schools. They
    gave the proof, in many cases, that it was possible to open
    schools safely. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude, and
    they should be a part of the solution in the future. Thank you
    very much.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Bradford follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Bean. Mr. Bradford, thank you very much for being
    here and giving us your thoughts. I am looking forward to some
    questions in just a bit. Our final witness is ready to go, but
    before she could start, she needs a proper introduction, and to
    do that let us go to Illinois, where our own Representative
    Miller is standing by to give her that proper introduction.
    Representative Miller, you are recognized.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you, and it as an honor to introduce Ms.
    Catherine Truitt, Superintendent of the North Carolina
    Department of Public Instruction. Superintendent Truitt's
    service in education began as a high school English teacher,
    where she spent 10 years in the classroom at both the high
    school and middle school levels.
        She has worked as a turnaround coach with underperforming
    school districts, and we are so thankful that you are bringing
    your experience to affect change. Ms. Truitt was appointed by
    Governor McCrory, as his Senior Education Advisor, and most
    recently she served as Chancellor of the non-profit Western
    Governor's University.
        She has been Superintendent since being elected in 2020,
    and we are so thankful to have you here.
        Chairman Bean. Superintendent Truitt, welcome to the
    Committee. We are glad to have you here. You are recognized.

       STATEMENT OF MS. CATHERINE TRUITT, SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH
       CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, RALEIGH, NORTH
                                CAROLINA

        Ms. Truitt. Thank you, Chairman Bean. Good morning to you
    all, to Ranking Member Bonamici, and members of the
    Subcommittee on Early Childhood Elementary and Secondary
    Education. I would also like to extend a special hello and
    thank you to Chairwoman Foxx, who has faithfully represented
    the 5th District in my great home State of North Carolina.
        My name is Catherine Truitt, and I have the distinct honor
    of serving as North Carolina's State Superintendent, where I
    lead the Department of Public Instruction, which serves nearly
    1.6 million students. I appreciate the opportunity to join you
    today, as the topic of lost instructional time is one that
    defines my vision for leading North Carolina out of the
    pandemic and help to establish our road to recovery.
        Even before I took office in January 2021, State Chiefs
    around the country heard about the massive spending proposals
    coming to states. What would be known as ESSER 3, from the then
    incoming President's administration. Knowing of this influx of
    Federal funds about to flow into our State and recognizing as a
    parent of three children how detrimental school closures were
    for our students. I immediately launched the Office of Learning
    Recovery and Acceleration in February 2021. The office remains
    one of the first of its kind. When the massive influx of
    Federal funding did come pouring into North Carolina, we were
    ready. My agency was able to provide local education leaders
    with an office dedicated to recovery and rooted in research and
    data.
        This was vital because many of our 115 school districts,
    and more than 200 charter schools did not have the central
    office bandwidth or support, to take on the massive exercise in
    planning and compliance that would be required with ESSER 3.
        Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration began their
    work right away, producing a comprehensive report detailing the
    impact of learning loss on every individual student in North
    Carolina, which I have submitted to this Committee for the
    record.
        As this analysis was based on student level data instead of
    aggregate samples of students, it was one of the most
    comprehensive reports in the Nation. The findings in this
    report allowed our agency to better target resources and
    prioritize funding for those students most affected, and for
    areas of the State most in need.
        Importantly, it allowed us to continue developing and
    supporting district run interventions to accelerate student
    learning. Following the release of the 2022 lost instructional
    time report, our agency recognized a need to convene school
    districts to help them explore how to effectively leverage
    their ESSER funding. We organized a 4-day summer convening in
    July 2022 for school districts across the State, where leaders
    could gather and examine their findings alongside experts,
    using new and relevant data to help create evidence-based
    interventions to better serve students.
        During this convening, staff ensured that each district and
    charter school walked away with a plan for the next year,
    outlining how their ESSER funding could support data driven
    strategies for transforming teaching and learning in their
    districts and schools.
        I am proud to say that the 2022 summer convening went so
    well that we just held our second annual convening 2 weeks ago.
    With the 2022 lost instructional time report used as a
    benchmark to monitor progress and ensure North Carolina
    students continue to accelerate, our agency produced a second
    report in April of this year.
        This 2023 report detailed the significant strides students
    made in the 2021-22 school year, and it specifically
    highlighted that the strongest gains were made in middle school
    math, which is where we encourage districts to invest heavily,
    based on data from the first report.
        While our State has much more to do, North Carolina was
    unique and intentional in its approach to recovery and
    acceleration. During my time in office, we have been
    transparent, data driven, and research based every step of the
    way. We remain committed to working alongside our school
    districts, providing them with access to tools, data and one on
    one sessions, so they can make informed decisions about how to
    best serve their students.
        Our schools and districts have made incredible strides in
    helping so many of our students get back on track to their pre-
    pandemic performance. While there is more work to be done, we
    are on the path to recovery. Thank you for the opportunity to
    be here, and I look forward to answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Truitt follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Bean. Ms. Truitt, Superintendent Truitt, thank you
    very much for coming here and sharing North Carolina's
    experiences, as we may all get better. We will also observe the
    5-minute rule as we begin asking questions. I will put the
    clock on Bean, put the clock on Bean as I'll begin the first
    round of 5-minute questions.
        My question goes to Dr. Malkus. Dr. Malkus, it all started
    with--you remember this? We just need 2 weeks. We need 2 weeks
    to stop the spread. That was it, and here we are 3 years later.
    We still have some Federal agencies that are not fully back at
    work yet. Some would argue that it was a dangerous place for a
    kid to be in school, and then as months unfolded, summer
    happened, data came in.
        Dr. Malkus, you kept score. What did the data show about
    school closures during that summer or fall of 2020?
        Mr. Malkus. This is an important question because what
    happened that summer 2020, we can observe over the course of
    the year, and not only that year, but the next year when our
    tracker tracked masking policies across the same nationwide
    districts. Those very early positions that districts and states
    took stood the test of time, even as COVID went down and up.
        Now I talked in my testimony about how there was a big
    political split here. A lot of this went toward an early and
    ossified sense in these places about what is the right way to
    react to the pandemic? The data that we have over what happened
    over the course of the pandemic shows that masking measured at
    the country level in summer 2020 is a much better predictor of
    the duration of closures and masking 2 years later than COVID
    case rates were.
        This suggests that there was a lot of position taking early
    on, and rather than being responsive, much of our policymaking
    and decisionmaking regarding schools was stuck in summer 2020.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. To Mr. Bradford, some
    say, in fact teachers unions now are saying that no one fought
    harder to get schools open than they did. Is that a true
    statement, Mr. Bradford?
        Mr. Bradford. I mean true is relative apparently. For me
    again, I just think the evidence is very clear. In particular,
    and I do not want to call you out, Representative Miller, but
    in Chicago, you know, the discussions of reopening schools were
    sort of responded to with a Chicago teachers union saying that
    an effort to try to reopen them was about sexism, misogyny and
    racism.
        In New York, and other places frankly, teachers picketed
    with signs and coffins. This is not the sort of activity of a
    group of people that are particularly interested in opening
    schools. I do want to say this too because I think this is
    important, and I just want to go back to it.
        I can remember when like March 13th, I think that is when
    it was, that was that Friday. It was like Friday the 13th in
    March, when the Nation essentially shutdown. Again, I was at
    the front of the line being like we should do this. The UFT,
    the United Federation of Teachers in New York wanted to close
    down schools, and Bill DeBlasio wanted to keep them open, and I
    was with the UFT.
        Over the summer it became very clear by August, it was
    incredibly clear, that what was happening was that teacher
    unions and places were working to sort of ban competition.
        Chairman Bean. You would say that answer is not true.
        Mr. Bradford. The answer is not true. Yes. If you want me
    to be more assertive about it, yes.
        Chairman Bean. That is what I need to know. Thank you. No.
    I appreciate your insight. I wanted to get another question in
    to Superintendent Truitt. Some may say what is the big deal,
    OK, we are a generation behind, why can we not just study extra
    hard this year, and make up for it? Are we lost forever in the
    90's, or can we make it up in 1 year? What is the big deal
    about this learning loss?
        Ms. Truitt. Well, the big deal is that it is going to take
    multiple years to recover, and some students may never recover
    because as Ms. Wray rightly stated, many students were behind
    in their academic progress when the pandemic hit, which one
    could argue is why so many parents are seeking alternatives to
    their neighborhood public schools.
        Our data shows that we measured our learning loss by
    converting the effect sizes to months of instructional time
    needed to catch up.
        Chairman Bean. We have got our challenges. I have got just
    a few seconds left. Give us some good news. I want to end my
    questioning on some good news on a bright outlook. Can you do
    that, Superintendent Truitt?
        Ms. Truitt. Yes. The good news is that North Carolina has
    gone all in on the science and reading. We used Federal dollars
    to provide professional development for teachers on phonics-
    based instruction. Our K-3 foundational reading scores show
    that we have outpaced the rest of the Nation.
        Chairman Bean. It can be done. Thank you so much,
    Superintendent Truitt, for all you guys, it is so frustrating
    that time, the clock, we want to expand this, but let us
    continue. Here is the order of members of which we will
    recognize members. We are going to go to Ranking Member
    Bonamici, then Ms. Miller, Mr. Bowman, Mr. Moran. Ranking
    Member Bonamici, you are recognized for questions.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is evident that
    missed learning time from the pandemic has hurt students
    academically, socially and emotionally, so to address this
    challenge, and to help close the gaps, we need investments in
    our public schools to help students catch up, to support
    teachers delivering high-quality instruction to more
    meaningfully engaged families.
        Instead of attacking how public schools responded to the
    pandemic with the information they had at the time, let us
    discuss how we can work together to help students and families
    recover equitably and effectively. Ms. Wray, I have three
    questions I am going to try to get in in 5 minutes.
        Recently, House Republicans released an appropriations bill
    that includes significant cuts to key education programs,
    including about an 80 percent cut to Title I. The bill also
    eliminates programs to support English learners, cuts teacher
    recruitment and retention, eliminates statewide family
    engagement centers, which of course are known to increase the
    quality and frequency of parental involvement.
        As a parent, how do these budget cuts affect your children
    and their peers, and what difference would it make in their
    ability to fully recover from missed learning time?
        Ms. Wray. I will answer quickly, so you have time. Mr.
    Chairman, I would like to employ another 90's song lyric:
    ``Isn't it Ironic.'' Is it not ironic that this Congress
    allocated funding for those programs, recognizing that they
    were needed, and is now about to take them away at a time when
    they are also screaming loudly about learning loss?
        Community family engagement is one of the most important
    things we could fund in our Federal budget, and that is because
    what has not been mentioned up here is that children like mine,
    they do not have alternatives. I do not really care what
    Catholic schools did because none of them will serve my child.
    That is not a solution for me.
        Funding the programs that work for my family is, and I hope
    we do that.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. Ms. Wray, schools in
    Oregon, my home State, were some of the latest to reopen for in
    person learning, but my State also has one of the lowest COVID
    death rates per capita. I know timing for each community was
    different, but Ms. Wray, as a parent, how do you respond to the
    argument that school closures were too long or unnecessary?
        Ms. Wray. I would respond that causing educators, whether
    they are in a union or not, and children like mine to choose
    between their life or an education is the absolute, most least
    American decision that we could make as a generation, a 90's
    generation or thereafter.
        Ms. Bonamici. I appreciate that. I remember early on in the
    pandemic talking to an educator via Zoom, when we were all in
    little boxes on a screen, who said I am terrified to go back to
    the classroom. This is pre-vaccination. He said because my wife
    works in a COVID unit, and I am afraid I am going to go in that
    classroom and pass the virus on to the students.
        Ms. Wray, research from the NWEA, the Northwest Regional
    Educational Association, which happens to be in the district I
    represent, shows that students in grades 3 to 5 require
    anywhere from two to 4 months of schooling to catch up from
    missed learning time in reading and math. Access to a highly
    effective teacher during the school day can contribute to
    student success, for example.
        A national board-certified teacher can accelerate student
    learning by one to 2 months, with students of color, and
    students from low-income families experiencing more significant
    benefits. In your testimony you mentioned a Teacher of the
    Year. We have one of those here on our Committee,
    Representative Hayes is a National Teacher of the Year, but you
    mentioned an award winning, highly qualified certified teacher,
    Mrs. Phillips.
        How does a well prepared, highly effective teacher make a
    difference for your children and their peers academically,
    socially and emotionally?
        Ms. Wray. Unfortunately, we lost our Teacher of the Year,
    because when she tried to advocate for better resources, when
    all of her colleagues tried to advocate for better resources,
    so that they did not bring COVID home to their loved ones, they
    did not die of COVID, and they did not bring COVID to school to
    our kids, they were villainized.
        When they asked for more resources and better funding to
    support a salary that reflected they were risking our lives for
    our kids, they were villainized. It was said that they were
    politicizing things. My answer to your question is, I will not
    know anymore what the impact of that would be, and I think that
    is one of the biggest tragedies of projecting and politicizing
    instead of looking for solutions.
        I think it is pretty much common sense that a highly
    qualified certified teacher with experience makes a difference
    for every child. Mrs. Phillips did that for my disabled child
    for 1 year before we lost her, and we now have no Montessori
    certified teachers in our school, and I know after speaking
    with them, that is in large part a result of how they were
    treated because they wanted the dignity of work.
        A profession mostly made up of women, and serving
    underserved and minority communities, saying that a decision to
    force them to go to work when it is not safe has an element of
    racism or classism to it. We are going to villainize that when
    it is true? That is absolutely shocking to me as a parent.
        Ms. Bonamici. I appreciate that, Ms. Wray, and I also
    appreciate your comment about the Catholic schools. We know
    that private schools do not have to take everyone. They do not
    have to serve every student, so we need to be very cautious
    about making those comparisons, and I am a little over, but
    thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much Ranking Member Bonamici.
    Here is our order of questions now. It will be Ms. Miller, Mr.
    Bowman, Mr. Moran, so she is the Vice-Chair. Do you know she is
    the Vice-Chair of this Committee, and we are yielding 5 minutes
    to her. Ms. Miller from Illinois, you are recognized.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you, and I am really appreciative that
    we are having this hearing because I am sure we will all agree
    that our children are the hope of our future, so looking for
    solutions on how to do life better, how to do education and
    family better. That is our goal. All of us can agree to that.
        Dr. Malkus, in your testimony you stated that being in a
    Democrat district was highly correlated to school closure. That
    looks a lot like a clear example of leaders prioritizing
    politics over children. Why do you think this was the case?
    Then most importantly, how can we ensure that this never
    happens again?
        Mr. Malkus. This is an important question to make sure that
    we do not make the same mistakes in the future. I think that to
    some degree it was a fear to lead. I think there was
    politicization, but we saw studies and have done studies at AEI
    that looked at public opinion on closures.
        Indeed, we found that local public opinion actually
    reflected local leader's decisions to close schools. We also
    found that that public opinion changed when leaders reopened
    their schools. In other words, the reopening encouraged local
    opinion to see that it was safe and approved those decisions.
        That is the leadership that we needed in a time when we
    could see other examples across the country, across the Nation
    that reopening was safe, and we needed our leaders to strike
    forward and make sure that that option was available to
    families who needed it.
        Even when that option also included remote options for
    those who did not. As we look forward, I think it is very
    important to look at the public health guidance that we get,
    particularly from the CDC to ensure that that is even-handed
    and clear to allow local leaders to make clear decisions.
        Finally, that we weight the interests of kids higher than
    we did during the pandemic.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you. Then also, Dr. Malkus, the left
    will concede that the pandemic caused learning loss. However,
    the evidence suggests that learning loss is far worse than it
    should have been because the Democrat politicians and their
    teacher union allies kept schools closed far longer than what
    was necessary.
        Can you share with us why you think they pushed for
    policies that they knew were going to cause additional learning
    loss? I know in a lot of my rural areas they opened the schools
    long before some of these urban areas that are, you know,
    primarily Democrat districts. Why do you think that they pushed
    for these policies so hard?
        Mr. Malkus. It is hard to know on an individual, you know,
    district by district basis, but there was sort of a pandemic of
    the same bug right? Fear to reopen schools even though we could
    see other examples. There were Catholic schools in the same
    district, with the same exact COVID conditions that were
    proving it was possible.
        There were other countries in Europe that were coming back
    earlier, and look, even when the CDC had said as long as you
    take some precautions in January, you could reopen schools. We
    still had disproportionate closures of about 30 percent of
    districts. That is complete closures in districts located in
    counties that voted for Biden.
        I really think that the reign of fear went too long, and we
    needed more courageous leadership in the face of that
    uncertainty.
        Mrs. Miller. Well, I know that in early 2021 I proposed an
    amendment that schools that were still remaining closed allowed
    parents to have the money that they were taking, and now we
    know either not spending or squandering, and allow those
    parents to find alternative educational opportunities for their
    children, including tutoring, and it is really a shame that
    they were not forced to do that when they refused to open.
        By the way, every Democrat voted against my amendment to
    let parents access that money to hire tutors or send their
    children somewhere else. Thank you, and I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ms. Miller. The order
    of questions now is Bowman, Moran, Hayes. Let us go to New York
    where Mr. Bowman is recognized for his series of questions.
        Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Before I get
    started on my questions I just want to start with this simple
    one, and this is to everyone in the Chamber, not just to our
    witnesses. Raise your hand if you lost someone due to COVID, or
    you know someone who lost someone due to COVID? Raise your
    hand.
        [A show hands raised.]
        OK. That is like the whole chamber, OK. COVID killed 1.135
    million Americans and counting. That is more Americans than
    were killed during the Civil War and World War II combined, in
    a shorter period of time. Let us say we would have kept the
    schools open. Is it not likely? Yes, kids were not as harmed as
    other people.
        Kids are taught by teachers who may have some
    immunocompromised situation going on. Kids go home to parents
    and grandparents and aunties and uncles and live in the
    community and travel. While kids may have not been seriously
    sick or killed by COVID, they can pass the illness on to others
    who will then die from COVID. This is well documented.
        That being said, I think it is fair to say if we would have
    kept schools open, more people would have died due to COVID. We
    are talking here about learning loss, which is the incorrect
    term by the way. The more correct term is learning disruption,
    or disrupted learning because the way the brain works, it does
    not work in the way where learning is lost, that implies that
    you need to go find it.
        That implies that it is somewhere that it cannot be
    located. Learning does not happen at a period of time in a
    vacuum, and then you move on and then you cannot get it back
    unless you go find it. It may have been disrupted yes, because
    we experienced a trauma that is unprecedented in world history.
    That is a word that no one has used up until this point,
    trauma.
        I encourage you all to review an ACE study that was done in
    the medical field several decades ago. ACEs are adverse
    childhood experiences. ACEs, the study shows that toxic stress
    and complex trauma impacts the brain's development in people 18
    years of age and younger.
        Look up the study. The world experienced a complex trauma,
    which is going to impact the brain's development, particularly
    the prefrontal cortex. If that has happened to our kids, and
    then they go back to school, of course you are going to see
    disruptions in learning.
        There is another pandemic that has been going on since the
    beginning of American history and that is the underinvestment
    and disinvestment in poor schools, in poor communities,
    particularly black and brown. That is a pandemic that was here
    way before COVID, which is why we see an achievement gap in our
    schools, and why kids in wealthier school communities do better
    than other kids.
        Now we are having a conversation behaving as if we are
    really concerned about learning loss, while my colleagues on
    the other side of the aisle want to cut funding to Title I, to
    community schools, and to resources for our most vulnerable
    people, especially those who receive SNAP and TANF benefits.
        What are we talking about? We are not being honest about
    the full conversation here. If learning loss is something we
    really care about, and again it is the wrong term, it is
    disrupted learning, we need to invest in our teachers, invest
    in our children, and invest in our schools and communities that
    have been historically neglected.
        I will close with this, and Ms. Wray, I am going to try to
    give you a moment to respond to my comments, I am sorry I went
    too long, but I do not know where we are getting this idea of
    this disruptive learning is going to lead to generations
    falling behind. I have a doctorate in educational leadership
    from Manhattanville College.
        I ran a middle school for 10 and a half years. In 2016, my
    middle school had the No. 1 gross scores of any middle school
    in New York City. We moved kids from level one to level three
    on standardized tests at a higher rate than anyone else in New
    York City. We did that in 1 year.
        Why are we talking about generations? We need to have a
    conversation about how learning works, and be honest about that
    in this Committee. I hate standardized tests by the way. We
    need project-based learning, and more holistic learning in our
    schools. That includes the arts, and sports, and tech and
    things that kids actually care about, and actually contribute
    to a 21st century economy. Sorry my time is up. I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Here is the order
    remaining right now, Moran, Hayes, Owens, Scott, Foxx. Let us
    go to Texas where Representative Moran is standing by for his
    questions. He is recognized.
        Mr. Moran. Thank you. Dr. Malkus, I want to start with you.
    One of the comments that my colleague just made, Mr. Bowman, I
    think I wrote the quote down correctly. He said if we would
    have kept schools open more people would have died from COVID.
    Does this bear out in the evidence and the statistics that you
    have looked at across the nation?
        Mr. Malkus. It is certainly the case that when people
    gathered during COVID there was theoretically a danger of
    transmission, and that COVID led to deaths. This is clearly a
    concern. When we look back at the evidence there, and this is
    not as of late, it was in, you know, October-November 2020,
    there were claims that actually the evidence appears that
    schools are not spreading COVID.
        If you look at the death rates among children, they are
    just a fraction, like a very small number. The evidence on
    whether schools, many of which were open during this time, with
    quarantines in place, and measures to mitigate transmission
    what have we not seen?
        We have not seen clear studies, and we would expect to see
    hundreds of them that would say actually large swaths of the
    country reopened, and deaths resulted. There are some marginal
    effects in some places. They do not stand up against the weight
    of the costs of widespread school closures, and some of the
    transmission that we saw was because it was not done as well-
    controlled, and with reasonable mitigation strategies in place
    as we saw elsewhere.
        Mr. Moran. Yes. I have not seen a statistical connection
    between opening up earlier and having higher death rates among
    either adults or children in those areas, and in fact, when I
    was a county judge in Smith County during the time of the
    pandemic, when we talked about how to deal with the pandemic as
    it came on us in 2020, we allowed our school districts to make
    decisions on their own, as to what was best for their school
    districts.
        Tyler Independent School District, who was one of the
    first, if not the first large school district in the State of
    Texas to reopen in the fall of 2020, after the main wave of the
    pandemic. In fact, that school did not see any increase, and
    did not have any deaths among children throughout the pandemic,
    and we did not see statistical increases compared to other
    countries that decided to make other decisions, or other
    schools that made other decisions as it related to adult deaths
    per capita in the State of Texas.
        That year learning, based on the state's testing was at its
    highest level and best level ever for Tyler ISD. A lot of that
    because they actually returned back to normal school year for
    those that were faced with medical difficulties where they were
    at higher risk, did you see that school districts generally
    provided exemptions for those kids, and allowed them to stay
    home to make accommodation for those kids?
        Mr. Malkus. In that first full pandemic year it was
    standard procedure, and almost universal across the country.
    When you reopened there was a remote option available, and
    oftentimes there were multiple remote programs available.
        Mr. Moran. It was possible to both accommodate those
    students that were at higher risk, and also to generally
    accommodate those students that needed to push forward with
    that learning. Would you agree with that?
        Mr. Malkus. I would absolutely agree with that, the
    decision to go fully remote would force a single decision on
    every student in a district, and many districts did that well
    into the spring of 2021.
        Mr. Moran. Would anybody on the panel disagree with me to
    say that the extended school closures during COVID will likely
    result in larger learning gaps between economically
    disadvantaged children and non-economically disadvantaged
    children? Would anyone disagree with that?
        Would anyone disagree with, and Ms. Wray pop up if you
    disagree with that. Would you disagree with the statement that
    those school closures and the learning gap resulting from it
    will likely lead to increased poverty in the future? Would
    anyone disagree with that?
        Ms. Wray. I would say that to describe that as a
    correlation is incorrect, in that the way the word correlation
    has been used throughout this hearing has been highly incorrect
    usage.
        Mr. Moran. Well, I am asking statistically if there is a
    correlation in between education and poverty, and I hear you
    saying there is not, but clearly there is, right?
        Ms. Wray. Correlation means there is no other predominant
    cause. It means that those two things, poverty and closure, are
    so closely connected that there's no other cause.
        Mr. Moran. No, no, no. I said poverty. I said education and
    poverty. That was my question. Would you agree that there is a
    statistically significant correlation between education and
    poverty?
        Ms. Wray. A lack of education definitely contributes to
    poverty. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Moran. A lack of education that leads to poverty also
    leads to people in higher areas of poverty being more likely to
    be a victim of crime, more likely to commit a crime, more
    likely to commit suicide, more likely to exhibit worse mental
    health outcomes, and those are all documented scientific
    studies. Do you disagree with any of those statements?
        Ms. Wray. I do not disagree with any statement that you
    have made in that sentence.
        Chairman Bean. Mr. Moran, thank you very much. Thank you
    very much. There is a new order line up and we are going to go
    Hayes, Owens, DeSaulnier, Foxx, and Scott. Let us go to
    Connecticut, where Mrs. Hayes is recognized for her series of
    questions.
        Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. Thank you to the witnesses for being
    here today. I had pages of questions prepared, but none of them
    seem relevant because it is becoming more and more apparent to
    me that the purpose of this committee is not to find solutions,
    or reach a conclusion that is best for children.
        I agree that there is a correlation between poverty and
    education and arrests, and all of the things that my colleague
    just laid out. However, we are having a hearing where they are
    trying to disinvest in all these things. If you truly believe
    that there is a correlation between education and these
    disproportionate outcomes, then why are we having a hearing
    that is attempted to remove funds that was meant to reach our
    most vulnerable children?
        I appreciate all the Monday morning quarterbacking here
    today, but we do not need Brooking's data to tell us that if
    kids are not in school, they will not learn. That is pretty
    basic. It is pretty simple. We also know if kids are dead, they
    do not learn. I am a parent, so when you are talking about the
    marginal effects of this, I am an educator, and I am a parent.
        I was not willing to risk my child on information that was
    not widely available to us, or that we didn't know. We took the
    approach with all the information we could at the time to save
    the lives of children. I do not know what anyone else was
    doing, but that is what I was doing. I voted in support of two
    Presidents to make sure that our schools had the resources that
    they needed.
        Ms. Wray, I echo the same thing as you about the irony that
    we are hearing today because is it not ironic that members of
    this panel are blaming teachers and teachers' unions, while
    also arguing that their children should have been back in front
    of those same teachers?
        Either the teachers are good for your kids, or they are
    not. You cannot have it both ways because you are arguing that
    the teachers wanted to keep schools closed, and they were
    detrimental to learning, and everything is the fault of
    teachers. In the same breath saying and our kids should have
    been back in front of those teachers with no disruption.
        You do not understand trauma. You do not understand what is
    happening in our classrooms. You do not understand what is
    going on with our kids if this is the conclusion that you have
    come to. I do not even know where to begin with the questions,
    because I do not anticipate that I will get any meaningful
    answer from people who come before this committee as experts in
    the field of education without bringing out the lens and saying
    that this is--you talk about generational, you talk about
    decades--this did not happen in 20 months during a pandemic.
    This is the result of disinvestment over decades as you have
    said. The response for that to be to continue to disinvest just
    blows my mind. My question is, which is not even a real
    question because I do not want an answer. If we have another
    pandemic, are you proposing that we do not shut schools down?
        If we have another global crisis, are you proposing that we
    do nothing? That does not work for me. I do not even know where
    to begin. We have people on the panel, Superintendent Truitt,
    you talk about how you created these reports, how you used
    Federal funds to create programs to support teachers. That is
    what we sent that money to you in order to do, for you to make
    decisions on the ground that would best support your students
    and your communities. This idea that only Democratic led
    communities, or Biden districts are falling behind, six of the
    top 10 lowest performing states for test scores and school
    districts are led by Republican Governors.
        What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I
    hail from the State of Connecticut where my Governor just
    announced today that he is going to use some of these funds to
    have intense math and science tutoring for kids to bring them
    back up to date, to close some of these gaps, to begin to do
    the things that we need to do.
        All of these things about schools have protocols in place,
    they could social distance kids. I worked in a school where the
    windows did not open. I worked in a school where if all my kids
    were in school on the same day two had to sit at my desk, and I
    had to borrow a chair from next door.
        This idea that we could have put kids six feet apart, open
    windows, did all the ventilation things, pre-supposes that we
    had not disinvested in schools for the last 30 years, and all
    of these things were in place. If that is what you believe,
    there is nothing I can do to help you.
        There is nothing I can say to bring you to the reality of
    this century in 2023, where we have schools and buildings
    without proper ventilation that have on average two vacancies
    for every grade, that have teachers that are not certified,
    that have all of these things that affect student learning.
        If we are not looking at all of the social determinants,
    and making sure that all of those things are in place first,
    before we jump to and it is because schools were closed, so we
    could save kids' lives, and that is why they are behind, then
    there is nothing I can say here. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ms. Hayes. We now will
    go to Mr. Owens. Mr. Owens, who will be followed by DeSaulnier,
    Foxx, then Scott. Representative Owens, you are recognized.
        Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before I get
    started with my opening statement, I think what is happened
    with the COVID is now America is now seeing what is been
    happening to our black children for decades by these unions.
    Yet the report in 2017 that 75 percent of the black boys of the
    State of California cannot read and write.
        Nobody says a word. Nobody thinks that is crazy. Nobody
    thinks that something should be addressing this process where
    unions are focusing on themselves, their institution, and not
    those black, young men that will go out and become very, very
    unsuccessful, very hopeless in the future.
        This has been going on for quite a while my friends, so the
    upside of COVID, if there is one, is that parents across the
    country now have empathy for those who have been used and
    abused and discarded for so many decades. I am very happy that
    we are now having this conversation, and we are going to yes,
    find what the cause is.
        Redefine with the cause. Never go this route ever again to
    give this kind of power to people who do not care about our
    kids, care about the billions of dollars they get, the power
    they get, they are willing to shut things down. Right now, yes,
    we will be losing a lot of kids because 20 percent, and I
    wish--I was trying to find that study, 40 percent of black kids
    in many of these blue states and cities would never go back to
    school again.
        No, we are not ever going to get them back. We need to
    recognize that. OK. Learning loss results from school closures
    during the COVID-19 pandemic have taken a historic toll on our
    students and their education. This loss of learning is
    highlighted by the National Assessment of their educational
    progress which shows the history scores of eighth graders have
    fallen below a level that they were in 1994, that is a 30 year
    low.
        Civics tests for eighth graders have fallen for the same
    level as 1998. Results from the National Center of Education
    Statistics, which administered the NAEP long-term reading and
    mathematics assessment for 13-year-old students are
    particularly concerning. Students' math scores have regressed
    by 33 years, and reading scores have dropped to 50 year lows.
        If we cannot read, you cannot learn. You cannot ever hope.
    Even the free can never be. Nearly a half a century of steady,
    incremental reading gains have been wiped out in 2 years by
    self-centered union nonsense. For many young people of this
    generation, they are projected to lose earnings of $44,000 less
    over the lifetime due to the demanded closures.
        Not to mention the impact of mental health, suicides,
    depression caused by 2 years of isolation. Here are some of the
    union demands, the ransom note that altered the lives and
    futures of millions of children in our country. Now this has
    nothing to do with school.
        Medicaid for all, banning charter schools, banning
    standardized tests, paying teacher's mortgages and rent,
    increased property taxes on businesses, financial support for
    illegal aliens. Now what does that have to do with teaching our
    kids anything? We have the union was demanding 250 million
    dollars for their union.
        The concession by our Democratic colleagues across the
    aisle over this time was 190 billion dollars of taxpayer funds,
    which is three times more the funds spent in 1 year, much of
    this is unaccounted for, wasted, unused and going to the union
    coffers. We define and implement solutions that help our
    students bridge the learning gap and excel in their academic
    and career aspirations.
        Moving forward we must ensure that our children can never
    ever be used as ransom. Our children are our future, not
    bargaining chips or political hostages. That is why I
    introduced the bill that ensures the bright future of most of
    the most vulnerable children, Title IX kids, will never be
    threatened again by adults negotiating for more pay.
        Our poor children should have never been used, abused, or
    scarred again in this manner. The legislation that I presented
    called Kids in Class Act allows for Title I funding to follow
    the child once a school closes to another--if another pandemic
    strikes.
        These funds can be used by the parents to seek support
    outside the closed schools, educational support services like
    tutoring, educational classes outside the home, private school
    tuition, and educational therapies with students with
    disabilities. This should be something that we all agree on if
    the child is our priority.
        Dr. Malkus, one of the things that concerned me about the
    learning loss is that high poverty minority students seem to be
    particularly left behind. Can you talk more about the data that
    looks like--what the data looks like for high poverty and
    minority students, and why these children seem to be especially
    hard hit?
        Mr. Malkus. There are three factors to pay attention to on
    this question. The first is there was a downturn in student
    achievement that preceded the pandemic. Around 2013, we started
    to see a slight downturn. The second thing is closures were
    disproportionately difficult for poor and minority and low-
    achieving students.
        For each week they were closed, and those closures lasted
    longer for those students. Holding all things constant, they
    got a one, two punch during the pandemic, and they will be
    paying for it for some time.
        Mr. Owens. Thank you, Dr. Malkus.
        Mr. Malkus. Thank you.
        Mr. Owens. I yield back. Thank you so much.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you, Representative Owens. Here is our
    order. DeSaulnier, Foxx, Scott, and Kiley. Let us go to
    California, Representative DeSaulnier, you are recognized for
    questions.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
    the panelists and the Chair and the Ranking Member for this
    important discussion, such as it is. Speaking of California, I
    am reminded of a quote by a colleague of mine in the State
    Senate when we were going around the State 15 years ago looking
    at intercession summer learning loss in the State, so it has
    been happening for a while.
        He represented a district in Los Angeles, a disadvantaged
    district. He used to say, he said this at one of the meetings
    down there. If you do what you have always done you will get
    what you always got. That in context of a social model in the
    last two generations it changed dramatically. We do not live in
    a world of Ward Cleaver anymore, Father Knows Best.
        Certainly, in the State I have represented, that dynamic is
    very strong, particularly in disadvantaged communities, but
    everywhere. You do not have a single parent, or you have a lot
    of single parent households. You have got a lot of two income
    households, and it is--has a disproportionate effect, depending
    on where you are in the economic scale.
        What do we do to fix it? In this instance we followed what
    the science told us, what the professionals at CDC told us, to
    protect kids and their families. In that context, and what we
    are talking about priorities right now, and I am trying to get
    the wisdom of Solomon in here, Ms. Wray.
        Representative Thompson and I, when I first got here--Glenn
    Thompson--we worked on family engagement centers, knowing that
    this model had changed forever, for better or worse. What did
    we do about it? We worked in a bipartisan way to fund, and we
    have grown it every session I have been here, to get family
    engagement centers.
        It was led by the National PTA, so that these busy
    families, and again disproportionately communities of color and
    poor communities have a bigger problem, but it is everywhere.
    In the appropriations that we are dealing with now, we are
    going to zero out the funds we have given to family engagement
    centers.
        Ms. Wray, could you speak to that about how families need
    to be able to connect with superintendents, with the teachers,
    with the counselors, to make sure that they are part of their
    kids growing up, and particularly coming out of COVID after
    having spent the last 3 years off and on dealing with the
    pressure of two income households, long commutes, and trying to
    help their kids be successful with things like family
    engagement centers?
        Ms. Wray. Yes, sir. I want to thank you, in particular, for
    your long history of working on behalf of children with
    disabilities who are missing from too many of these
    conversations. Without family engagement centers districts like
    mine, where we have a majority minority student population,
    where most of our children qualify for free and reduced lunch,
    parents cannot navigate the complex opportunities that are
    available, and they may not even know they exist.
        Laws that Congress passed generations ago to recognize that
    disruptive learning is happening are very hard for parents to
    take advantage of. They are hard to implement. They are
    complicated because they require individualized education
    plans, and children that need other resources, even children
    without disabilities that need to access programming to make
    sure they are advantaged, are not going to get those services
    if we take funding away for those community engagement centers.
        I think it is one of the most important things that the
    members of this subcommittee could do to enhance what is going
    to come out of the coming budget process, is to advocate for
    that funding to stay in the budget and to increase. Without
    field engagement centers, for example, if we ever had to shut
    down schools again, I just want to make clear that these
    options to stay home that have been mentioned, there were not
    devices available.
        There was no assistive technology for everyone. Teachers
    were not trained. Parents were not trained in how to do that.
    Those parent engagement centers were a point where parents
    could go to find out what those resources were going to be. We
    cannot take them away now.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. On disabilities. Governor Pat Brown, years
    ago, was faced with a growing disability community, and there
    was pressure to institutionalize kids. We changed. It was a
    Republican legislator in the State Assembly then said no, we
    are going to put them in the community, and give them the
    resources that led to IDEA.
        Now, we are going to flatline that budget in the current
    appropriations. Speak to your life experience about how
    difficult that will be for again, one of the most disadvantaged
    communities, the disabled, particularly disabled kids and their
    parents.
        Ms. Wray. To cut that funding means you do not believe that
    children like mine can learn. If you cut that funding, if you
    tell my child he cannot learn first of all you are wrong.
    Second of all, you should not be in Congress.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Well and the financial model. I mean we can
    institutionalize people, and continue to institutionalize
    people, which is a horrible moral decision, but financially it
    is also horrible.
        Ms. Wray. For those who care more about the budget than
    disabled people, sure. Pick from a buffet of reasons, but
    please just do the right thing.
        Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. We will now go to the
    Chair of the full Subcommittee. Dr. Foxx, honored to have you
    here. You are recognized for questions.
        Mrs. Foxx. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Once again,
    thanks to our witnesses for being here. Superintendent Truitt,
    one of the arguments we hear frequently from the left is the
    Federal Government must spend more money. We have seen states
    like North Carolina be remarkably successful with existing
    resources.
        What would you say to Democrats who claim that learning
    loss cannot be fixed without billions of dollars in new
    taxpayer dollars at the Federal level?
        Ms. Truitt. Thank you for the question. No. The premise of
    the Office of Learning Recovery that I created in February 2021
    was to ensure that our resources that we were getting from the
    Federal Government would--that we would be able to be good
    stewards of that money.
        90 percent of that money went straight to districts. We
    have some districts in North Carolina, which is an 80 percent
    rural State, that maybe only have three or four people in their
    central office. The idea that they would get money that was
    time limited, that had to be spent in a relatively short period
    of time without any data on where that learning loss was, was
    very daunting for them.
        I want to make sure that the Committee understands that
    North Carolina was very unique in setting up this Office of
    Learning Recovery, and in the data that we have provided in a
    very timely amount of time, so that is how I would answer that
    question.
        Mrs. Foxx. Thank you. Dr. Malkus, you mentioned that
    parents are not taking advantage of all the resources available
    to them. How can local or State level leaders make sure these
    resources reach kids while also not encouraging government
    overreach?
        Mr. Malkus. Well, I think there is--the main onus on this
    is on teachers. Teachers have the most influence on students
    learning. I also think that there is a role for the bully
    pulpit for local and State and Federal policymakers, to make
    clear how vital this issue is. This learning loss is--it is
    apocalyptic, especially for low achieving students.
        It cannot be stressed highly enough. We have seen
    inadequate focus on it, and I understand the calls for well, do
    we need more spending? Indeed, but we did spend a great deal of
    money and in a great deal of places. It was sent out without
    enough guidance, without enough reporting, and so I understand
    the reluctance to spend more on a black box, when much of that
    money is not being spent well, or when the institutions were
    asking to communicate to parents the urgency of their
    children's plight, means that we offer programs and students
    are not showing up.
        This is not an easy task, but I think raising the alarm
    before pandemic learning loss is over, finished, something that
    we have washed our hands from and just hoping for the best is
    an essential aspect in this fight.
        Mrs. Foxx. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Bradford, I know
    a large focus of your work is school choice. I think school
    choice is absolutely essential to getting students back on
    track. Over the last 3 years we saw states massively expand
    choice programs. How do you think school choice can empower
    parents and get students back on track?
        Mr. Bradford. Thank you, Congresswoman Foxx. By some
    reports, a million kids are no longer going to their
    neighborhood public school, and about two-thirds of those kids
    have chosen charter schools, or other kinds of school options
    being home schooled, or a private school, whatever.
        On the one hand I would just say the obvious. No school is
    going to work for every child. On the other hand, I would say
    what has presented itself is an America where parents are
    thinking much more critically about matching their child, their
    child's aspirations, and where they attend school.
        I think this is all a very good thing. I think this
    approach should be essential to how we think about the system
    that we want, not the one that we have been interrogating all
    day.
        Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Let us go
    to the Ranking Member, Ranking Member Scott from Virginia. You
    are recognized and thank you for being here today.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Malkus mentioned
    the political dynamics involved in school closures. I would ask
    unanimous consent to introduce into the record a National
    Public Radio article showing the death rate in Trump counties
    as almost three times higher than other counties.
        The Hill article, which associates the difference in death
    rates to vaccine politics. I ask unanimous consent.
        Chairman Bean. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you.
        [The information of Mr. Scott follows:]

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        Mr. Scott. Thank you. Now I do not know how that is
    relevant to this, but if you are going to blame people for
    closing schools, and inflicting learning loss, maybe you can
    associate those articles to see who gets blamed for what.
        Ms. Truitt, you obviously were not surprised to find
    students with a reduced academic achievement when they were not
    in school, but rather than complaining about it and blaming
    people, you focused on actually doing something about it. Can
    you--it sounds like you started with getting data. Can you tell
    me why it was important to get student level data?
        Ms. Truitt. Yes. In North Carolina the 10 percent holdback
    from ESSER 3 was by law able to be appropriated by our General
    Assembly, and so we wanted to be able to provide them, as well
    as districts who again got 90 percent of those funds, the
    information that they needed to best serve individual students.
        To kind of taking a scattershot approach, and just
    investing in programs that may or may not improve learning
    outcomes for students in my opinion was not an option. In doing
    a population study, which means that we look at the learning
    loss of every single student, and we are able to determine by
    student and by subgroup, which subject suffered the most, we
    were able to then tell districts here is what we suggest you
    spend your ESSR dollars on, and here are some vetted resources
    we think would match up best with what your students need.
        Mr. Scott. Armed with that data, what kind of interventions
    did you recommend for students most in need?
        Ms. Truitt. We looked at a lot of districts, did Summer
    Bridge Academies so that we were able to help 5th graders
    transition to 6th grade, 8th graders to 9th grade. We looked at
    a lot of math boot camps because middle grade's math suffered
    the worst in our population study. We also, as I mentioned,
    invested a lot of money in teacher professional development.
        We also stood up a statewide high dosage tutoring effort.
        Mr. Scott. Did these interventions cost money?
        Ms. Truitt. They did, and what I would let the Committee
    know is that our districts are still sitting on 47.7 million
    dollars of their ESSER 3 funds.
        Mr. Scott. Does that mean that they have the ability to
    continue providing the summer support, the tutorial services,
    and other services needed to catch up?
        Ms. Truitt. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Scott. Does your data--are you doing continuing testing
    to find out where the students are?
        Ms. Truitt. We are.
        Mr. Scott. Based on what is working and what might not be
    working, what recommendations can you suggest outside of the
    pandemic?
        Ms. Truitt. To improve education?
        Mr. Scott. Yes.
        Ms. Truitt. I would say that we need to not run away from
    accountability, that standardized testing lets us know where we
    are falling short with which subgroups. Had it not been for no
    child left behind, we would not know that our black and brown
    students were experiencing the kinds of gaps that they were. In
    a time where some states are running away from accountability,
    North Carolina is running toward accountability.
        We need to include other measures of accountability, aside
    from standardized tests. That means things like chronic
    absenteeism. If children are not at school, they cannot learn.
    We also need to be holding our districts accountable for
    whether or not students are participating in career college
    education, career technical education, so that we can once and
    for all get rid of the narrative that the only pathway to the
    middle class is with a 4-year college residential degree.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you. A study came out right before the
    pandemic that showed widespread problems with heating and
    ventilation systems. Obviously, if you can open a school during
    an airborne pandemic, you would like a good ventilation system.
    Did you find that many schools needing to fix their ventilation
    systems before they could open?
        Ms. Truitt. Yes, sir. ESSER 1 was incredibly helpful in
    that mitigation of the pandemic.
        Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Bean. Ranking Member Scott, thank you so much.
    Close us out. Let us go to California where the Chair, sub-
    Chair of the Workforce Protection Subcommittee, Representative
    Kiley is recognized for 5 minutes for questions.
        Mr. Kiley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Malkus, in your
    written testimony you write that the pandemic caused the
    largest negative shock to student learning the country has ever
    seen. You said that the learning losses exceeded those from
    Hurricane Katrina and said achievement gaps widened over the
    course of the pandemic.
        Would you say that those losses were mainly the result of
    the pandemic itself, or the government's response to it?
        Mr. Malkus. This is a great question, and an important one.
    Thank you for it. Typically speaking, we are looking at
    learning loss that was what was the trajectory of pre-pandemic
    learning, and what did we know well before the pandemic
    started, and then well after the pandemic started.
        That means that some of the learning loss that we see, and
    we see it in schools that were also in person, was due to the
    fact that they were closed all spring unexpectedly, and we were
    building a plane as we were flying it down the runway to
    educate those students remotely.
        In addition, there is some of the total learning loss that
    occurred in the 2020-21 school year. The fact of the matter is
    that we see large differences between those two groups, even
    though for the spring they have the same missed learning. That
    suggests that the difference that we see between them was
    actually more important because of the differential policy
    decisions in districts to stay longer.
        In other words, they both would have had some of the
    learning loss no matter what, extended closures were actually
    more of a differential than the overall differentials.
        Mr. Kiley. The evidence is pretty clear at this point that
    districts and states that stayed closed longer did more harm to
    their students. Is that right?
        Mr. Malkus. That is correct.
        Mr. Kiley. Your organization had a tracker for in person
    learning. Do you recall which State did the worst in terms of
    getting students back in the classroom?
        Mr. Malkus. I do not have that information off the top of
    my head.
        Mr. Kiley. I just checked it. It happens to be my State of
    California, very much against what I advocated for. The
    Governor of California, Gavin Newsom issued a statewide
    shutdown order heading into the fall of 2020. Do you recall, I
    mean what was the State of the evidence right then as far as
    the harm of keeping kids out of school versus having them in
    school?
        Mr. Malkus. In early fall, 2020, a reopening?
        Mr. Kiley. That is right.
        Mr. Malkus. It was mixed, and there was a pandemic fog.
    Some states were blazing ahead, California was not.
        Mr. Kiley. How about in the spring of 2021, specifically
    March, the California super majority rejected the amendment to
    open schools. I was actually the author of that amendment. What
    did the evidence say in March 2021 about the harms of keeping
    kids out of school versus having them in school?
        Mr. Malkus. By March 2021 the Centers for Disease, the CDC
    had issued clear evidence that it was safe to open schools with
    mitigation strategies, and it had issued that 2 months prior to
    the time you are talking about.
        Mr. Kiley. By the way, all this time the Governor himself
    had his own kids in person in private school. What does that
    tell you about his belief about the benefits versus costs of
    having kids in school in person?
        Mr. Malkus. I will not speak to the Governor's own
    motivations. I will let you lead your own conclusions on that.
    However, our family did have to take steps to remove our
    students largely because we knew that they would be open during
    the pandemic.
        Mr. Kiley. Could you just summarize for us then the harms
    that we know of now that a State like California did by
    shutting down its schools unnecessarily for so long?
        Mr. Malkus. I believe that these will be dramatic changes
    from what otherwise would have been. I understand there were
    differences in learning trajectories before that. Believe me,
    this is my business, but the pandemic has some of its own
    consequences. These consequences were dire. They were more dire
    for disadvantaged people, disadvantaged students in terms of
    learning loss, and it will be more dire down the line in terms
    of their life outcomes.
        All the evidence that we have suggests that this is pretty
    clearly the case. Anyone concerned with equity should be
    concerned with pandemic learning loss.
        Mr. Kiley. That is right. I believe this is the greatest
    domestic policy error, the most consequential domestic policy
    error in the modern history of this country. Frankly, the Biden
    administration was complicit in it. They went after Governors
    who did not want to have kids, young children wear masks in
    classrooms. They did not say anything about Governors like
    Gavin Newsom in California, that refused to open schools.
        Frankly, we had a lot of schools that were failing well
    before the COVID shutdowns, and I think that in a sense what
    the shutdowns did, if there is any silver lining at all, is it
    opened a lot of eyes to the way our education establishment
    works. That it is really not about the kids.
        In a State like California, it is never about the kids. The
    good news is I think we are seeing a lot more people now
    realizing that. Eyes have been opened, and I think there is a
    growing movement in this country to reorient public education
    toward a paradigm that is student centered and parent directed.
        Thank you very much for your testimony. I yield back to the
    Chair.
        Chairman Bean. Mr. Kiley, thank you very much. This is the
    Subcommittee on Early Childhood Elementary and Secondary
    Education. If you are just tuning in, we have just completed a
    lively discussion. Members, thank you so much for jumping in
    and making this a lively discussion.
        We now know that learning loss is real. We have spent a lot
    of money, and we are still determining the full effect of that
    money, and that this Committee has a lot of work to do to catch
    up to where we were. It is not just so much states competing
    with each other, it is America competing with the rest of the
    world.
        Next month millions of students will be returning to
    school, and they will be asked what did you do over the summer
    to students that are returning to school? We will answer, what
    did you do over the summer? They will say I spent my summer as
    an intern in the Education and Workforce Committee.
        Those students are Meghan Heckelman from the majority
    office, and Claire Houchin from the majority office. Could
    those two stand? Meghan and Claire, if you are here please
    stand up. I want to recognize both of them. Let me tell you
    before we clap, before we clap, hold on one thing.
        Both sides agree, these two young ladies have very bright
    futures, but here is the secret to succeeding. When they were
    given tasks, and they were given a lot, they always performed
    with a smile and said I will get it done.
        As they go back, Meghan will be going back to Boston
    College, and Claire Houchin will be going back to Ashland
    University. Let us give them a big round of applause for their
    service. Do you want to do? Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am. I am going
    to--before we adjourn, I will recognize the Ranking Member for
    a closing statement.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Today we
    discussed missed learning, which I think Mr. Bowman,
    Representative Bowman aptly described as disrupted learning. In
    K-12 students, and how the pandemic exacerbated the
    difficulties in closing long-standing and opportunity and
    achievement gaps, particularly for black and Latino students.
        I hope our colleagues across the aisle will work with us
    with congressional Democrats to further assist educators and
    schools in recovering from the pandemic, and in providing every
    child with a well-rounded, world class education. I want to
    note that what students and schools do not need is extremist
    MAGA Republican culture wars, and they do not need devastating
    cuts to education funding.
        These words and actions are harmful to students. They can
    cause additional stress and burnout among educators, and I
    implore my colleagues to reject them in favor of policies that
    actually improve public education. I want to note there was a
    discussion in our hearing today about prevention. How do we
    keep this from happening again?
        Well one thing we can do is invest not just in education,
    but also in public health, and make decisions based on science.
    Dr. Malkus, at one point you mentioned Europe, and compared it
    with Europe. What you did not see in Europe was mask wars and
    vaccination opposition.
        In Europe people wore masks and got vaccinated because that
    is based on science. I had a conversation with the
    superintendent of a small school district in Oregon at the
    height of everything, and she was beside herself. She said I do
    not know what to do because my parents are calling, they want
    their students in a classroom with a teacher who is vaccinated.
        My State has a religious exemption, but all of a sudden
    half the teachers have found religion, and they do not want to
    get vaccinated, and by the way, I cannot get medication to
    deworm my horse. Those were not decisions that were being based
    on science, so we need to make sure we are making decisions
    based on science.
        Then I also want to correct a statement in Mr. Bradford's
    written testimony. In Mr. Bradford's written testimony, he
    stated when discussing teachers unions. For example, virtual
    charter schools increased enrollment due to brick-and-mortar
    schools closing, so a cap was enacted in Oregon at their
    behest, referring to the teachers unions. That is just not the
    case.
        Mr. Bradford. That is an article in the Wall Street
    Journal. I am happy to send it to you, Congresswoman.
        Ms. Bonamici. You can send it to me, Mr. Bradford, but I
    served in the legislature in Oregon on the Education Committee
    more than a decade ago, and the cap was in place long before
    COVID, and that was because virtual charter schools were taking
    a significant amount of public money with serious equity
    issues, and without evidence of success.
        Mr. Bradford. I am happy to send it to you.
        Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. I just want to correct that for
    the written record.
        Mr. Bradford. I am happy to send it to you.
        Ms. Bonamici. The cap was in place long before. Mr.
    Chairman, I remain committed to working together to advance the
    interest and well-being of every student, parent and teacher. I
    urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me, and I
    thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
        Chairman Bean. Ms. Bonamici, thank you so much, Ranking
    Member. It is great to work with you, and without objection Mr.
    Bradford, if you will submit that article, we will include it
    as part of the record.
        [The information of Mr. Bradford follows:]

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        Chairman Bean. What I have learned in my time in the
    Education Sector. If we truly want to make a difference let us
    empower parents. Let us empower parents, and we are going to
    put more money in, let us let parents choose where that money
    is spent. Maybe, if it is a private school, if it is a public
    school, a charter school, or home school, whatever it is, let
    us let them make that choice, and that is something that we can
    go forward today.
        Our members, you are outstanding. Let me get clearance to
    see if we can adjourn. Are we ready? Yes, yes, guess what,
    breaking news here that we have a handful of other interns that
    we want to recognize, including Elizabethe Payne, if you are
    here, please stand. We would love to recognize you. Elizabethe
    Payne, Savoy Adams, Madeline Lucas, Malak Kalasho, Kristion
    Jackson, Eli Smolen.
        Wherever you are. They are probably doing some filing, and
    letter writing in the back, but we appreciate your service, and
    this whole complex relies on interns to do great work, and it
    is also making future leaders out of them. They could see the
    process firsthand.
        With that, there being no further business to come before
    you ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention today.
    Let us go make it a good day. This Committee is adjourned.
        [Whereupon at 12:01 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                     ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

        [Additional submissions from Chairman Bean follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        [Additional submissions from Chairman Bean follows:]

     2023 Report--One Year Later: A Recovery Analysis of Student Learning
                          During the Covid-19 Pandemic

        https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53759/pdf/
    CHRG-118hhrg53759-Add1.pdf

                                 [all]