[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 117 (Thursday, July 30, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8565-S8566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LIEBERMAN (for himself, Ms. Collins, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. 
        Voinovich, Mr. Byrd, and Mr. Ensign):
  S. 1552. A bill to reauthorize the DC opportunity scholarship 
program, and for other purposes; read the first time.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise along with my colleagues, 
Senators Collins, Feinstein, Voinovich, Byrd and Ensign to introduce 
the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, SOAR, which seeks to 
reauthorize the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, OSP, also known as 
the DC voucher program. This important initiative offers scholarships 
to low-income students, especially those from failing schools, to 
attend better private schools. In doing so, the program gives parents 
of economically disadvantaged children a choice that's available to the 
more affluent, including many of us in Congress and in the White House. 
This program offers DC students a choice that has improved the quality 
of their education and lives; it is a program that works. I urge my 
colleagues in the Senate to support the reauthorization of this 
important program.
  Since 2003, Congress has supported a tri-sector approach to improving 
education in the District of Columbia. This has included funding the DC 
Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides low income students in 
the District with scholarships of up to $7,500 to attend private 
schools, as well as new funding for ongoing efforts to reform and 
improve public schools and public charter schools in the District.
  Critics of this program argue that it takes away funds from public 
schools. This is simply not the case. I remind my colleagues that we 
intentionally designed the scholarship program to ensure that any 
funding for opportunity scholarships would not reduce funding for 
public schools. We provided additional new money for the DC Public 
Schools and for DC Public Charter Schools. We have not changed the 
three part-funding design of the initiative. The tri-partite funding is 
central to the compromise approach that originally brought Democrats 
and Republicans together in support of the Opportunity Scholarship 
Program. This bill preserves that important requirement. It is our 
intent that any funding for DC Opportunity Scholarships will result in 
continued additional new money in support of public charter and public 
schools.
  This funding mechanism is an important point as it reflects the goal 
of the Opportunity Scholarship Program: to be supportive of the reforms 
that are helping to improve education in the District of Columbia. 
There is absolutely no intention to undermine the public schools--quite 
to the contrary. But as Ronald Holassie, one of the students receiving 
a scholarship, told us at a recent hearing on the program before the 
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee: ``public schools 
in the District did not go bad over night and they won't get better 
over night.'' That's the point: despite having amongst the highest per 
pupil expenditure for public school districts in the country, the 
public school students in the District score at the bottom on national 
tests. Ronald and others cannot wait for reforms to take effect in the 
worst of DC's public schools. They deserve a good education today and 
the Opportunity Scholarships respond to that need.
  Much progress has been made in improving DC schools over the years 
but even school Chancellor Michelle Rhee admits that much remains to be 
done. According to the Washington Post, Chancellor Rhee was asked 
recently to give herself a grade for her efforts. She said she would 
give herself a failing grade as long as any children were in schools 
that were not providing a quality education. That's a modest answer 
that obscures the progress she has made. DC test scores are up in the 
most recent study of academic performance. Undoubtedly, we will see 
additional improvements in the years to come. Chancellor Rhee will 
continue to have my full support and I am confident that Ms. Rhee will 
soon be able to claim the ``A'' grade that I believe she already 
deserves. In the new bill, we have made the connection between the 
scholarship program and the ongoing reform effort more explicit. Our 
bill acknowledges an intent to reexamine the program when DC public 
school students are testing at the national average in reading and 
math.
  The bill also responds to early criticisms of the Opportunity 
Scholarships with some important changes. It requires all participating 
schools to have a valid certificate of occupancy and to ensure that 
teachers in core subjects have an appropriate college degree. It 
continues to target students from lower income families who are 
attending those DC schools most in need of improvement but it increases 
the tuition amounts slightly to levels consistent with the tuition 
charged at a typical participating school, and adds an inflation 
adjustment. The new amounts are still well below the per pupil cost of 
educating a child in the DC public schools. While we have kept the 
income ceiling for entry into the program unchanged, we have increased 
slightly the income ceiling for those already participating in the 
program to ensure that parents are not forced to choose between a 
modest raise in their income and the scholarship, or marriage and the 
scholarship.
  It is very important to recognize that the Opportunity Scholarship 
schools are producing impressive results. Opportunity Scholarship 
students attending private schools showed a five month advantage in 
reading levels compared to students attending public schools who 
applied but did not receive the scholarship, in the most recent study 
of the program conducted by the Department of Education's Institute of 
Education Sciences. The study showed significantly higher levels of 
parental satisfaction with regards to safety and the quality of the 
school for those in the program. The study has not yet even looked at 
the effect of the program on graduation rates and attrition though 
studies of other voucher programs indicate this impact could very well 
be significant. We will see those results in next year's study.

[[Page S8566]]

  It is also imperative to put the results of the program in context. 
Rarely are there statistically significant results with any educational 
innovations, particularly those targeted at low income students. Of the 
eleven recent educational innovations studied under the auspices of the 
Department of Education using the same rigorous testing designs, only 
three showed any statistically significant achievement results. The 
Opportunity Scholarship was one of the three. Dr. Patrick Wolf, an 
education specialist and the lead researcher in the IES study, 
testified at a recent hearing on the scholarship program that in his 
professional opinion the results were exceptional and warranted 
continued study of the program. According to Dr. Wolf, ``by 
demonstrating statistically significant impacts overall in reading 
based on an experimental evaluation, the DC OSP has met a tough 
standard for efficacy in serving low-income inner-city students.''
  Academic programs should be evaluated in terms of their impact on 
students' progress and achievement. In his speech before the Hispanic 
Chamber of Commerce earlier this year, President Obama laid down that 
marker as a guideline for considering which education programs should 
be funded. On that basis, it is clear that we should continue to fund 
the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program--a program that has been good 
for students, good for parents and even good for public and charter 
schools in the District. Let us do the right thing for kids in DC and 
reauthorize the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Lieberman 
and my Senate colleagues in introducing legislation to reauthorize the 
District of Columbia's pilot scholarship program for 5 more years.
  This important program currently provides scholarships to 1,700 low-
income children who attend 49 private schools in the District. The 
scholarships of up to $7,500 help these students pay for tuition and 
transportation expenses to school.
  However, if the program is not extended soon, children will not be 
able to continue their education at the schools of their choice.
  This legislation would:
  Extend the life of the District of Columbia's pilot scholarship 
program for five more years.
  Increase the program's funding to $20 million for fiscal year 2010 
and as may be necessary the following four years to allow new students 
to participate in the program and provide a higher scholarship.
  Increase the scholarship amount to $9,000 for children in 
kindergarten through 8th grade, and $11,000 for youngsters in high 
school--this amount is still lower than the $15,500 cost of educating a 
public school student in the District and will help low-income families 
afford the high cost of private school tuition.
  Protect low-income families whose children are already in the program 
from ``earning out'' of it by setting the maximum income level for them 
at 300 percent of the Federal poverty level, about $63,000 for a family 
of four.
  However, it maintains the current income eligibility requirement for 
students to enter the program of 185 percent of poverty, $41,000 for a 
family of four.
  It would improve evaluation by assessing students' college admission 
rates, school safety, and the reasons why parents choose to participate 
in program to better learn about its impact on children's lives and 
their families.
  It would give priority for awarding scholarships also to students 
whose household includes a sibling or other child already participating 
in the program.
  When students entered the program 5 years ago, they were performing 
in the bottom third on reading and math tests.
  Students are now improving academically--despite the many challenges 
that these children face outside the classroom living in some of the 
District's toughest neighborhoods.
  The most recent evaluation from this past April by the Education 
Department's Institute of Education Sciences found that although math 
test scores have not increased so far, there are significant gains 
being made in reading test scores.
  Specifically, pilot program students scored 4.5 points higher in 
reading on the SAT-9 national standardized test with a total score of 
635.4 when compared to the District's public school students' score of 
630.9.
  This means students are making gains in reading test scores by the 
equivalent of 3 months of additional schooling, and moved to the 35th 
percentile on the SAT-9 from the 33rd percentile where they were before 
entering the program.
  These youngsters still have much more catching up to do, but they are 
improving and this is important.
  I believe the results of the more comprehensive evaluation of student 
performance that will be released next spring are critical.
  Next year's evaluation will also include important data on the 
program's impact on students' college enrollment and how the District's 
public schools are changing in response to the pilot program.
  I would like to share two examples of how the program has helped to 
change the lives of the District's most disadvantaged youngsters and 
give them a chance to succeed.
  Shirley-Ann Tomdio is the 8th grade Valedictorian at Sacred Heart 
Middle School, located in the District's neighborhood of Columbia 
Heights.
  The scholarship allowed Shirley-Ann to attend Sacred Heart School for 
the past four years since 5th grade.
  She will be attending Georgetown Visitation in September for high 
school.
  She wants to go to college and become a surgeon.
  Shirley-Ann said at her 8th grade graduation speech this past June:

       The D.C. OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] is important 
     to me because without it I wouldn't be able to receive the 
     best education possible. It should continue so that my 
     brother, sister, and other students get the same chance. 
     Every child should get the chance to go to a good school.

  Oscar Machado is a graduate of Archbishop Carroll High School where 
he was on Honor Roll.
  Oscar is attending Mount Saint Mary's University in Maryland in the 
fall and plans to major in biology. He received three college 
scholarships that will cover nearly all of this tuition.
  He was in the pilot program for 4 years.
  At Archbishop Carroll High, he was President of the Robotics Team 
where he used pre-engineering skills to build robots, and also played 
the saxophone in the school band.
  When speaking of his experience as a D.C. Opportunity Scholarship 
recipient Oscar said:

       The scholarship was great. It gave me the opportunity to 
     attend a school I otherwise couldn't have attended.

  Oscar hopes that the same opportunity should be available to other 
students.
  We should listen to students like Oscar and Shirley-Ann, and continue 
to provide this important program to the District's neediest children.
  I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to pass this 
legislation.

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