quorum not being present we will not begin the committee work any amendments on any bills until they arrive however pursuant to committee rules we will do opening statements so as  to maximize the benefit of time as other members arrive from competing obligations today we will consider h r four hundred and seventy one the scholarship for opportunity results act h r eight hundred and ninety nine a bill to amend title forty one of the united states code to extend the sunset date of certain drake boulevard in inverness california which is the bay area as the specialist jake robert  two thousand and three that provides eligible low income district parents an opportunity to attend a private school of their choice this program is popular and successful in a recent poll of the district residents seventy four percent responded supporting reauthorization and funding of this program further a congressional mandated evaluation of osp showed significant gains in academic achievement legislation terminating this popular and successful program while allowing existing participants to continue through graduation however two hundred and sixteen students who were offered scholarships did have those offers rescinded by the u s department of education and secretary arne duncan the bill will bring up to date this program and continue  students participation and will have several improvements to the original authorizing legislation it requires participating private schools to maintain a valid certificate of occupancy issued by the district of columbia makes readily available information on its accreditation demonstrates that the adequate financial resources to ensure its financial stability if it has been operating for less than five years agree to site visits by the administrator have financial systems in place to ensure funds are used according to this act and makes certain each teacher of core subject matter has a bachelor let there be no doubt today this is a bill that the speaker believes in very strongly authored the bill himself i am a cosponsor of the bill and a supporter today we will see many amendments undoubtedly if they are good and practical and helpful we will certainly consider them but today before close of business this bill will be sent from the committee to the house floor for its consideration  program while at the same time undermining the public education system in the district of columbia we must help the district provide a high quality education for all for all of the city's children but we cannot accomplish that objective by diverting public funds to private institutions and away from public schools which is essentially what a voucher program does public funds should support public education coming from the city of baltimore i understand firsthand the complexities of turning around struggling inner city schools in fact over four years ago i became deeply involved in improving one of my own neighborhood schools the maritime industry's academy it has taken vision commitment accountability and yes resources to begin the process of turning this school around we could not have achieved these successes if we instead used these precious resources to pay for vouchers for private schools i have also sat on the charter school board of one of my daughter's schools for several years and i know the value of charter schools unfortunately h r four hundred and seventy one cherry picks by helping a few students at the expense of the vast majority of the district's children by dividing funding among d c s public schools public charter schools and private school vouchers h r four hundred and seventy one provides a third of the school funding to only one three percent of the district's students the lack of equity is stunning our focus should be on maximizing the impact of the federal government's limited resources to serve all of the district seventy thousand students now it is so interesting that a few weeks ago the majority offered h r one to fund the federal government for the rest of the year this legislation would cut billions billions of dollars from programs that have proven effective and served millions of low income students across this nation programs such as head start so that young kids can even get to the point of these youngsters who are sitting in the audience title one grants special ed cut billions school improvement grants st century community learning centers and math and science partnerships cut drastically in fact we have a chart that shows the billions of dollars in cuts republicans just supported cuts that affect every single district in the united states of america in light of these serious budget cuts i was surprised that h r four hundred and seventy one does not address how its provisions are paid for the majority has repeatedly argued that any appropriations should be paid for by offsets in fact the republican conference rules discourage considering legislation without identifying offsets yet here we are a little over two months into the th congress and one of the first bills we have taken up contains no explanation of how or even if these proposed expenditures will be paid for as a long time advocate of public education and quality education as one who would not be here if it were not for public education every single day of my schooling from kindergarten through the twelfth grade graduation having never missed one hour of school i appreciate public we just look at some of the cuts mister chairman that the republicans are dealing with overall you are talking about two dollars billion from the head start program seven hundred dollars million from title one grants seven hundred dollars million from the national school improvements program those are the kinds of cuts that will hurt every child that is going to a public school in this entire country and i think that as we begin to do all the slashing i think we need to have some balance here and i refuse i refuse to let anyone say that folks on this side of the aisle do not care about every single child in this country i am not going to buy that i am a father of children and children who have come through difficult time i represent the inner city of baltimore and i see children who want to be just like these wonderful young people they want to grow up one day and they want to achieve their dreams but when you are talking about one point three percent being affected out of this allocation i think that is a real problem instead we need to be putting that money into the public school system into the charter schools into a system that is working and  bills so i am going to exercise the prerogative of the chair and call up h r eight hundred and ninety nine a bill to amend title forty one of the united states code and to extend the sunset date for certain protest tasks and is a brief and technical bill it is important to the government contracting community though because it preserves an avenue for protests to ensure that we have fair and evenhanded contracting this is an extra layer of transparency and it also saves a tremendous amount of money in that we don't have to go through expensive expanded jurisdiction sunsets may of two thousand and eleven that was extended for defense contractors only last december in the national defense authorization act so that has been extended to september th of two thousand and sixteen all this bill bill made a similar extension for defense department contracts this bill will ensure that a critical accountability and transparency measure will continue to be a part of our acquisition process task orders issued under umbrella contract hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes billions they are also often awarded to multiple companies protests by losing competitors are a cost effective and efficient means for the acquisition system to help regulate itself  i probably represent more federal contractors than any other member of congress in the th district of virginia and i think creating an equitable playing field so that those who may have concerns about the award of civilian contracts have the same rights as those who are engaged in the defense industry i think makes a lot of sense it was an oversight in the past and i again commend my colleague mister lankford from oklahoma for catching this and for taking the leadership on this issue  i apologize i never opened it the bill is now open for consideration hold on the text of the bill has already been read the clerk has already designated the bill if there is no further discussion i move the committee on oversight and government reform report the bill to the house of representatives with recommendation that the bill do pass the question now is on reporting the bill favorably all those in favor signify by saying  issa the bill is now open are there any amendments pursuant to an agreement made before the markup we have had two opening statements we will have two additional all related to the main bill for today with that i recognize  one you are right this will go to the floor because it is the speaker's bill however it is interesting to note that once again the majority at this rostrum said to my constituents you deserve the right to a private school alternative has not in fact put a private school bill for the nation on the floor this isn't about improvements in education for the district of columbia it is about the ideological preference of the majority beginning with the speaker himself compromises were made numerous compromises were made when this program started it was extended not one but two years beyond the cutoff date despite the department of education having found no  improvement in the test scores of these children then a compromise for the existing program indicated that every child in the existing program could remain in the existing program but no compromise is good enough for this majority now they are insisting on an entirely new voucher program only for the district of columbia if it is so good for the district of columbia why don't you give other districts the opportunity to choose private school vouchers the reason you don't is because of referendum after referendum where the public has voted down public money for private schools you don't dare bring such a bill to the floor particularly when you are stripping billions of dollars from public and public charter schools i am going to have a bill in the nature of a substitute i don't believe this bill will pass the senate  this is a bill that adds to the deficit for one district yes there is money for public schools and for charter schools all of the money should go to public schools and public charter schools those are the schools that are accountable to the public private schools constitutionally cannot be accountable to the public and should not be accountable to the public  resent the way in which this was done you will find many people in the district of columbia who say yeah if somebody has got some free money to pass out pass some out to us that doesn't make it the alternative chosen by the people of the district of columbia one of the reasons i resent what you are doing so much is because as i shall indicate when i introduce my own amendment because the district of columbia has the most robust alternative public school system in the united states with half of our children out of the public schools having voted with their feet to go to public charter schools public charter schools with long waiting lists but the majority tells us that what they should be doing is going to private schools of the majority's mister chairman consensus is not always easy to find in congress but we found it last week mister chairman and we found it in the testimonies given on the power and the magic of education and mister chairman i am not referring to the testimonies of the witnesses not yet at least i am referring to the testimonies of our very own colleagues who one by one recalled stirring emotional testimonies about the power of education in their own lives an education is the most transformative thing that we can give another person it is why we read to our children it is why we support our grandchildren because we know an education not only transforms an individual life it can transform generations and it is that shared acknowledgment on the power of education that makes opposition to this bill so very difficult for me to understand the value and efficacy of this program have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt parents overwhelmingly approve of the opportunity scholarship program they are more engaged they are more involved they feel vested they want the chance to send their children to the school of their choice like the president does like the secretary of education does and like many of us do parents value the discipline and learning environment afforded by the opportunity scholarship program students approve of the program as evidenced by the fact that demand outpaces supply four to one student performance is up both generally and specifically as evidenced by higher graduation rates higher reading scores and higher educational attainment even the united states department of education once lauded the opportunity scholarship program as an example of a program that is working before someone or something told them to think otherwise i listened yesterday and i give a lot of credit to secretary duncan he has come before the congress on four different occasions even in the th congress but all this talk about reform and looking for programs that work and here we have a program that works by any objective standard of evaluation and for political reasons people want to kill it the residents of the district of columbia overwhelmingly support this program and they do so mister chairman because they know the three sector approach to public education in the district of columbia works the most insidious argument against this program is also the most inaccurate that somehow this program takes money away from the public school system or the d c charter school system when people know that that is blatantly patently false this bill takes great care of all three sectors ensures accountability and allows parents that lifeline that hope that dream that maybe just maybe their child can rise from the ashes of poverty and achieve children like ronald holassie one of the witnesses who spoke so eloquently mister chairman before the subcommittee last week and chairman i did not know mister holassie before last week but we forged a friendship and over the weekend he emailed me and asked me would i be willing to write a letter of recommendation for him to one of the great schools in my own state south carolina state  and it is with great pride that i will do so we celebrate the choices that he has with respect to college public and private and i wonder why we don't also celebrate the choices that he would have as he prepares to go to college consent that today's washington post article concerning the new chancellor henderson be placed in the record without objection so ordered  thank you i offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute without objection the amendment shall be considered original text for purposes of amendment and open to amendment at any point the amendment in the nature of a substitute has already been this amendment makes mostly technical corrections to the legislation but also seeks to right an injustice of two hundred and sixteen students in the city that i mentioned in my opening statement as mentioned education secretary arne duncan rescinded two hundred and sixteen scholarships that were offered to new enrollees in the d c osp program these students were all looking forward to their new opportunities to attend private school and to get out of their current failing public schools and without warning their dreams were temporarily places on hold by a bureaucrat the amendment clarifies that eligible private schools offering these scholarships must give priority consideration to those two hundred and sixteen students this is the right thing to do my amendment also makes a number of improvements to the bill first a nationally norm referenced standardized test will be used to ensure the best possible evaluation of the osp students for a scholarship and did not receive one this gets as close as an apples to apples comparison as we can get often it has been criticized that somehow those who apply for these scholarships are somehow special and the rest of course need not apply we believe it is not true we believe that the difference between those who receive the scholarships and those who there is not room for is roughly the difference between success and failure because of the schools they attend private institutions awarding scholarships will now have to give the secretary a detailed description of how that school will determine the amount of the scholarship provided to parents whose children are selected for the program the amendment also specifies that those teaching core subject matters in private schools participating in osp must either have a bachelor's degree this particular provision so i am not going to belabor that point as i understand your amendment it does not address the bill's cost concerns with an offsetting budget cut and fails to address the other concerns that i mentioned previously about the bill for these reasons i do not have much more to say about the amendment however i will when the substitute comes up when ms norton's substitute comes up want to address some of the things that m the district of columbia is unique in that we do not have special federal authority in the states but in the district this is incremental new money historically in the program there was seventy five dollars million authorized and remains authorized we are actually reducing it to sixty that is one of the reasons there is no offset required this is pure federal money not requiring any money be taken out just the opposite twenty dollars million goes into public education while forty dollars additional million go zeroing out describing reader's program the high school graduated initiative literacy through school libraries doing substantial harm to the head start program two hundred thousand people young kids unable to go into head start i just want to add that on to your question because while we hear these wonderful wonderful things about education and clearly i know you want to make sure that every child's education as i do all of us do but the question becomes why are we slashing billions of dollars from education budgets in this current year goes to public education only one third only twenty dollars million goes to what is now a fairly long running pilot program let's make it very clear your point that not everyone gets this opportunity ms norton said it very well why not everyone well because this is in fact and continues to be a proof of concept this continues to be an opportunity for some and  test of whether or not we can do a better job in all the states and as ms norton said so rightly we cannot make these decisions for all the states but in the district of columbia since two thousand and four these scholarships we believe have proven positive now there are those in your party who chose to be part of canceling this program we believe strongly enough that this has merit the technical corrections were designed to quantify the merit for those few but important students that have this opportunity we have no doubt that public education and nonpublic education will occur in the states at state expense this is but twenty dollars million into tens of billions of dollars the federal government will supply to states and the district of columbia to help with education the truth is we cannot finance education at the federal level no one expects us to we do believe very strongly and i believe that this is a measured bill where two thirds of it goes to additional money to help the district of columbia money that is not an entitlement but money which is a choice of the republicans and but one third but twenty dollars million goes to these opportunity scholarships yes there is a difference between our two parties the difference between our two parties appears to be that your side wants everything to go to public schools even if they are failing while we would like to see if there isn't a better way and i would like to just take the gentleman's continued indulgence for yielding to make one point to the gentlelady from the district of columbia you mentioned the constitution and you mentioned we people well i am not the author of this bill but i do support the bill so i will accept that but nowhere in the constitution is education a federal responsibility nowhere is there a constitutional right for federal dollars not even in the district of columbia is there a constitutional right for federal dollars we feel strongly that the states and the district must raise the money to educate their children and they do we also feel strongly since the intent of no child left  other initiatives in the previous administration that we should be an honest broker an honest evaluator an honest sayer of what is working and not working public schools in america do not all fail public schools in america succeed but in the district of columbia one of the places with the greatest cost per student it does not do that well earlier i had a unanimous consent to include this but i will read quickly from today's washington post where it says nevertheless a huge problem remains far too many students can't read or do math at grade level and far too many drop out before graduating you and i share an interest in improving public and all education in the district the reason the charter public schools exist is because there was a desire to create competition within the public system the reason that these students are here today from saint anthony in ward five these eighth graders is because it is important enough to their education to be here to look at how our democratic system of government works how our republic debates issues that is something that i feel very strongly is a good part of the education they are receiving so we are going to disagree because we do have a different viewpoint between our party and your party at times but it is not that we disagree on whether to help kids we all want to do that it is not that we fail to agree that public education is critical and it is the backbone of educating the vast majority of students in this country including myself who went k through part of twelve in the public system before going in the army it is though about this pilot program that we truly believe at least public schools and never been an apologist for the d c public schools i am a proud graduate of the d c public schools i got to go to any school in the united states i wanted to from d c public schools that is not the case for children today i shall never believe that a child this committee saw to it that the mayor of the district of columbia could not even testify because they knew he opposed the bill mister chairman may i correct your notion about authorization for this bill there is no offset the authorization for this bill ran out that is why you are here seeking an authorization there was never an authorization for the other two sectors that was done by the appropriations committee and i will give credit to why it was done when you first sought to impose vouchers on the district of columbia i asked that that money go to the district's alternative schools and to public schools the bishop at the time listened to us and understood that for money to come from the federal government only for the private schools would be wrong so he said i will not accept the money unless there is also money for the d c public and public charter schools the bishop is a real christian and i will never forget that he reinforced our call for what amount three sector but you have no leftover funds you have no authorization in this bill and you are violating the protocols by not providing an offset for a new this program which ran through two thousand and nine and the funds if you will intended to be used and we will ensure that when this comes to the floor those funds are available or that there is an offset the funds available are seventy five dollars million of which we are using nature of a substitute to h r four hundred and seventy one offered by ms norton of district of columbia strike all after the enacting clause and insert the following section one short title this act may be cited as the public funds for public education parents and asked them why weren't they going to the public charter schools if they wanted alternatives and they said congresswoman we tried to get in the charter schools but they have such long waiting lists we couldn't get in nature of a substitute the public funds for public education act would authorize sixty dollars million over five years to improve public education in the district of columbia the amendment gives thirty dollars million to the d c public schools to enable public charter schools for the two hundred and sixteen students awarded scholarships that were later rescinded in the two thousand and nine ten school year those students were taken in after the cutoff date of the program and have been used as poster children for yet a new program well i would like those children to be given priority to go to public charter schools the findings in chairman issa's amendment in the nature of a substitute try to justify this new voucher startup on the ground that d c public school students are outperformed by every state in the nation while i am always happy to hear my republican coll classify the district as a state and the fact is we are treated as a state for every purpose except the vote on the house floor but in the case of public education for the sake of accuracy the district should be classified as the national assessment of education progress does and should be given credit for major improvement in its public schools that has been nationally acknowledged the two thousand and nine national assessment of education progress known as the nation's report card found that the d c public schools were the only district out of the nation's eighteen largest urban school districts to experience major growth at both the fourth and eighth grade levels in math and reading from two thousand and seven to two thousand and nine considering continuing deficiencies in the public schools of the district however i have been a strong supporter of public charter school alternatives which educate almost half of our students and that is not because anyone has imposed those schools on them that is what the parents program affected student achievement as measured by standardized reading and math tests however d c public middle and high schools scored almost twice as high as the d c public school counterparts in math and reading and the graduation rates of charter schools is twenty four percent higher than the graduation rate of public high schools and eight percent higher than the nationwide average and understand what the public charter schools are they have significantly more african american students than the d c public schools and they have significantly more disadvantaged students than the d c public schools which are more integrated than our charter schools which our parents have chosen and made long waiting lists for public charter schools rather than a congressionally mandated program the department of education's report brings to light another problem with continuing the opportunity scholarship program besides the fact that it did not meet the test of improving scores this private school voucher program was designed to prioritize those children from the lowest performing schools and lowest income levels however the department of education's report shows that the only students showing even minimal improvements are not the students targeted by the act the act allows some students who were not from the lowest performing schools and those are the students that are showcased time and number of economically disadvantaged children and of african american children mentioned in the act who could desperately use any extra public funds that the congress has to dispose of i urge my colleagues to stand up for the schools chosen by our own parents our public schools which have improved markedly and the alternative our public charter schools if you believe in democracy then the best democratic choice is the choice the parents have chosen and they have chosen a different model they have this amendment essentially negates the program i know the gentlelady doesn't believe in this program i know the gentlelady does believe in taking as much money as the federal government will give to the district of columbia as well you should as its representative however we have a three tiered system in the district of columbia we have conventional public schools which receive full funding we have chartered public schools which although they have a waiting list get less than their fair share of funding by their own statements something that i find really really sad that within public schools the preferred long waiting list public schools the chartered public schools find themselves getting less than equal funding with the schools that quite frankly parents are leaving if full funding and full expansion of those schools under home rule were allowed to flourish public schools as we know it would be closing chartered public schools would be opening in those buildings there would be a renaissance in the district of columbia i don't represent the district of columbia our committee does oversee it and we take home rule seriously but we do have to quite frankly as this pilot program continues forward we do have to wonder why it is if you care so much about kids if chartered public schools are working well why they are both underfunded and restrained from their natural growth notwithstanding that we do give forty dollars million twenty dollars to conventional public schools dollars million to these chartered public schools that do have long waiting lines and a mere twenty dollars million out of billions of dollars that are spread around the united states from federal dollars will go to these opportunity scholarships i might note that since this program came into effect public schools and chartered public schools have received two hundred and sixty dollars million for school improvements certainly this committee has cared about all the schools in the district of columbia has fought to provide additional funding to an area of the country that has often not been the highest performer i take great pride in my predecessor's work on a bipartisan basis with the  gentlelady to create opportunity scholarships and to try to create additional funding wherever possible for the district of columbia i want to make something very clear in opposing the gentlelady's amendment if there was more money i would put more money into all these programs if there was a proposal to expand chartered public schools i would be all for it i want the district of columbia to come here with its new chancellor and make the same type of proposals and aggressive directional changes that will help all the students the students that are here today that are recipients of these opportunity scholarships are the lucky ones they are the ones if you will that won the great lottery of life would like every student in the district of columbia to have the opportunity to win the lottery of life in my home state of california we do have chartered public schools and they are successful and they are popular and they do change the rules that often exist in other public schools my state has voted down vouchers but my state did not have a federal handout for vouchers our state was simply looking at taking some of the money that goes to public schools and moving it to vouchers there is an opportunity here that is different this is money that would not otherwise be available this money would not be going to the district of columbia were it not for the opportunity to use the district to its highest and best use which is in fact the st place for america to look at how business is done home rule with the assistance of our federal oversight is in fact an opportunity to have one more laboratory for the education city management public transportation and all the other things that go on in the other states we do so hand in hand with the mayor i will tell you i regret the mayor not appearing before that committee however the decision was the mayor's the mayor chose not to be on a panel that we believed was very appropriate this committee will not routinely simply have people on panels of one because they want to be on a panel of one that wasn't done under democratic leadership i don't believe it should be done under republican leadership i look forward to working with my members on both sides of the dais here to come up with good make up for the dais that is efficient for all the members i look forward to inviting the mayor back and on the appropriate issues and appropriate time we would be more than happy to have the mayor back to give a vision or the mayor norton thank you very much i want to correct the notion the mayor never asked to be on a panel by himself the mayor only asked to be heard so that he could leave and  to urgent business he is in the middle of his budget cycle he made two different proposals both were denied he never objected to being on a panel he was told the most you can do is be on a panel and we won't even schools all around the country will not have enough funds this year because this house is in fact cutting billions of dollars and the effect is less funding for the facilities part is that there is an undertone which seems to imply that the folks on this side don't care about these kids in this audience and that i resent mister gowdy spoke a little bit earlier my mother and father came from south carolina as young teenagers who had just gotten married they left south carolina mister chairman in the s for one sole reason because they could not get an education they thought their kids would not be able to get an education they came to baltimore after their seven children and then their seven children were born and they were able to educate all seven of us on a domestic's salary and a laborer's salary  so education is key and i do appreciate the fact that mister gowdy is writing a letter of recommendation for the young man but mister gowdy let me be clear on this side of the aisle and i am sure on your side of the aisle we write a whole lot of l recommendation to fight for kids to get into colleges fight for them to have an opportunity to even get to get out of high school that is why we are so concerned about things like head start we realize that so many kids don't even get a decent start to even get to this point where these beautiful awesome children are today so when we are talking about mister chairman winning the lottery of life lotteries are fine but if i am going to put my money on something i guess i want to columbia and i guess the issue of home rule does become very significant i don't know how many of us go into our school districts and tell them what to do i don't think we do but i was just at a town hall meeting in my district on saturday and the lady who coordinates the head start program got up and she literally with tears in her eyes and she said i have two hundred kids in head start today but guess what congressman there are seven hundred and twenty five on the waiting list  so that is sad because a lot of those kids will never get the head start that they desperately need i often tell my constituents i speak for the living but i also speak for the de are so many people in the community that i live in and i want to be clear i don't live in the suburbs i live in the inner city of baltimore in the inner inner city and i see the young people who don't get the education the ones who don't get the opportunities and you know where they are sitting they are sitting in prisons that is where they are sitting many of them are dead that is where they are many of them are drugged up that is where they are and that is why i want to make it clear we have no problem with making sure that every single child is educated i have said it in speeches over and over again i am concerned about osama bin laden i am concerned about terrorists but the greatest threat to our national anybody even imply that i or these members do not care about every single child getting a decent education so that they can be all that god meant for them to be with that i yield back chairman issa i thank the gentleman with school choice for students and i appreciate the ranking member's passion i think everyone has passion for kids getting a quality education you can't experience the american dream if you don't first have that great education and frankly the passion i see from the ranking member is the same passion i saw from parents every time the courts were set to shut down the scholarship program in ohio i saw these moms these moms on a mission come and talk about what it meant for their son or daughter to be in the scholarship program when we started this program in the general assembly in ohio just get these numbers the cleveland public schools at the time had a thirty two percent graduation rate today it has a thirty four percent graduation rate we said in the initial program k through first grade we would take two thousand students give them a scholarship thousand two hundred and fifty dollars two thousand students getting two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars when cleveland public schools was spending at the time over six thousand dollars this was one thousand nine hundred and ninety five over six thousand dollars on a kid's education on the initial sign up day two thousand spots k through second grade seven thousand parents were kicking and fighting and scratching to get to the front of that line to get that scholarship and think about what these parents were saying we will forego the additional money spent on our kids in the cleveland public schools give us that scholarship we will forego having four thousand dollars additional dollars spent on our son or daughter give us the scholarship and the ability to escape and get to a better education they understood how powerful that is a powerful message we will forego the money give us the chance to escape and put our son or daughter in a school we think they are going to get what they need to experience the american dream that the ranking member so eloquently talked about that is what this is all about and this was challenged in court went all the way to the supreme court challenged on the establishment clause in the first amendment went all the way up  was found constitutional and the argument i always make is how bad does it have to get before we allow kids the opportunity to escape and get to a better education the gentlelady from d c has talked about we want this for everyone i agree i would love to have a system that says let's have a child centered system one where the dollars are strapped to the back of a kid and wherever the mom or dad of that young boy or that girl thinks they are going to get the best education let the dollars follow the kid that is a model that is consistent with american principles one that empowers families empowers individuals allows them to make the choice allows them to have the freedom to do what is best in my time in the general assembly every single time we expanded choice for families it was opposed by the establishment first it was  good thing then it was open enrollment oh we can't have open enrollment that is bad turned out to be a good thing then it was post secondary option allowing kids in their junior and senior year to go to a local university and get college credits that was a bad thing turned out to be a good thing then it was home schooling then it was charter schools and then it was ultimately school choice opportunity scholarships every single time it was opposed initially by the establishment every single time it turned out to be a positive thing for the families who got the ability to send their son or daughter to a school that mattered and one where they knew they were going to get a quality education that is what this legislation is about it is about allowing families the ability to make the decision i learned a long time ago even though some families make poor decisions in the vast majority of cases families parents make infinitely better decisions than bureaucrats and politicians can ever make that is what this program is about and that is why we should pass the bill and oppose the amendment i yield back chairman issa i thank the gentleman i am sorry the distinguished former spoke in light of the fact that this program is not being made available all over the country not being available in ohio and michigan and yes not being available  in california and the reason is that this is the attempt as the chairman said to use the district as a laboratory one thing that really raises the of the residents of the district of columbia full citizens of the united states is to be told we are the congressional laboratory we are just as much of an independent self governing district as yours and expect to be treated that way we are not your lab rats if you want some lab rats put a bill on the floor and let whatever district wants to be your lab rats come forward don't choose us for what we are not we demand to be treated as full american citizens not at your laboratory for your ideological preferences  district than you do if they did they would be here representing and that is my concern here you have the gentlewoman from washington d c who represents the area saying this is not the way to go and we are going to ignore it that is my problem even with earmarks i know that is a dirty word around here but i am telling you now and you can mark my word we are going to waste more money by not having earmarks than we would if we had them because you are going to have secretaries making the decisions as to what should happen in your district and you walk the streets of your district every week and they can't know as much about the needs of your district as you do and for us to sit here this morning and argue with the point that the gentlewoman from washington d c who represents the over six hundred thousand people in the district and to say that this is what you need open your mouth and take it that to me is wrong and i think that we need to recognize it if we want to waste money this is a good way to do it but i think that people that represent the area should have the opportunity to determine what happens in their area of course i recognize there is a thing called individual differences i recognize it and i understand some people learn faster than others i recognize that my son who serves in the legislature says it so well he said dad sometimes it takes some people two and a half hours to watch sixty minutes sixty minutes i guess i appreciate that and i do share your concern for local control but as you know seventy five percent of the district's residents support the continuation  program and it was a near tie election for mayor that really made the difference between a mayor who totally supported it a chancellor who supported it and now a change in administration who seems to be bending the other way but i appreciate the gentleman y don't we think about the person that represents the district that sits here with us walks the streets of washington d c not like we do once a week she walks the streets every day so it seems to me that that is the opinion that we should truly respect and that is what i am doing i am respecting the opinion of the person that represents the area and i think that we all should do just that i would be honest with you if there was academies as crucial and i make them carefully i have a whole board and i meet with every candidate but when the president offers a scholarship or the commandant or any of the other people who have selected ability to offer scholarships to the academies i don't complain when one more person gets in the academy than i appointed to a great extent this program is about opportunities beyond that which are already available through whatever the gentlelady can do in the district of columbia we are not asking anyone to give up anything this to make the sacrifices to be able to do that and it was a tremendous sacrifice for my family it does amaze me somewhat that we are spending so much time arguing about adding sixty dollars million into educating students into d c forty dollars million of that being in the public schools both to the charter schools and to the regular d c schools and another twenty dollars million into educating additional children it is an interesting argument to me to say if we are going to dump more money into the d c schools then we should do it all for just public and charter schools because that will affect more students and that will allow us to be able to have more students involved rather than a select few when in reality our scholarships were are talking about are between eight thousand dollars and twelve thousand dollars per person when you go to the d c public  seventeen thousand dollars per person to do that so this does affect more students given more opportunity it does add forty dollars million into the district for public school education so this just seems like an odd argument to say we don't want the other forty dollars million in case twenty dollars million will go to some private schools we don't want those kids to have the option so we will turn down the forty dollars million over here or try to change it on this and believe me i grew up in both public and private schools i am a big believer in both big believer in education but to give the opportunity to say let's drop in twenty dollars million and give a greater value to that group of students than what we are receiving in the public school education i think is a good experiment for us to be able to do and to be able to engage with connolly but there was a big difference i guess when my parents chose to put myself and my sibling in parochial school and that was we didn't expect a voucher we didn't expect public money to subsidize our choice in education and i respect and admire my friend from oklahoma and i understand what he is saying but i wonder how oklahoma would feel how oklahoma city would feel if this congress imposed on it a decision about how money with respect to education should be spent that is really the issue here ms norton's amendment does not turn back the money it would divert the money to the public school system what i find troubling in this discussion is the paternalism of those who otherwise profess a deep commitment to federalism and presumably this is all about we want to impose the ability of parents in d c to have a choice if we are going to be consistent the same people who say they are committed to that principle had no trouble however stripping choice the voting choice of the elected delegate of the people of the district of columbia that was one of the first things this new majority did she can no longer vote in the committee of the whole and they certainly don't support voting rights for the district of columbia the same crowd that says it is committed to the education of these children had no trouble a few weeks ago stripping one dollar twenty cents billion in funding for head start where was the commitment to children and education then what this is really about is a power struggle it is about undermining public education and as wisconsin has shown it is about trying to take on public unions including teachers unions and it is about the paternalism of deciding what is best for the people of the district of columbia and denying them in fact the choice their elected leadership has a different point of view it hasn't been heard but their elected leadership has a different point of view it is wrong of this congress it is wrong of this committee to substitute itself for the school board and the elected leadership of the district of columbia however misguided we may feel they may be i ran as the chairman of fairfax county just across the river the eleventh largest school system in the united states of america one hundred and seventy thousand students we didn't divert resources for vouchers we invested and poured more money into public education which may be why we have one of the highest performing public education systems in the united states the answer for failing schools isn't to district of columbia i have to stand for election i hope that my parents will judge me by more than my disagreement with them on this matter and they have consistently done  if you have money the money should go to where district parents have shown they want it to go and that is to our d c public schools and our own alternative and i challenge anybody in this room on either side to have an alternative school system as robust and as large as the alternative school system our own public charter schools are of the district of columbia yet let those of you who are over a basic issue of whether or not scholarships can be provided to students so that they cannot be limited by their geography and they can seek whatever opportunity may be available to them now i have to tell you there have been a lot of people on the other side of the aisle who i have listened to and i am deeply offended by the manner in which you approach this first off i want you to know i did not have one grandparent that spent one day in high school i did not have one grandparent that spent one day in high school my father did not graduate from high school until i did at eighteen he said in my family i will not be the only person who has not graduated from high school he went back to adult night school not a ged program and he graduated from high school when i was eighteen he was forty eight i went to an inner city high school where there were two thousand seven hundred kids very few in college prep completed high school went on to college and i can tell you that in the inner city today even when i was in the inner city and now there are futures of children being stolen and they are being stolen because they don't have the opportunity when i got to college i was not prepared if i had not had a professor who pulled me aside and said in high school you missed a lot let me see if i can help you i would not have gotten my law degree i wouldn't have gotten my mba i wouldn't have gotten my undergraduate degree and i don't think i would be sitting here but somebody who stepped up and said the education that you got was inferior and i will help you bridge the gap made the difference for me these kids every day go to school willing to learn and in  system that is failing nobody here would debate that this system is working and no one is debating that when these kids show up that they have every capability and every opportunity in front of them only the system steals it this scholarship opportunity gives an ability for kids to step out of the limitation of their geography and pursue unlimited opportunity so that they can sit here so that the gentlelady from the district of columbia could actually have a student who was in an inner city program and went through a scholarship and got a great education an education that could bring them right here to represent the district of columbia yet this is sad because this is not about are we undermining education as i have heard this is not about trying to usurp the authority this isn't about control those who don't want this to pass want government to control the future of these children and give them a system that is failing period there is no other alternative that is here to give them a system that is working the scholarships give these children the only opportunity they have which is from day one opt out and now pursue an education that hopefully can make them reach the wonderful and great potential let's stop the rhetoric this is about control i believe that these parents not the gentlelady from the district of columbia should have the ability to decide and if the district of columbia doesn't want this then i bet these scholarships will go unapplied for right every one of these scholarships will sit there with no parent who raises their hand and says give my child an opportunity if these are the wrong things to do if the district of columbia believes these are the wrong things to do they will not be spent but they will be and they will be because there are parents every day who come home and meet with their kids when their kids come home and say i wish i could give you a better opportunity i wish i could get you a better education i wish you could reach the full potential that you can have the achievement results of these young people that are in whether they are in d c public schools or whether they are in a charter school or in a private school and if the  to the last gentleman that spoke on the republican side we are not in total disagreement but one of the things that is very interesting is that while this program is very important for these children the question becomes what happens when they get ready to go to college and guess what a trio program that helps kids get into college like the ones sitting in front of you twenty five million dollars cut by the republicans pell grants eight hundred dollars less for the maximum that these same children will be able to get that is right eight hundred dollars eight hundred dollars a year that could pay for books that could pay for food that could help pay for tuition eight times four the four years an average kid is in school now they say it is five but four for my kids is three thousand two hundred dollars that is a lot of money slashed gear program slashed head start and i keep going back to head start because head start is so very very important because so many kids come to school unfortunately not ready to learn so we want to make sure that these kids have an opportunity to get to where these young people are one of the teachers in my district often says by the time a child gets to the third grade they should have learned to read and then after the third grade they read to learn she goes on to say that if a child does not learn to read by the end of the third grade they some consistency here if you care about every one of these beautiful awesome children who would grow up to be president of the united states the ones that you are looking at it might be helpful to take a look at programs like the certainly appreciate the perspectives of all on this issue and i think we all share the same goal which is helping children i think the one difference is for those who are supporting legislation and those who are opposing is whether we are going to be focused on helping every child or some children so i don't support the legislation that we are moving forward here today and it is because i think as a congress we are shirking our responsibility because as is stated in the background material in the bill congress has this authority over the district of columbia and our responsibility is to make sure each and every child gets a good education not select ones and i would contend that those who would get a scholarship and leave may get a better education they may get to a school that provides them with better opportunity and i respect that but my concern is what did we do to help the overwhelming number of children that are left behind and it is not about money i am not focused on money it is about what we took out of those public schools because schools are not teachers and principals they are teachers and principals and students and parents and concerned taxpayers they are citizens of the community when you take a child out of a public school because they got a scholarship that child and that family clearly cares about the education of their children those are the type of families we need in those public schools to make them better and when you take that child out that mom on a mission which i think is great you take out the of parents we want in there helping to fix the schools to be part of that partnership so i would contend we worsen the school that is left behind the kids that are left behind so we may help some but i think we harm even more  minute so i think that as a congress we need to decide if we really decide that we want to be in charge of the public school system of d c or any public school in the country because we are funding them all  not just d c then we need to be serious about that and it is not just throwing some money at a small group to say you know what we give up on fixing the whole system we give up on helping each and every child and instead we are going to help those who can get out who have a parent who is engaged involved to get a scholarship and to get out we are going to help you and we are giving up on the rest i think our focus should be on fixing it for all and  because of the issue of local control i am not sure that the role of congress because as was well stated by a number of people is congress going to go in and tell every individual school district what they should or shouldn't do we have always respected that is grants to for example free clinics and other health outreach organizations and homeless shelters but doesn't provide all of them wouldn't that be another example where the federal government picks some not all provides very often to private groups like saint vincent de paul in my home of san diego and yet it doesn't do all but it doesn't destroy hospitals simply because we help some clinics with federal money does it mister platts i would distinguish the analogy to a health turner talked about having access to an education that would allow them to advance themselves and this scholarship program i am not arguing that it may help some get a better education what i am arguing is that we need to care about every child and i think we this earlier first an empowerment model is one that puts the money in the control of the family straps the money to the back of that child and they decide that is a model that applies equally to every single kid second i would make this point and i think this is important and i would ask the gentleman a question and for those who oppose this to think about it how bad does it have to get before you let some escape i mean in cleveland for example there is a thirty two percent graduation rate does it have to be a fifteen percent graduation rate do we have to wait until not one single kid graduates from a public school until we let some go to