I

IMPROVING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT 

WITH FREEDOM AND ACCOUNTABILITY 

HEARING

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND 

THE WORKFORCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, MARCH 2, 2001 

Serial No. 107-4 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education 

and the Workforce
ii

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin GEORGE MILLER, California 

MARGE ROUKEMA, New Jersey DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan 

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

HOWARD P. “BUCK” McKEON, California PATSY MINK, Hawaii 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas TIM ROEMER, Indiana 

JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania ROBERT C. “BOBBY” SCOTT, Virginia 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan 

CHARLIE W. NORWOOD, JR., Georgia RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas 

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York 

FRED UPTON, Michigan JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee RON KIND, Wisconsin 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio 

JIM DeMINT, South Carolina DAVID WU, Oregon 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HILDA A. SOLIS, California 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania SUSAN DAVIS, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

Paula Nowakowski, Chief of Staff 

John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 
iii

Table of Contents 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES . 2 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JUDY BIGGERT, 13TH

DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ........................... 3 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MILKIE, PRINCIPAL, NOBLE STREET CHARTER 

HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS ...................................................................... 4 

STATEMENT OF VIOLA M. COLLINS-BROWN, PARENT, CHICAGO 

INTERNATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS ............................ 6 

STATEMENT OF JAMES MURPHY, MANAGING PARTNER, OPTION 

FUNDING GROUP, PRESIDENT, CHICAGO CHARTER SCHOOL 

FOUNDATION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS ....................................................................... 8 

STATEMENT OF PAUL VALLAS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CHICAGO 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.............................................................. 19 

STATEMENT OF GLENN W. McGEE, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF 

EDUCATION, ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, SPRINGFIELD, 

ILLINOIS...................................................................................................................... 26

APPENDIX A - WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN 

BOEHNER, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ............................................................................. 37 

APPENDIX B - WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE 

JUDY BIGGERT, 13TH DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES.................................................................................................. 43 

APPENDIX C - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MILKIE, PRINCIPAL, 

NOBLE STREET CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS................... 47 

APPENDIX D - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF VIOLA M. COLLINS-BROWN, 

PARENT, CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL, CHICAGO, 

ILLINOIS...................................................................................................................... 57

APPENDIX E – WRITTEN STATEMENT OF JAMES MURPHY, MANAGING 

PARTNER, OPTION FUNDING GROUP, PRESIDENT, CHICAGO CHARTER 

SCHOOL FOUNDATION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS .................................................... 63 

APPENDIX F – WRITTEN STATEMENT OF PAUL VALLAS, CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 71
iv

APPENDIX G – WRITTEN STATEMENT OF GLENN W. McGEE, STATE 

SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF 

EDUCATION, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS................................................................. 79 

Table of Indexes............................................................................................................ 90
1

HEARING ON “IMPROVING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT WITH FREEDOM 

AND ACCOUNTABILITY” 

____________________

Friday, March 2, 2001 

U. S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Washington, D.C. 

 The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., at the Chicago International 

Charter School, Bucktown Campus, 2235 North Hamilton Street, Chicago, Illinois, Hon. 

John A. Boehner [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

 Present: Representatives Boehner, Biggert and Platts. 

 Staff Present: Cindy Herrle, Counsel; and Michael Reynard, Deputy Press 

Secretary.

Ms. Williams. Good morning, and welcome to Chicago International Charter School, 

Bucktown Campus. My name is Andrea Williams, President of the Student Council. We 

are proud to have you here to experience what a charter school really is. 

 There are many reasons why our school is so successful. One of the reasons is 

that this school is a safe place. The strict discipline motivates students to work hard. 

Here there is great ethnic diversity. Students can participate in classes like Art, Music, 

Library, Computers and Physical Education, and we also have many extracurricular 

activities like Newspaper, Swim Team, Actors' and Writers' Club, Movie Club, Student 

Council, Basketball and Chess. 

 We hope this experience will help you understand charter schools better. I hope 

you enjoy your day, and we are honored to be hosting this hearing. Thank you again for 

visiting our school. 
2

Chairman Boehner. Thank you. We're glad to be here. A quorum being present, the 

Committee on Education and the Workforce will come to order. 

 The opening statements are limited to the ranking member and the chairman, and 

if other members have opening statements we'd like to put them in the record. With that, 

I ask the members' consent that the hearing record remain open for 14 days to allow 

members' statements, for members' reading this material, and to allow for 

recommendations made through this hearing to be submitted for the official record. 

 Without objection, so ordered. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

 Ladies and Gentleman, good morning. I'm John Boehner, Chairman of the U.S. 

House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce. I'd like to thank 

all of you for being here this morning. 

 I want to particularly thank Congresswoman Judy Biggert, who is from here in 

Illinois, and her staff for helping us put this hearing together. Of course, I want to thank 

my colleague Todd Platts from the State of Pennsylvania, another member of the 

committee, as well as Mrs. Biggert, for being here with us today. 

 I want to thank everyone associated with the Chicago International Charter 

School, and certainly the Bucktown Campus for your hospitality and all that you've done 

to make us feel welcome and to bring this hearing about. You've been great hosts. 

 This is the third in a series of education reform field hearings our committee has 

held over the past several weeks. We've been traveling the country in an effort to hear 

firsthand from parents, teachers, school administrators, and the many others who are 

implementing the state and local reforms that are improving academic achievement. 

 These hearings will help lay the foundation for legislative action later this spring 

on our major K - 12 federal education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

Just a few weeks ago President Bush announced his education reform plan, a plan with 

academic accountability as its centerpiece and a plan that ensures that no child is left 

behind. Today we're going to hear how freedom and accountability can improve 

education for all children. 

 We are particularly interested to learn about successful reforms from State 

Superintendent McGee and Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago city schools Mr. 

Vallas. We would like to hear what they've been doing here and how flexibility and 

accountability has played a role in the reforms they have helped to implement. We will 

also hear from several representatives of charter schools, which are just another example 

of providing freedom and accountability to improve education. 

 In short, we want to learn from you and make sure that any federal education 

reform effort complements what you’re doing. We want to be partners in the effort to 
3

provide the best education possible for our children. There's a growing consensus about 

what works in education, and there's a willingness to come together to do what is right for 

all of our children. We want to work with you to make sure that that happens. With that 

I'd like to turn to my colleague on the committee, my colleague in Congress from the 

great State of Illinois Mrs. Judy Biggert, to introduce our distinguished panel of guests 

today.

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, 

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

REPRESENTATIVES – SEE APPENDIX A 

OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JUDY BIGGERT, 

13TH DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES

Mrs. Biggert. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to all of you. I 

want to welcome you and Mr. Platts to Chicago. I hope that you've been here long 

enough to find out why Frank Sinatra calls this "my kind of town," and I also want to 

extend my thanks to the Chicago International Charter School for hosting today's hearing. 

I think we've had an excellent tour of the facilities today and we're happy to visit with so 

many of the great students here. 

 Let me just thank you, Mr. Chairman, for accepting the invitation to hold a 

hearing on education reform in the Chicago area. With all due respect to my colleagues 

from Ohio and Pennsylvania, I would be remiss if I did not point out that in education, as 

in so many other areas, Illinois leads the nation, I think, in innovative programs and 

creative solutions. Therefore, I'm really happy that you're here. 

 With that, I would like to introduce the witnesses. We see two empty chairs here, 

so Mr. Vallas and Mr. McGee are not here yet. I'll just introduce Mr. Vallas. He should 

be here shortly. 

Mr. Vallas is the Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools, and I'm happy to 

introduce a man who knows firsthand what works and doesn't work. He's been really the 

architect of Chicago school reform, having been appointed by Mayor Daley in 1995 to 

orchestrate Chicago school reform. I think that it's been really amazing to see what is 

happening in the Chicago schools. 

 He served before that for five years as Budget Director and Director of Revenue 

for the City of Chicago. In addition, he's served as the Executive Director of the Illinois 

Economic and Fiscal Commission. However, he's been a passionate and devoted 

advocate for public education and Chicago Public Schools. Under his watch, Chicago 

schools have implemented a number of successful education reforms, and today he is 

going to give us an overview of those reforms. 

 I think we'll wait to see if Dr. McGee arrives, and then give his bio, but next is 

Mr. Michael Milkie, and he's the founder and principal of the Noble Street High School 

in Chicago. 
4

 Opened in 1999, the Noble Street Charter High School currently serves 9th and 

10th grade students and focuses on two of the most essential tools in life, reading and 

math. It also emphasizes community service and physical fitness, and it's really nice to 

be able to see what's happening in charter schools. Before I was in Congress, I served on 

the Illinois legislature, and it was at that time that we put into law the concept of charter 

schools, Chicago school reform and education reform throughout the state. So welcome 

Mr. Milkie. 

 We'll also hear from Mr. James Murphy. Mr. Murphy is founder of the Chicago 

International Charter School Foundation, which oversees the charter portion of the 

Chicago International Charter Schools. Actually, we're in one of them right now. He is 

also president of the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation, which provides academic 

scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools. 

 We also have with us Ms. Viola Collins-Brown, who is the mother of a child 

attending the Chicago International Charter School. She currently works for BBC 

Financial here in Chicago and holds a BA in Marketing and Finance from Roosevelt 

University. I know she really wants to see that her child receives the best education 

possible, so we welcome our witnesses here. 

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JUDY BIGGERT, 13TH

DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES – SEE APPENDIX 

B

Chairman Boehner. Mrs. Biggert, thank you for the introductions. With that, let me 

remind the witnesses that your full written testimony will be included in the record. 

Under committee rules, you have five minutes to present your case. After the entire 

panel has given their statements, we'll be asking questions. 

 With that, Mr. Milkie, you may begin. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MILKIE, PRINCIPAL, NOBLE STREET 

CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

Mr. Milkie. Thank you, Chairman Boehner and members of the committee for inviting 

me to speak here today. I am the founder and principal of the Noble Street Charter High 

School, which is not too far from here. I want to talk about two things today. First, I 

want to talk a little bit about our school. Secondly, I want to share why I think charter 

schools do make better public schools. 

 First of all, my wife and myself founded the school. We were both Chicago 

Public School teachers. My wife taught history on the South Side and I taught math on 

the West Side. We thought, having worked in high schools, that they could be run better.

So we decided that since talk is cheap, we would put our money where our mouth was. 

Therefore, when Representative Biggert and the rest of the Illinois legislature passed the 

charter legislation in 1996 we said, “Let's apply for a charter.” 

 Chicago is the school district that chartered us, and in fact, we were turned down 

the first time. They said to go back and make some important changes, and one of the 
5

things we did was to join forces with the Northwestern Settlement House. It is a 

community center here in Chicago that has served neighbors in our community for over 

100 years. With them holding the charter, we were approved and our school was born. 

 Now, a good question is how are we different than other public schools. Well, the 

two things that the panel wants to hear about, I think, are freedom and accountability. I 

believe accountability is the most important part. 

 We're accountable to two important groups. The first is the taxpayers, through the 

school district, who decide if we're doing a good job. Secondly, we're accountable to the 

parents of the students who attend our schools. 

 We signed an accountability agreement with our Board, which I think is a very 

good one. We knew that they wanted us to make sure our students could read well and 

do math well. So that was one focus we were going to take. Then we asked, “What do 

the parents want for their children?” Overwhelmingly the response from parents in our 

neighborhood was, "We want a school where our kids will feel safe," and where they feel 

they'll be safe. So we went out and decided to create a school in that way. 

 What we did was use the freedoms of charter schools to do that, and what 

freedoms are those? I think the freedoms that we have are freedom over curriculum, 

budget and staff. Those three things have created a safe school that will prepare kids well 

for college by having them read and write well. 

 The ways that we did it were by first of all deciding that to make the school safe, 

we needed smaller class sizes and more adults. We wanted more teachers in front of the 

students. Now, we have the same budget, in fact, a little bit less than other public 

schools. So we had to figure out a way to do that, and we said, “Maybe we don't need 

guidance counselors.” If we can do that through technology and through other 

efficiencies we can have more teachers in front of those kids, smaller class sizes, and 

that's something we wouldn't have been able to do if we weren't a charter school. 

 Another thing we did to keep the school safe that any school can do is to create a 

dress code, and you see the kids dressed nicely here. Ours are very similar, and we knew 

that's what parents wanted and we knew we had to make those parents happy. They 

wanted a dress code, so we gave them a dress code. 

 We also used curricular freedom to create single sex advisories, which meet each 

day and talk explicitly about behaving in a proper and safe way. That is something that 

as a charter school allowed us to play with the curriculum to answer the needs of the 

parents, the needs of the students, and to create a safe school. 

 The other thing we needed to make sure of is that they could read, do math and 

write. So they take three classes related to literature and reading in their freshman year 

and every year after they take two. Then they take two math classes every year starting 

their sophomore year. Again, we look to whom we're accountable to. We are 

accountable to our Board. They want math and reading. The parents want that too, and I 

think that's what drives our school. 

 Now, is that working? Well, you should ask those two groups. The first group, 

the Board, they say so, and I think even more importantly, the parents say so too. We 
6

know because we had a lottery last night and there were hundreds more students that 

wanted to come to our school than we had spaces for, and we have a long waiting list 

now. In fact, we're sad that some of the students here at Chicago International didn't get 

in.

 Some did, though, and we'd love to take them all. However, we have a lottery 

that is open to everybody. Everybody must be treated equally, and I think that's one of 

the fairness’s of the charter schools here in Chicago. They require a public lottery to 

make sure that fairness happens, that everyone possibly can attend. 

 I've listed in my written testimony different things that Congress can do to support 

charter schools. Basically, they revolve around supporting the agencies that help charter 

schools as well as providing capital dollars for us. My conclusion is that the parents want 

this. We're ready to be accountable. Give us that challenge. 

 Thank you very much. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MILKIE, PRINCIPAL, NOBLE STREET 

CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – SEE APPENDIX C 

Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Milkie. Although I know you'd all like to, there's 

no need to applaud. Under committee rules, we ask that you hold your applause. We do 

have to abide by the rules of our committee, and we appreciate your cooperation. 

Ms. Collins-Brown, you may begin. 

STATEMENT OF VIOLA M. COLLINS-BROWN, PARENT, 

CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL, CHICAGO, 

ILLINOIS

Ms. Collins-Brown. Thank you very much. My name is Viola Collins-Brown, and I 

have a son named Jordan in the second grade here at Chicago International Charter 

School.

 Before I begin my presentation, it came to my mind this morning that it takes a 

village to raise a child. Here at Chicago International Charter School, Bucktown 

Campus, with this phenomenal administration, amazing and tenacious staff, outstanding 

parental support, this area, this community has incorporated this village. What a blessing 

it is to have my child be a part of this amazing establishment. 

 The Education and Workforce Committee's mission statement embraces dual 

focuses as follows: Empowering parents and teachers to provide our students with the 

best education possible and giving American workers access to the tools and protections 

that they need to meet the challenges and opportunities of the new economy. 

 How does CICS encompass this mission? On a scale of 1 to 10, I will give them a 

12. They have highly embraced and acted according to the challenges presented to them 

through this mission statement. CICS's total focus is to effectively utilize each and every 

minute given to enhance character and promote education to every student on campus. 
7

The enthusiasm flows from the total organizational structure, a snowball effect that not 

only hits each staff member but the students and parents as well. 

 Normally it can be said that nothing is 100 percent. This is not a factor for the 

administration and faculty and parents, I might add, of CICS. They are 100 percent plus.

Strategic planning and implementation is always progressive. 

 My child is totally excited about being a participant. We had some hesitation 

about putting Jordan in a school with a large population because discipline could be a 

factor, and children can be quite cruel to special needs children such as my own. 

 Jordan has pan-hypopituitarism, meaning his pituitary glands did not develop and 

most of his organs function through medical manipulation. Jordan has defeated many 

odds and to date does not have a learning deficiency and looks quite like a healthy little 

boy.

 I make sure that Jordan gets the medicine and care provided by Children's 

Memorial Hospital and all that is necessary to keep him healthy and keep him whole; 

care that I could not find the right caregiver to provide. Therefore, further adjustments in 

our lifestyle had to be made. Jordan was spending far too much time in the hospital. 

 Being a single parent and sole provider for Jordan's care brought about the 

changes in the scope of how I could provide for him a quality education that also 

emphasizes the character and esteem of the child without paying a fee for which I could 

no longer budget. 

 CICS was recommended to me by one of his educators, one that I highly respect.

She was totally enthused that she was a part of this amazing workforce. With reluctance 

I applied, and he was accepted. 

 All hesitation went out the window the day I met the director, Dr. Joseph Nurek. 

His energy, his views, and love of what he does exuded all over the place. Jordan's 

teacher, Ms. Karen Hooper, was the most wonderful ever, but the affirmation was Jordan. 

He has been so excited about education from day one and doesn't miss private school at 

all.

 At the open house where you get to view the entire staff and administration, meet 

parents, the energy, the love of the game, the excitement, just bounces off the wall. I did 

have some reservations regarding staff because they are so very young here at CICS, and 

based on past experience with some educators, many lack character and people skills. 

Some even demand respect because of their position, not yet knowing how to give it. 

 This definitely does not apply to the personnel of CICS. Everyone is tightly knit.

Truly a perfect fit. Phenomenal. They've embraced a major challenge, and they are 

committed to and are making this challenge work extraordinarily. The same enthusiasm 

displayed when CICS was recommended to me has shown through every personnel, 

parent, and most of all the students I have encountered. 

 The day begins with a Parent Patrol and the team leaders greeting the students as 

they come into school each morning. Some of the eighth grade Patrol even greet the 

parents in the morning and bid them a great day. The greeting has made my morning 
8

many times. 

 Somehow this organization has figured out that quality education is a must, and 

building character and self-esteem of our children is essential. A parent can't ask for 

anything more. Well, maybe smaller classroom size. 

 The curriculum here is powerful, disciplined and congruent. The administration 

embraces diversity, ethnicity. Even their problem children are not overlooked. They're 

always tirelessly trying to create ways to reach and educate them also, and like all 

schools, they take these challenges as a great responsibility. 

 They've brought in select parents, such as myself, to assist. Therefore, 70 percent 

of their day will not be focused on discipline but educating the minds of each individual 

that comes through their doors; hopefully igniting the thrill of more of that good stuff that 

they have to offer. 

 Thank you very much. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF VIOLA M. COLLINS-BROWN, PARENT, CHICAGO 

INTERNATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – SEE APPENDIX D 

Chairman Boehner. Ms. Collins-Brown, thank you for your testimony. Sounds like 

you're a happy parent. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Murphy, you may begin. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES MURPHY, MANAGING PARTNER, 

OPTION FUNDING GROUP, PRESIDENT, CHICAGO CHARTER 

SCHOOL FOUNDATION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

Mr. Murphy. Thank you. Good morning, and I want to welcome you to the Chicago 

International Charter School, Bucktown Campus. This campus is one of four campuses 

that the Chicago Charter School Foundations oversees through a unique agreement with 

the Chicago Board of Education. 

 I appreciate the opportunity to host the Committee on Education and the 

Workforce here today, but before sharing my thoughts on education, freedom and 

accountability, I want to give you a brief primer on my background in education reform. 

 In 1989, my brother and I began giving a handful of promising but needy 8th 

grade students scholarships to attend private high schools in Chicago. Soon after that, we 

created the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation in my father's memory. It is an 

organization put together to administer the scholarship program. 

 Over the last decade, the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation has steadily 

grown by expanding a network of donors and building a stable of prominent private 

schools. Today we have 500 scholars attending nearly 60 private schools in Chicago and 

boarding schools across the country, with the support annually of around $5 million in 
9

private contributions. 

 The Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation is a great success story, but it's not 

the primary reason I'm speaking today. Several years ago, the Board of the Daniel 

Murphy Scholarship Foundation became aware of just how many young men and women 

we had to pass over each year because of lack of funds. For every scholar that we were 

supporting, another 10 or 12 promising applicants had to be turned away. In the late 

1990's I began searching for a broader, more systematic way to find help for the 

thousands of kids who deserve quality education. 

 In 1997, at my direction, the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation submitted an 

application to Chicago Board of Education to oversee a multi-site campus charter school. 

After our charter was approved, we created the Chicago Charter School Foundation, a 

independent 501(c)(3) organization charged with assembling the resources and expertise 

to successfully operate a charter school. In the fall of 1997, Chicago Charter School 

Foundation opened two campuses that served approximately 1,400 students. 

 Today, Chicago Charter School Foundation is the largest charter holder in Illinois, 

and one of the largest in the entire country, with four campuses that serve 2,450 students 

in grades K through 12. Approximately 74 percent of our students participate in the 

Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program. Over 70 percent of our student population is 

African American, and of the 20 percent that is Hispanic, most live in Spanish speaking 

homes. 

 To bring the best programs and leadership to our campuses, we contract with 

education management organizations to deliver instruction at our sites. Currently, we 

contract with American Quality Schools, a Chicago-based nonprofit firm led by Michael 

Bakalis, a professor at the Kellogg Business School at Northwestern University and past 

Illinois State Superintendent of Education. 

 We also contract with Edison Schools, a public company that manages 113 

schools in 21 states and the District of Columbia serving a total enrollment of 57,000 

students. In the future, we may contract with other management organizations. 

 Now that I've given you some background, I want to address the key issues of this 

hearing, freedom and accountability. If you walk away from this testimony with nothing 

else, I hope you remember one central theme from my presentation. Keep it simple. 

Streamline the federal government's role in education. Eliminate regulations, especially 

in the area of special education. This message underlies all of my remarks today. 

 To illuminate this theme, let me start with the issue of Freedom. As I prepared 

this testimony, I debated talking about the freedoms that the Chicago Charter School 

Foundation enjoys. Under the leadership of Paul Vallas, Gery Chico and Mayor Richard 

Daley, Chicago Public Schools has embraced the charter school system. That is enabling 

us to introduce new choices to the public school system at a broad level. These people 

were not afraid of competition. They have brought it in. 

 In our agreement with the Board of Education, we were given a number of critical 

freedoms such as hiring and firing our own staff, determining our own curriculum, 

delivering our own special ed services and maintaining our own uniform and discipline 

policies. These freedoms are imperative to the success of our charter schools, but rather 
10

than limit my testimony to charter schools I want to address freedom on a more basic 

level - freedom of American families. 

 When my father, Daniel Murphy, sent my brothers and me to Loyola Academy, 

he was a hard working man but he also was in a blue collar profession with little upward 

mobility. As a result, paying our tuition at Loyola took sacrifice and commitment. 

Looking back on those years now, I'm not quite sure how my parents did it, but the sound 

judgments that they made were what enabled my brothers and I to go to college and 

become successful in business and civic leadership. 

 Looking back now, I know my parents' freedom as American citizens is what 

enabled them to make the right choices about my education. Without the ability to 

choose, my parents would not have had the commitment or perseverance required to 

obtain a bright future for their children. Freedom, then, is fundamental to the pursuit of 

happiness that the Constitution guarantees. However, too often our public education 

system has taken freedoms away from parents out of fear they won't exercise smart 

choices.

 Through the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation, we are using high school 

scholarships not to limit people's freedom but to help them make good choices. The 

families we give scholarships to don't have the means to send their kids to private schools 

without help, but they do have the same drive and commitment my family had. 

 Before each family is considered for a scholarship, we expect them to learn about 

the program, assemble and submit an application and come in for an interview. The 

Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation may then pay most of the tuition, but our families 

are expected to contribute to their children's education. 

 Beyond scholarships, the importance of freedom applies to charter schools but in 

a more complex way. To make sense of this complexity, I need to explain the 

accountability system that oversees the Chicago Charter School Foundation's activities. 

We operate a three-pronged system of accountability - and I see the red light. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Murphy, you may continue. 

Mr. Murphy. Thank you. We have an agreement with the Board of Education that 

holds us accountable for academic, financial and operational performance. If Chicago 

International Charter School isn't performing at or above the Board's standards, our 

charter is not renewed. 

 Second, CCFS contracts with education management organizations to manage our 

campuses. To ensure that Edison Schools and American Quality Schools are offering our 

students the highest quality education, we have negotiated detailed contracts that hold 

each partner accountable for high standards of performance. To ensure that our standards 

are met, we constantly are monitoring the activities on campuses and within 

organizations.

 Third, CCFS and its management partners are accountable to the families on our 

campuses. If the families are not happy with our performance, they will pull their 

children out of school and our per pupil funding will leave with them. Right now, these 

three levels of accountability are necessary to ensure that we are fulfilling our mission of 
11

providing a rigorous college-preparatory education to every student. 

 However, as charter schools and other choice initiatives expand, market forces are 

beginning to work within K - 12 education. Families are realizing they have freedom to 

make real decisions about how to obtain the best education. Parents are becoming more 

informed, demanding consumers. Children are learning to advocate for school choice. 

 Schools are learning they have to incorporate innovation and variety to compete 

with each other. Finally, school management organizations such as Edison and American 

Quality Schools are learning to use economies of scale to cut costs, bring technology into 

schools and fuel research and development. 

 As market forces expand in public education, parents will take an increasingly 

active role in holding schools accountable for their performance. As consumerism rises, 

the government will be able to reduce its role in accountability, but these changes won't 

happen overnight. America must be patient and let education in the marketplace elevate 

performance in school, both public and private. 

 As you debate the best way to improve education, please make your primary goal 

to encourage development of a market-based system. Help all schools compete on a level 

playing field by correcting funding disparities. Be aware that for charter schools to be 

successful, we need funding for program start-up, facility development and real estate 

acquisition.

 We cannot be successful with 70 or 80 percent of the funds that traditional public 

schools receive. For example, I believe the federal government can help charter schools 

by using a tax credit program similar to the program used for senior housing construction 

as a model for supporting facility development. 

 As I close, I want to echo the theme I began this testimony with. Keep it simple. 

Charter schools have been relieved of many state regulations, but we aren't exempt from 

federal ones. Rather than increase legislation that restricts us, free us up to be flexible and 

innovative.

 As you set your agenda, stay focused on maximizing the freedoms of schools and 

the choices of families. In the longer term, look to the family to be the key decision 

maker in the education market. Have faith in the caregivers' abilities to make good 

choices for their children. 

 Every time I visit one of our campuses or interview a scholarship candidate, I 

realize how hard people work when pursuing a choice they have made of their own free 

will. If we continue to trust one another, we will all enjoy the freedom and liberty that 

has made this a great nation. 

 Thank you for your time. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF JAMES MURPHY, MANAGING PARTNER, OPTION 

FUNDING GROUP, PRESIDENT, CHICAGO CHARTER SCHOOL FOUNDATION, 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – SEE APPENDIX E
12

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Murphy, thank you for your testimony. I failed to welcome 

our other guests that are sitting throughout the audience and in the back. They are some 

of the students here at the school. We want to welcome you. We're glad that you can see 

how your Congress works. 

 I think we will proceed with the three witnesses that we have. Mr. Vallas is here, 

and we expect Dr. McGee soon. Therefore, we'll just have a second panel and focus our 

attention in that way. 

Mr. Milkie, you talked about the issues we want to talk about, freedom and 

accountability. However, I want to know why you think your school is successful. Well, 

let me back up. 

 Do you have test scores and accountability standards that show your students are 

improving? 

Mr. Milkie. Yes, the nice thing about our accountability agreement with Chicago Public 

Schools is that it measures growth. It not only looks at raw test scores but it measures 

growth.

 Based on that, last year our students grew approximately three years in math, 

which is really a great number. In addition, they grew a little more than one year in 

reading, which is a little better than expected. But our biggest thing test score-wise is that 

we only had 12 percent of our kids in reading and math in the lowest quartile. So the kids 

that needed the most help got it, and I think that's the most important thing. 

 The second part of the accountability is with the parents. Just as Jim Murphy 

alluded to, we are also accountable to them. We had hundreds of people last night in our 

lottery screaming that they got in or screaming because they didn't get in. It just showed 

that the demand is there for the type of schooling that we are providing, which is a lot 

like this school here, really based on discipline and the basic skills of reading and math. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Milkie, can you identify for us what you think the keys to 

success are in your school, especially as they relate to your typical public high school in a 

similar neighborhood? 

Mr. Milkie. I think, you know, part of the key is the school I came from. I came from a 

school that was in the same neighborhood, and I think the biggest difference is the 

discipline. We have a school that's safe, not just safe from gangs but safe from 

distractions to learning. 

 Teachers are spending way too much time with kids who are not following the 

rules, so we provide structure and rules so there is not a problem with discipline. We 

look at positive behaviors both in terms of discipline and in terms of academics, and 

because it's a safe and happy place the kids are able to learn. 

 The second big thing is the teachers. We know that one of the most important 

keys to the success of our school is that we're given freedom in terms of hiring our 

teachers. That allows us to get teachers not only who agree to our mission but also who 

are going to stay there until 6:00 or 7:00 at night, if that's the story, and can be told to do 

that. That's what we ask and they know that will come up. Therefore, the teachers and 
13

the discipline would be the short answer. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Murphy, you operate four schools. Are they all elementary 

schools? 

Mr. Murphy. No, they're not. One is K - 12. 

Chairman Boehner. But the other three would be elementary? 

Mr. Murphy. Yes, they are. 

Chairman Boehner. I might just add that I have 11 brothers and sisters. My dad owned 

a bar, and somehow they decided to send us to parochial schools. There's no way in the 

world they could afford to do that. My wife and I have two daughters, we learned. 

Chairman Boehner. We made the choice to send our children to public schools. 

Obviously one of the reasons for your success, for my success and a lot of people that are 

here is that our parents took an active role in ensuring that we got a good education. 

 When you look at some of the core problems that we have in our society, you 

have some parents who aren't there, some parents who don't care, and if every parent in 

America were like ours we probably wouldn't be here today. I don't think we'd have all 

the problems that we're dealing with and, I presume, that you're dealing with in your 

schools.

 How much difference do you see between the children whose parents are actively 

engaged and those whose parents you just don’t see. Or do you end up with those 

children in your school? 

Mr. Murphy. First of all, I don't think you build a system around expecting parents not 

to be there, okay? You build a system around expecting that they're going to participate.

I think you’ll find that the vast majority does. The ones that don't, it's kind of like they're 

going to school too because we figured out ways to kind of make them have to 

participate. We make it a friendly place for them to be, and I think they learn. 

 On our South Side campus, we gave away free computers to all of our families so 

that they could hook up Internet-wise directly with the teachers, get the daily assignment 

and find out how their sons and daughters are doing. We made the families come into the 

school and they had to take six hours of instruction on how to use it or they didn't get the 

computer. So you know, we find all the families come in and they participate. 

 I think you have to build a system that, in short, expects the parents to do 

something and to be there, and I think most times we're pleasantly surprised and pleased 

that they go way overboard to help and be supportive. 

Chairman Boehner. How do you deal with IDEA, federal law that requires schools to 

mainstream children with disabilities? How do you deal with that in this setting, any 

differently than any other public school? 
14

Mr. Murphy. Actually, I think our operators have different twists on it. I'm probably 

not the best person to answer that question. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Milkie? 

Mr. Milkie. I can, and we are able to do that. I think freedom of charter schools allows 

us to do that better. 

Chairman Boehner. It's a federal law. How can you do it better than the state? 

Mr. Milkie. Because we have more freedom in staffing, so that we're able to - 

Chairman Boehner. What do you mean by freedom in staffing? 

Mr. Milkie. We don't have to have, based on the number of students, a certain number 

of teachers, a certain number of guidance counselors, or a certain number of subject 

areas.

Chairman Boehner. In Illinois, where do those rules come from? 

Mr. Milkie. Those rules come from, usually, the district and through an agreement with 

the union. Those are things that we're exempted from, so we can make better decisions in 

terms of hiring that would allow, I believe, our special education students to be served 

better. 

 The way that happens that we're able to mainstream them is first of all, our special 

education teachers work longer hours - that's an expectation - not than other teachers in 

our school but than most other special education teachers at other public schools. They're 

required to do that. 

 We're going to have more flexibility in terms of the way that the classes are 

taught, team teaching and so forth. I think that allows the kids to be in a classroom with 

other students, with that teacher there, and some of that can be done at other public 

schools as well. However, some are because we have freedom of staffing. 

Chairman Boehner. My colleague, Mrs. Biggert. 

Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Milkie and Mr. Murphy, as I recall, 

President Bush has pledged $150 million to help charter schools to acquire, construct or 

renovate facilities. Now, that probably doesn't go very far when you consider that's 

across the nation, but it has shown that there is support for charter schools in what's 

happening.

 I'd like to go back to your answer on how you compare to the regular public 

schools, and one issue that we haven't really talked about too much is testing. Right now 

in Illinois we have the required tests in reading and math for 3rd grade, 5th grade, 8th 

grade, and then the Prairie State exam. 

 Do you administer those tests or is that something you're exempt from? 
15

Mr. Milkie. We're not exempt from them. We administer the Prairie State. 

Mrs. Biggert. The Prairie State? 

Mr. Milkie. The Prairie State, that's the only one. The ISATS are administered through 

grammar schools. 

Mrs. Biggert. One of the concerns is that these tests are only going to compare schools.

Therefore, people are going to say “My school is not doing that well,” or “My student 

isn't doing that well.” That's going to create some real problems with them teaching to the 

test.

Mr. Milkie, is this the first year of the Prairie State? 

Mr. Milkie. Yes. 

Mrs. Biggert. Do you think there was enough time in developing that test? 

Mr. Milkie. I haven't, in fact, seen it yet. It will be first administered in April. It 

follows the state standards, I think, reasonably. But as to your other question, we're 

happy to be tested, and we know that it is going to happen. 

 Certainly there is some danger in teaching the test, and we want to try to not make 

that a focus. But we also believe that if we teach our kids to read well they will do 

reasonably well on the test. 

 I think the biggest problem with some of the testing is how the results are 

interpreted, and I think that improvements there will really help in making those tests 

more valuable. However, the second part is the parents too. 

 Again, parents know how the students are growing in these areas. It's partially 

based on tests and partially based on their own observations, but it is giving them the 

power to ask, "Is the school meeting my needs," complements that testing accountability 

really well. 

Mr. Murphy. Specifically on tests here in Illinois, I think Mr. Vallas will be better for 

answers to those questions. 

Mrs. Biggert. We'll get to him. 

Mr. Murphy. I know from firsthand experience that the tests seem to change a lot. 

They change the rules on the tests, and we are very concerned about teaching the test. I 

don't think we want to do that. We have set curriculums that are good. We know our kids 

are learning. If reading for an hour and a half in the morning is teaching towards the 

reading components of the tests, we're guilty, but that's okay. 

Mrs. Biggert. I think one thing that we're looking at, and I think we're strong proponents 

of legal control, is that we don't want the federal government to come in and say you 

must do this, you must do that, or issue those kinds of mandates. Therefore, it's kind of a 

fine line we're walking here as far as testing. 
16

 The proposal that we're looking at is to test every year starting with the 3rd grade 

rather than 3rd, 5th, 8th and Prairie State in 10th grade. 

Mr. Murphy. I think, personally, there should be tests every year. I don't think it should 

be a national test. I just don't think that would work at all, but there should be testing.

There's no reason for there not to be. 

 Technology is at a level now where we should be able to give the test on a 

Thursday and get the results on Tuesday. Instead, we give the tests in April and we get 

results in November. It's so archaic, it's hard to run a school. 

 We've told our operators that the Board wants results on a monthly basis. Give 

every kid a 30-minute exam, and we want to see results on a monthly basis not six 

months after the data was accumulated. So our operators are doing that and our Board 

feels comfortable on a monthly basis as to where we are. We know that state tests are 

coming up shortly and we feel pretty good that we're going to see some gain this year. 

Mrs. Biggert. Ms. Collins-Brown, I'm looking back here and it says “Parent Connection 

- Your Connection. Students, Parents, Teachers, Staff.” I think that's what we've always 

found, that if the whole team is working together, you're going to see great results. 

 Are the parents required to do anything as far as participation in the school? 

Ms. Collins-Brown. Yes, parents are required to help their children with homework. 

We're responsible for getting them here at school on time. We are penalized if they're 

tardy more than three times. They do take account of special needs children, who might 

have other issues, and we're responsible for the discipline of the child, and it is enforced. 

 These educators that we have here come with such energy that we as parents have 

to be focused on making our children open to get all that these educators here in this 

facility have to give, because they have so much to give to our children. So it's our 

responsibility.

 CICS makes us responsible to check their homework at night. Jordan gets 

homework. We have to sign the homework as well as check it. He gets study quizzes, 

and we're responsible to go over these things with him in the interim. 

Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Platts? 

Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to add my thanks to the Chicago 

International Charter School for hosting us and for the great welcome, especially the 

students who so openly welcomed us when we arrived and gave us our tour. I appreciate 

all three of your testimonies. I do have a number of questions. 

 First, Ms. Collins-Brown, you mentioned in your testimony the Parent Patrol, 

what is it? 

Ms. Collins-Brown. The Parent Patrol is in the morning when you have parents who 

volunteer their time to make sure that the children enter the school safely. They get the 
17

kids out of the cars. They greet the children. 

 You have team leaders on each side of the building. As the children come into 

the building, your team leaders then take over and they say good morning. They ask the 

children how they are. It's just a wonderful approach, and they groom the 8th grade 

students as such. 

 They open the car doors for the children when we're en route, trying to get past. 

They say good morning to the children. They bid us to have a great day. I mean it's such 

wonderful character building, and Parent Patrol is so essential there. 

Mr. Platts. It helps build that partnership and everyone is part of the process. 

Ms. Collins-Brown. Yes, the parents, the faculty, and the students make everything here 

just so tightly knit. It's just amazing. It's just amazing to me that, you know, this exists. 

It's just amazing. 

Mr. Platts. That active participation, and from talking to the students and finding that 

some come from as far as an hour away or have to travel a long way and parents bring 

them - 

Ms. Collins-Brown. We live 45 minutes away. 

Mr. Platts. Clearly, the participation of the parents is vital, and I commend you for your 

attention to your son Jordan and your commitment to doing right by him. 

 We had testimony earlier about the discipline issue and making sure you have 

safe schools and also greater discipline for a better learning environment. The fact that 

you have an application process shows some interest from the family to begin with. Then 

the way your schools promote active participation from parents is excellent. 

 What do you do as far as expelling a student? Of the many challenges I hear from 

teachers, the greatest thing we can do is to help them get control of their classrooms. In a 

typical public school you can expel them, but that public school still has the burden of 

paying for them to go elsewhere. What happens here or in a charter school when you 

have a discipline problem that you want to expel? 

Mr. Milkie. Well, we can't expel them ourselves. We have to recommend them for 

expulsion by the Chicago Public School District, and in fact, we have recommended 

some. However, no student has been expelled from our particular school. 

 As far as that general question, I know the Chicago Public Schools do actively 

expel. I don't know how successful they've been in finding alternative schools for those 

kids who will not behave, but I think that's important. 

 It's not fair to those students who are doing the right thing and families who are 

doing the right thing for their education to be compromised by those who don't. So to 

have a place for those students who lose the privilege to be educated with their peers is 

important, and maybe Mr. Vallas can talk to you more about what is going on there. 
18

 I know that that is moving in a positive direction and it needs to because it's only 

fair to those who want to do the right thing, plus it encourages those doing the right thing 

to continue doing it and those who don't to say “ better shape up or I'm not going to be 

with my peers.” 

Ms. Collins-Brown. Let me reiterate something. I strongly agree with Mr. Milkie, and I 

think that parents are responsible. These teachers, these educators, they do have some 

problem children, and the parents should be held accountable. There should be a place 

that we can send these children that are not responsible because as educators they have to 

have their opportunity to give anything and everything and all that they have to the 

children that are now open and ready to receive. 

 The children that are having problems and the parents who don't want to respond 

to the needs of their child; that's who needs the discipline. That is not the responsibility 

of the educator and it should no longer be dumped in the educator's lap. They have to 

spend 50 to 70 percent of their day trying to discipline one or two children that could be 

used to educate the whole class. It should no longer be their responsibility, and Mr. 

Vallas should focus very strongly on trying to have a place that these children can be 

removed and sent to get the education and attention that they need. 

Mr. Murphy. I just need to comment because our charter, being two years older than 

Mr. Milkie's, has a different discipline code. We have a different contract with CPS that 

allows us to suspend and expel, although at this school I don't believe we've ever had to 

expel anybody. 

 Having the power to expel is a wonderful motivator for kids to behave and 

become part of the school. Although we have a wonderful environment right now, I can't 

say in the first year that it ran this smoothly. Having that tool that Mr. Vallas and CPS 

has given us really helped us out. 

Mr. Platts. Mr. Chairman, with your consent I have two other questions. I have twelve, 

but I'll pick two. 

Chairman Boehner. Go ahead. 

Mr. Platts. Thank you. With regard to the proposal for federal policy on charter 

schools, here in public charter schools a lottery is held to get in. Do you think we should 

support or not support the charter schools that are private and are not required to have 

lotteries? In other words, they can pick who they want. Also, should we allow for-profit 

charter schools under federal law? 

Mr. Murphy. Well, certainly the for-profit part, clearly, the answer is yes. You've got 

to let them into the game to see if they can do it. Why would we want to not try it? What 

if the federal government had made it illegal for Federal Express to get into the mail 

business? Looking back now, it's kind of a silly decision. 

 So I think the answer is yes, but I think they need to be watched and they need to 

play by the rules that everybody else plays by. 
19

Mr. Platts. If they're for-profit, though, do they still have to have a lottery to determine 

who will attend? 

Mr. Murphy. Oh, yes. In Chicago everybody has to have a lottery. I don't know about 

across the country, but here in Chicago, we all have to have lotteries. After we do the 

lottery, then we have a waiting list, and the waiting list is filled by whoever first comes 

in, second, third, down the road. We're not selective in that way here in our schools in 

Chicago.

Mr. Milkie. And that's a tough question because that is, I think, one of the nice things. 

Politically it really helps charter schools, the fact that we are lottery-based and do not 

choose our students. I think a lot of other things would have to change before you could 

change that lottery system. 

 As to the for-profit, again, we are not run for-profit. But just as Jim said, if they 

can do it, the kids deserve a chance. If they cannot do it, they won't send kids to those 

schools.

Mr. Platts. Thanks for your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Boehner. I want to thank all three of you for your excellent testimony and 

your willingness to answer our questions. I now dismiss you and invite up to the front 

table Mr. Vallas and Dr. McGee, and we'll move to our second panel. 

Chairman Boehner. Good morning, Mr. Vallas, Dr. McGee. Mr. Vallas, I understand 

you have time constraints. 

Mr. Vallas. I work for a very demanding mayor. 

Chairman Boehner. You've already been introduced, so why don't you begin your 

testimony. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL VALLAS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 

Mr. Vallas. Thank you. First of all, welcome to Chicago. In the case of 

Congresswoman Biggert, welcome back to Chicago. 

 I'd like to very quickly talk about some of the successes we've had in Chicago and 

why we've had those successes. I'll try to be brief, and then comment specifically on the 

federal role within the context of President Bush's education proposals, which I'm very 

supportive of. Actually, I've been vocally supportive of them, and I think it's an excellent 

budget and a good starting point on the educational agenda. 

 First of all, let me present my performance credentials here. The Mayor took 

responsibility for the schools in 1995. Five years ago, only 32 percent of our children 

were reading at or above national averages. A slightly higher percentage were computing 

at or above national averages. Today at the 8th grade - we're talking about students at the 

8th grade level, getting ready to go into high school, the finished product - those numbers 
20

are now pushing 45, 46 percent. The math is actually pushing 50 percent. 

 Of equal importance, five years ago, 52 percent of all of our elementary school 

students were performing in the bottom quartile. In the last five years, that's been cut in 

half. Now, that's based on very vigorous standardized testing, the Iowa Test of Basic 

Skills. That has remained unchanged over the past five years, and it's a very tough test. 

We've likened it to the ISAT, another rigorous test that we are very supportive of. 

 During that same period, the graduation rate has gone from 35 percent to 68 

percent. When you factor in the 27,000 students who graduated last year from our 

evening schools and you make that adjustment, it's actually over 70 percent. Certainly, 

we're not satisfied with those numbers, but there is growth. 

 The number of students taking and passing AP, advanced placement, courses and 

taking the advanced placement exams has doubled just in the last two years alone. Our 

growth has been triple the national rate and double the state rate, and I think Illinois has 

the best AP numbers of any state in the nation. 

 The brain drain of top performing students has literally been cut in half in the last 

five years, so there's no longer the exodus of the type we've seen in the past. I think in 

the next few years it will decline lower than single digits. After 20 years of declining 

enrollments, we've had five years of increasing enrollments and we have overcrowding 

problems where we had never thought we would. 

 On the safety side, the number of assaults and batteries in the schools has been cut 

in half. Ten years ago, the schools confiscated 1,200 guns in the schools. This year, I 

think we've confiscated 11, and only four were actually inside the building. Half were 

brought by elementary level school children that found them at home and wanted to bring 

them in for show and tell. That drives home the point of what we've done on the safety 

side.

 Of course, all you have to do is drive through the city of Chicago to see the 

renovated schools. We've renovated 90 percent of our schools, and you'll be hard-pressed 

to find a school that has boarded up or plastic windows. By the end of this year, all of 

our high schools will be fully wired for technology in every classroom. 

 So that's been the results under the Mayor's leadership. The reason for the success 

is as follows: 

 Governance. There's no division of command here. The Mayor appoints the 

Board. The Board appoints the CEO. The Mayor has direct responsibility for the 

schools, number one, and with that it means the Mayor mobilizes all possible city 

resources in support of the schools. 

 Number two, flexibility. The legislature, the Republican controlled legislature, 

five years ago gave the Mayor power over the schools and gave the Mayor full control 

over the school's resources where we don't have many of the same restrictive mandates 

on how we spend our money the way many other school districts do. In effect, we get 

our money in two lump sums, special ed and non-special ed. On the property tax side, all 

of our mortgage tax levies were consolidated, so we have complete control over our 
21

resources.

 We also have control. We can privatize anything we want. We have full control 

over what we privatize and what we do not. Obviously, that has expanded our options. It 

took us about three weeks to close a $300 million one year budget and a $1 billion four 

year budget. We have been able to reallocate resources to relevant education programs 

with that type of flexibility and control. 

 Number three, standards. In our school system, all of our students are taught to 

very high standards that are aligned with state standards. They are also aligned with 

national standards, and we've worked closely with the State Board aligning our standards 

and developing our in-house standards based on an assessment system close to the ISAT 

system. That is why I'm supportive of that test. 

 In addition to our high academic standards, we have high disciplinary standards.

We have a zero tolerance policy. We've expelled 500 students over the past five years, 

but no one gets expelled to the street. Why don't we have protests outside our schools on 

zero tolerance? Three reasons. 

 One reason, the policy is clear. It's a 24 hour a day zero tolerance policy. If 

you're dangerous on Sunday, you'll be dangerous on Monday. Every parent every year is 

reminded of that policy because they're sent a copy of that policy every year. 

 Number two there is due process. Every case goes before a hearing officer and 

the hearing officer can make a recommendation to expel or he can recommend some sort 

of alternative disciplinary plan. About half of the students who face expulsion are 

ultimately expelled. The other half are put in intensive counseling programs. 

 And number three, no student is expelled to the street. All of our students are 

expelled to fully certified, board certified alternative schools that have full diploma 

programs. No GED, fast, mail order schools. So on the disciplinary side, our students 

are held to high standards. 

 On the accountability side, schools are closed for non-performance. Schools are 

reconstituted. We go in and we take administrative control over schools. We have 

probably heavily intervened into probably close to 35 percent of our schools with very 

strong results. 

 Everybody's held accountable for the performance of the students. Teachers can 

be worked out of the system. Schools can be closed for non-performance. There's no 

tenured principal in our school system. Principals can be removed. Everybody knows 

there's accountability, and I've commented on some of the accountability provisions on 

the student side. 

 In addition to raising standards and demanding greater accountability, we go to 

great lengths to provide support to all students. We have the largest early childhood 

expansion going on in the country. We have the largest after school program and the 

largest summer school program. Next year, for example, every student in the key 

elementary benchmark grades who is not performing at grade level will be mandated to 

attend a summer school program. There is extensive support through these programs, 
22

and the support goes beyond longer school days or a longer school year. 

 We have been innovative in our approach to giving support to at-risk students.

For example, in our Cradle to the Classroom program, we try to identify every pregnant 

teen. We then put those pregnant teens in parenting classes - including the males, if we 

can identify them or if they will be identified - and the goal is to make sure the babies are 

born healthy, put in day care, pre-school, and that the mother is kept in school. This year, 

I believe we're going to have 950 graduates who are participating in that program. In 

three years we've had 3,000 pregnant teens go through the program. We've had one 

repeat pregnancy during that time and only one dropout, who actually transferred to 

another school. Those are the types of innovative things we do to provide support. 

 School choice, we're strong advocates of school choice; however, my public 

position on vouchers has been “Not my issue.” I don't oppose vouchers. I don't support 

vouchers. I have no position on it. If the legislature proposes a voucher program, I've 

instructed my lobbyists not to lobby for nor against it. At the end of the day, any sort of 

voucher initiative is not going to solve the fundamental problems facing public education 

or facing education in general in this country. Therefore, I'm not going to try to oppose 

something that ultimately is not going to have much of an impact. 

 I have always said if you're going to have a voucher program, the schools cannot 

be selective on whose voucher they accept because every year I have 10,000 to 15,000 

students who enter my system from parochial and private institutions and other public 

institutions outside the city of Chicago. The vast majority of them are not performing at 

grade level, and they enter at all levels. 

 So clearly, if you're going to have a voucher program, you can't be selective about 

whose voucher you'll select. Also, you need to conform to some of the same 

accountability standards that the public schools are required to conform to. However, the 

Bush proposal goes far beyond simple vouchers. He's talking about expanded school 

choice, expanded charters, expanded public school choice, and when I was in 

Washington I had an opportunity to participate in his education focus group. I talked 

about school choice Chicago-style. 

 We're very supportive of our parochial and private schools. We're very 

supportive of charter schools. I have supported direct funding appropriation requests to 

the parochial and private schools. I have encouraged the Archdiocese to convert any 

financially failing school to a charter school, and I think our position on charter schools is 

well documented. 

 We have a unique relationship with our charters. I've basically told every charter 

that if they have a consistent track record of success, they will become part of our capital 

plan. They will be treated like a public school. If they have facility needs, we address 

them. If we build a multiplex, they have an opportunity to share it. 

 One of our charter schools shares the Shakespeare Historic School, which is one 

of our schools that was renovated. We actually house two charters in that school, the 

Arrow Foundation School and the University of Chicago Charter School. We also 

anticipate providing some additional help to Mr. Murphy and Mr. Bakalis so they can 

address their facility needs. 
23

 We also tell anyone who gets a charter that “If your charter is successful, you can 

open multiple schools under your existing charter.” We're also creating new charters. 

KIPP will be coming to Chicago. They're opening six schools under a single charter, so 

we believe in school choice. However, we also promote school choice within the public 

school system. 

 One of the ways that we've revitalized public education - and I'll try to accelerate 

my remarks a bit - the approach that we've taken to revitalizing our schools has not only 

been to make sure that students are being taught to state and national academic standards, 

but we've ended social promotion. Students are not promoted to the next grade level until 

they have met those standards, but our goal has also been to work extensively with 

underachieving children. That is documented by our after school programs, summer 

school programs, tutoring programs and various student support programs. 

 We are also investing a lot of money in our schools to expand what I call school 

choice programs, our AP programs, and our neighborhood based magnet programs. Our 

strategy for revitalizing high schools is not only to make sure that every student who 

enters high school is ready for high school but also to make sure that the high school 

itself, that neighborhood high school has multiple program offerings for its students. 

 Chicago is now the home of 12 magnet high schools. We are also the home of 40 

neighborhood based magnet programs. We have International Baccalaureate programs, 

military programs - not ROTC, but actual Military academy programs, business and 

finance academies, and advanced technology academies. So in all of our schools our 

thrust has been, obviously, to help children who are under achieving. It has also been to 

see all of our neighborhood schools with programs for high achievers so that none of our 

schools becomes a segregated school. 

 What can happen a lot of times is you create the tale of two cities where you have 

the magnet schools, the selective enrollment parochial stools, and then you have the 

remedial neighborhood school. So our strategy has been to make sure that all our 

schools, in effect, become multiplexes. 

 Curry High School, for example, was a high school that no one from the 

neighborhood wanted to go to. Five years later it was one of three schools to go to the 

National Academic Decathlon. They'll be competing again this year. They have an 

International Baccalaureate program. They have advanced math, science and technology 

programs. These are all magnet programs in the neighborhood school. 

 Last year I had 3,000 applicants for Curry High School. I couldn't get anybody to 

go to Curry High School five years ago. Curry is not the exception. It is becoming the 

rule, and incidentally, all of those magnet programs are open enrollment. So there's great 

mobility within the system. 

 Now I have high schools and elementary schools competing for students. When I 

opened the new magnet high school, North Side College Prep in Region 1, I told all the 

other neighborhood schools "If you want to compete with North Side College Prep, you 

can open up any number of magnet programs and put them in your neighborhood 

school." Three years later, there's not a single high school on the North Side of Chicago 

that has had a decline in test scores. 
24

 In fact, there's not a single high school that's on probation anymore on the North 

Side. Taft has an International Baccalaureate program. Mather has gone from two 

advanced placement courses to twelve. They also have a word and language academy 

program. Senn and Amundsen also have International Baccalaureate programs. 

 All these schools have open enrollment. There's movement among the schools. 

So school choice has also been an option, and we have the option to privatize education.

We literally have a network of 32 private schools that we consider to be our alternative 

schools.

 These are private schools that help us provide educational services to students 

who drop out, students who are disruptive, and that's not even mentioning the private 

special education institutions that we have contractual relationships with. So we have 

taken school choice to another level. 

 Those are some of the examples of what we've done in Chicago that I think in 

many respects are reflected in President Bush's very comprehensive education initiatives, 

and I think that's why we're so supportive. Very quickly, a number of comments on what 

I was asked to address. 

 First, on the issue of accountability, we support testing. Max and I both test the 

kids every year, desegregate the data by race and make that data public. They put the test 

scores on their web site. We put our scores on our web site. Everybody can have access.

We're probably the most examined school district in the nation, but I think children 

should all be tested at every grade level. 

 Does that mean the federal government comes out with a standard test? No. I 

think the federal government should come out with a model test for those school districts 

that don't have the resources to develop one of their own, but state and local school 

districts should require their children at every grade level to participate in a nationally 

normed test and then post those scores. 

 In our case, we use the Iowa, but who knows, in the next two or three years we 

could actually migrate to the ISAT once we have a comfort level that all the kinks have 

been worked out of the test, but certainly testing at all grade levels and having the 

accountability that goes with it is something we endorse. Nothing that the President has 

proposed in his budget on the accountability side is anything we're not already doing, and 

some would argue we're doing with a vengeance. 

 Secondly, flexibility, consolidating programs, and providing more support to 

school districts. Obviously, we're proof in the pudding that if you give schools flexibility 

but also give them more support, they can make things happen. However, you've also got 

to make sure when the money is allocated it does not get locked into things which are 

governed by work rules or contractual relationships. 

 When that money is given to the schools, the schools have to have the flexibility 

to spend it as they see fit. But they also have to have some sort of, let's call it, a fire wall 

so that they're not just taking that money and putting it into a new collective bargaining 

agreement. It's got to go to programs, programs, programs, programs that have an 

impact. 
25

 So that's critically important too. But also, if you're going to address the issue of 

giving schools more flexibility along with some more funding, you've got to address the 

issue of special education funding. Also, you've got to address the issue of Medicaid 

reimbursement. 

 When we met with the President, the first statement he made was about the need 

to provide full funding for special ed. That helps everybody, parochial schools, public 

schools, private schools, affluent schools, and less affluent schools because some school 

districts are getting killed with the burden of special education mandates. 

 The federal government funds 8 percent of the mandate. The state, which has 

been inching up under Max's leadership, has been at about half that when it comes to 

funding all the mandates that we're held accountable for. On the Medicaid 

reimbursement, Denny Hastert saved us from a Medicaid disaster when he interceded to 

prevent some of these rule changes from having a direct impact. 

 In a school district that has children with extraordinary needs, our ability to 

provide for those needs through the schools has really begun to have a significant impact. 

I need to get reimbursed for these services. When you're looking at Medicaid reform, 

please, please, do not ignore the schools. Because HCFA last year almost issued some 

regulations that some bureaucrat must have come up with on a bad weekend that would 

have decimated local funding streams. 

 What we've been able to do with our Medicaid reimbursements are phenomenal. 

Twenty percent of the kids who fail in our public schools also fail their eye exams. Half 

of those kids are not in any sort of health care program, and being able to purchase 

eyeglasses for them and to seek Medicaid reimbursements for something as simple as that 

- let me tell you, when you get your eyeglasses, you're not only a better student, you're a 

better behaved student. This is just a small example of some of the services we need. 

 On the area of school construction, which we're still awaiting eagerly to see what 

that proposal will be, President Eisenhower built the interstate highway system in the 

name of National security. I certainly think investing billions in our schools - and not 

only public schools, but any school construction program needs to be comprehensive and 

needs to include parochial and private schools. 

 You have to provide direct assistance to support parochial and private schools.

They do it at the university level. Private universities, parochial supported universities 

get school construction dollars. One of the best ways to do it is through a comprehensive 

school construction program, and there may be ways of really amending the Tax Code to 

provide the incentives there to encourage some type of investment so you don't have to 

do it through direct subsidies. 

 Those are my comments. Thank you. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF PAUL VALLAS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – SEE APPENDIX F 

Chairman Boehner. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Illinois. 
26

Mrs. Biggert. I did not introduce Dr. McGee prior to this, but I've had the pleasure of 

working with Dr. McGee not only in his capacity as State Superintendent, which he has 

held that position since January of 1999, but also when he was a Superintendent of 

Schools in Deerfield. He also was a teacher in my own school district in Darien quite a 

while ago, and we've worked together on the School Board Association. So I would like 

to welcome Dr. McGee. 

Chairman Boehner. With that, Dr. McGee, you can give us your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF GLENN W. McGEE, STATE SUPERINTENDENT 

OF EDUCATION, ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, 

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 

Mr. McGee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being tardy. We got 

some times crossed up. 

 Welcome to Illinois. Our mission in Illinois is to deliver a quality of education 

that is second to none, and we've made some progress in that regard. However, we need 

your help as well. Today I'd like to do three things. One, identify some of the problems; 

two, talk about some of our successes; and third, focus on the Congressional role. 

 As to some of the problems we have in Illinois, we have 2 million students in 900 

school districts ranging in size from 38 students in a district to 430,000 students. 37 

percent of the students are from low-income families. That's almost 800,000 students. 

We have a system of educational funding that is based primarily on the property tax. 

 We have in East St. Louis, for example, an EAV, Equalized Assessed Valuation, 

behind every pupil of $8,000. When I was superintendent in Deerfield that was 

$800,000. That's a 100-fold difference, and it has created enormous inequities in access 

and achievement. 

 The achievement gap in Illinois is intolerable. Third grade reading, 86 percent of 

our white students meet the third grade reading standards. That compares with about 47 

percent of our Hispanic students and 33 percent of our African American students. That 

has ramifications in the high schools where 60 percent of our minority students who take 

the ACT do not have access to a core curriculum, and we are going to change that in 

Illinois. That is intolerable. 

 We have had some successes. We have had success through charter schools, and 

I'm very pleased to be able to address the freedom aspect of improving students' 

achievement. We have authorization for 45 charters throughout the state. Unfortunately, 

we only have 19 charter schools in operation. I wish all 45 charters were filled. 

 We have some great success stories in Chicago. In my neighborhood in 

Springfield the Ball Charter School has state test scores that are off the charts, and there's 

a waiting list to get in the school. Up in Lake County, the Prairie Crossing Charter 

School has a curriculum based on environmental concerns, another tremendous example 

of success. 
27

 We're also giving students a freedom of choice through the Illinois Virtual High 

School. Last summer, juniors and seniors from the Effingham area said, “We want 

classes like they have up north. We want to take different foreign languages. We want 

advanced mathematics.” So under Governor Ryan's leadership, we got the Illinois 

Virtual High School. Enrollment kicked off January 1st, and now students from all over 

the state can access our virtual high school. 

 We have also had success through accountability, and that's the second part of the 

topic today. We have a web site, and with the click of a mouse you can see how any 

school in Illinois stacks up against any other school by any variable you want. We 

compare schools of similar low-income enrollments. We compare schools of similar 

mobility rates. We compare schools of similar low English proficiency students, and we 

create a dialogue among these schools and we derive school improvement plans. 

 We have seen great things happen. The AP scores in Illinois are the best in the 

nation. With 96,000 students taking ACT scores, they are above the national average and 

continuing to increase. In East St. Louis, one of our poorest performing school districts, 

we saw a 45 percent increase in student achievement last year. So we are making a 

difference.

 We are focusing on accountability, focusing on early childhood education, teacher 

quality, reading, mathematics and supporting students at risk. Behind Governor Ryan's 

leadership, those five priorities have had an impact. 

 Let me close by talking about the Congressional role and what we hope we can do 

by working with you to improve student achievement, not just in Illinois but throughout 

the country, because we want the United States of America to be second to none. I'm 

tired of reading the TIMSS results and the Glenn Commission results. I haven't quite 

committed it to memory, but I'm getting there. It is not acceptable that we performed so 

poorly in mathematics and science. 

 What can we do? We need to support our charter schools both at the state and 

federal level. They face enormous hurdles in the first four or five years. In Illinois, we 

created a funding system to divert some of the funds from the local districts to give them 

some start up grants, but it's not enough. I worry that we only have 20 out of 45 charters 

filled, 19 out of 45, because we're not supporting these critical first three or four years. 

 We need to support, I believe, a Mathematics Excellence Act similar to the 

Reading Excellence Act. We are making a difference in reading in Illinois through the 

Reading Excellence Act. We're applying that $38 million grant to early intervention 

reading programs, to tutorial programs. We're holding schools accountable for that 

money. We need to do the same things in mathematics. We need to give schools the 

money to close that achievement gap. 

 In Illinois, at the 8th grade level, 53 percent of the students do not meet state 

standards. That's because we think that they can't learn algebra in 8th grade. That's 

nonsense. They learn algebra in countries throughout the world in 8th grade. 

Unfortunately, only 20 percent of our minority students meet math standards in 8th grade. 

We have to have some federal money driven to mathematics, driven to those 

recommendations of the Glenn Commission. 
28

 Finally, I concur with Paul about the importance of Medicaid and IDEA funding. 

Speaker Hastert has been a great proponent of that. Congresswoman Biggert has been a 

great proponent of that. She clearly understands the need for a federal role in school 

funding.

 A federal mandate towards school construction, Paul touched on that; however, he 

did not touch on the importance of the reauthorization of ESEA. That is of critical 

importance. Hundreds of thousands of students throughout the country, hundreds of 

thousands of students in Illinois alone, are waiting to see what happens there. We need to 

have some serious conversation about the conduct of hold harmless and how to make 

students accountable for that money, and we'd be glad to share some details at a later 

date.

 Finally, we too support annual testing, whether it's a federal test or a state test.

We ask to work with you towards a test that is authentic, and by that we would like a test 

very similar to our ISAT test. The kids don't read little paragraphs and answer a question.

They read long passages, four and five pages. It's a real task, like a chapter from a book. 

The writing test, they write for 40 minutes to measure how they do on the writing. 

Mathematics, it's everybody's nightmare, story problems, multiple step story problems, 

but that is what it will take if we are serious about improving student achievement. 

 If we are serious about becoming second to none as a country, we need annual 

testing. We need better testing and we need to work together. 

Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Biggert, Mr. Platts, it's been a pleasure to meet you, and we will 

pledge to do whatever we can to support you in your endeavor to improve freedom and 

achievement and accountability. Thank you. 

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF GLENN W. McGEE, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF 

EDUCATION, ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, SPRINGFIELD, 

ILLINOIS – SEE APPENDIX G 

Chairman Boehner. Let me thank both of you for your testimony. You certainly have 

very involved jobs, which are really on the front line of the kind of school reform that's 

going on here and elsewhere around the country. 

 I want to really devote my questions to the federal role, the President's proposal 

and the fact that the rest of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will be 

reauthorized this year. 

 What are two things that we can do when we authorize ESEA that will help you? 

Mr. McGee. I think, first, the hold harmless is important. 

Chairman Boehner. Do you want to put a little more meat on the hold harmless? 

Mr. McGee. What I'm looking for, of course, is a hundred percent. In Illinois, we 

cannot close the achievement gap unless we drive money to the schools with the highest 

concentration of low-income students. The correlation factor is up around .8. That's one. 
29

 The second important item, I think, would be to beef up the accountability and the 

reporting. I know the schools do need to show adequate yearly progress. I think, again, 

we need to look at beefing up reporting so we focus on the students who are direct 

recipients of those funds. 

Chairman Boehner. You should know it is our intent that the states will decide what the 

standards are and what the accountability and assessment methods will be. There will be 

a norming process along the way to make sure states aren't cheating. That certainly 

wouldn't happen here in Illinois, but other states have cheated. They want the money but 

they don't really want to step up to the plate. 

Mr. Vallas, same question. 

Mr. Vallas. Same answer. I think, obviously, hold harmless. I'd like to see the funding 

increase. Let me point out that of the money we receive, well over 90 percent of it is 

used for class size reduction, after school programs, summer school, and extended and 

early childhood programs. There's a lot of flexibility now. I do not shy away from 

greater accountability, but I would agree with Max. At minimum, the hold harmless, but 

certainly considering some sort of increase. 

 If you remember Bill Bennett's proposal -when he was here, we had a committee 

hearing about a year and a half ago - he advocated an increase in funding as long as there 

was additional accountability. So I agree with Max on that. 

Chairman Boehner. What about taking all of the categorical programs, the 50 or 60 

plus that we have just in ESEA and roll those into, just to pick a number, five? 

Mr. Vallas. I think that's a great idea. The legislature took 29 categorical grant 

programs and rolled them into two for us, special ed and non-special ed, and the proof is 

in the pudding. We now have a quarter of a million students in summer school. We had 

a fraction of that amount just five years ago. That's a classic example. I think it makes a 

lot of sense. 

 What happens though, the reason people are skeptical about that - I'm certainly 

not - is because what has happened in past years is sometimes there's a tendency to say 

we're going to give you more flexibility but less money. That's always a concern. As 

long as the resources are there and not cut but increased, I think more flexibility is in 

order with the accountability that goes with it. 

Mr. McGee. I think the focus helps, frankly. That's a good idea. 

Chairman Boehner. My view over the last 10 or 15 years has been that Congress has 

proliferated the number of well-meaning, well-intentioned programs for K - 12 education. 

We've got a lot of very nice programs, but we're losing the focus of what has traditionally 

been the federal role. It has been to go in and help those students who are at the bottom 

of the economic ladder and to help give them the boost they need to compete with 

students from higher economic neighborhoods, who have more help along the way. 

Dr. McGee, I have to ask you s very difficult question, and it may be unfair but I have to 

ask. The legislature made this big decision to give Chicago freedom, freedom from all 
30

the rules and regulations, and I could use other words to describe some of what happens. 

Being from Ohio, we really do it in about the same way. Why not free other schools in 

the state? 

Mr. McGee. That is a difficult question. What's made a difference in Chicago is the 

sustained leadership of the Mayor and the school system working together. I don't know 

if it's a unique situation. I think when communities work together, we see great things 

happen. That's what happened here. Paul talks about summer school, after school.

Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in every community. It happens in some and not 

others.

 Frankly, I like the idea of giving schools more flexibility. I think it's important to 

have flexibility. I also think it's important to hold them accountable for all the money 

spent, and they are accountable. I don't think anybody gives more assessments than 

Chicago. So I think those two can go hand in hand, and that would be fine with me. 

Chairman Boehner. The reason I bring it up is that it has been pretty clear to me that if 

you see how American industry has changed over the last 20 years, where it's changed 

and succeeded the most are in those companies that move decision making out of the 

ivory tower, out of the upper levels, out of the middle levels, and drive decision making 

down as far in their organizations as they could. It's made a dramatic difference in 

America, American industry and American business. 

 It's also made us very competitive in the worldwide marketplace where 20 years 

ago we were not competitive. If you look at what's happening in Chicago, although 

there's some disagreement as to how much success, there's certainly been some success. 

From my analysis of what's happened here, where the decision making was driven back 

to the local schools, where the parents, the local boards, the principals and the teachers 

have been empowered is where you see the most sustained success. 

 We all know that it's easy to get a jump in the first year or two, but sustained 

success is difficult. It seems to me that Chicago's done a lot. I'm sure there's more that 

they'd like to do, but we've got this lock in State capitals where they don't want to let go. 

They still want to drive all the decision making, and I'm trying to understand how we can 

best motivate people to drive those decision-making levels down. 

Mr. McGee. What we're doing, in fact, that is the whole purpose behind our web site.

That was my meeting this morning, to meet with business leaders around the Chicago and 

suburban area so that they can compare how their schools are doing to any other school in 

the state. It is an effort to create not only competition but also dialogue. However, this 

information must get into the hands of the school boards, the teachers, and the parents 

who have kids in school. 

 They need that data, and one thing that we have not done well in education is 

given school districts the tools they need. Using our web site to develop a school 

improvement plan, we now have the data, the tools. We can give them the flexibility, but 

again, also hold them accountable. We do know that some things work better than others. 

We do know that money spent in early childhood education is probably the best way to 

spend the money to close the achievement gap. 
31

 So again, I'm not one for flexibility without accountability. I do think we need to 

balance flexibility with practices, the best practices we know, and we can probably count 

those off on one hand. 

Mr. Vallas. I'd like to respond to your question. In 1989 here in Chicago we had the 

first so-called school reform movement. There was radical decentralization, what I've 

equated to “let a thousand flowers bloom.” 

It had almost the same results from '89 to '95. The graduation rates didn't go 

anywhere. The reading scores were dead. The math scores were dead. You had 

individual schools that did well, but you had other schools that didn't perform at all. In 

1995, 25 of the 81 high schools had single digit reading scores. Last year, one high 

school had single digit reading scores, and so radical decentralization was not successful. 

 Now, that's not to say you don't need local decision-making. You do, but what 

you need is high standards. Those standards need to be set by a larger entity, the state, 

for example. The federal government needs to have certain national goals and national 

standards that at least are serving as models that we can use. 

 Accountability, you've got to be able to go in and intervene when you have 

failure, management failure at the local level. You need the support and you also need to 

create an environment of competition. You need to give parents the flexibility to move 

within schools. 

 I think the neighborhood based magnet programs in the high schools have had a 

spectacular effect on those schools because now the high schools are going out of their 

way to provide programs and compete for students. Doing the same thing with special ed 

will allow all our magnet schools to have special ed programs, so now everyone is 

competing for the special education kids. 

 So I agree with Max. I think the goal here is to give the schools greater flexibility 

and to give local school districts greater empowerment. However, we have to hold 

people accountable, set the standards, and make sure the support and the resources are 

there in a very flexible way because if the schools know what the standards are, and if the 

schools know they are going to be held accountable, they have the resources to make a 

difference. Then I think you'll see tremendous growth and improvement. 

 We have a good balance between local control and centralized accountability that 

we did not have before, and that's why we're having such great success. I think the Bush 

proposal philosophically embraces that concept. 

Chairman Boehner. Mrs. Biggert? 

Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Vallas, as usual, you gave us a very 

dynamic presentation. I really am so proud of what's happened in Illinois and in the 

Chicago schools, and having been involved in that original legislation, to see what's 

happened makes me really happy. 

Chairman Boehner. That's why I'm here, because Mrs. Biggert - 
32

Mrs. Biggert. Would not leave him alone. 

Mr. McGee. Thank you. We appreciate it. 

Mrs. Biggert. One thing about the failing schools has come up. There's been much 

discussion about President Bush's proposal, and you have done a couple of things. Please 

talk a little bit about what happens when a school is failing and you have either removed 

the principal or reconstituted the school. How is that working? 

Mr. Vallas. Well, we do different things. Sometimes we go in and take management 

and financial control of the school, and restructure the curriculum. We take over the 

local hiring and things like that. Sometimes we go even deeper by sweeping in and 

removing the principal. 

 We may reconstitute the school, in which case we shut down the school, and then 

reopen it. Everyone has to reapply for jobs. Sometimes we phase out the old school and 

phase in a new school, and we will, in effect, go in and redesign an entirely new school. 

 The results, I think, have been largely positive. However, certainly some of our 

reconstituted schools have struggled. There are a couple schools we had to reconstitute a 

second time, but what accountability does is accountability spurs everybody to do better. 

 For example, the Consortium for School Reform came out with a study and said 

that 10 percent of the kids are not responding to the ending of social promotion, but 90 

percent of the kids are. The ending of social promotion directly benefited 90 percent of 

the kids they documented, but we finally identified that hard core 10 percent that we need 

to adopt different strategies for. 

 So you can reconstitute the school and reopen it. You can invite charters to come 

in. There's been discussion with Edison, for example, about coming in and taking 

management over certain schools. That doesn't mean you're going to have an instant 

solution, but schools know that there's going to be an end to non-performance. That 

spurs everyone to do better. 

 Because our high school students have maximum mobility, they’re not confined 

to their neighborhood schools. They can apply to 50 different programs across the 

system. A lot of times what will happen is you'll reconstitute a school and there will be a 

huge exodus to that new school. There's that school choice option there. 

 So I think the results have been overall very positive to the system. Because the 

system's focused the results on the individual schools that we've actually gone in and 

taken draconian action. That's been successful, but the shutting down, the reopening, the 

intervention, and the reconstitution, I think, has had mixed results. However, I would 

never shy away from doing it because the minute you shy a way from doing it, everybody 

becomes complacent. 

Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Dr. McGee, I had the opportunity to go down to Harvey and 

Dalton and Markham, the southern area, and I was so impressed with what's going on 

with that consortium of schools and the dedication of superintendents down there. The 

question that I came away from there with is they have such a high poverty rate, 

sometimes 98 percent, and since there's such high mobility they don't always get a full 
33

enrollment at the beginning of the year to know what Title I funds will be available. Is 

there anything that we can do to solve that problem? 

Mr. McGee. One thing we need to do is perhaps look at longer term period averages of 

Title I enrollments rather than year to year. For example, in Illinois, how we fund 

schools is based on an average daily attendance. This year we're going to a three-year 

average, which gives schools predictability. They can project their funding. 

 But I appreciate your bringing up your visit there. In that area, we have nine of 

the poorest school districts in Illinois. We had their school boards sign an intergovernmental agreement to work together. This is a place where people had local 

control. They gave that up to work together. 

 We have computer labs that are open to the public 2:30 to 6:30 every day, and 

that makes a difference in achievement. Families are using technology and we're using 

an innovative and creative solution. Again, we appreciate your support and hope we can 

see some similar progress around the state. 

Mr. Vallas. I would just point out, as a footnote, the mobility in our system is almost 30 

percent, so you can imagine the havoc it wreaks on schools when you have that type of 

movement, combined with the fact that 84 percent of the children in some school districts 

are on the Free or Reduced School Lunch Program. 

 Now, because we control our funds currently, we're able to ease the impact in 

terms of the federal and state Title I allocations. We don't make adjustment until the final 

year and we hold schools harmless so they don't lose too much money. 

 What we've done from an instructional standpoint is we've really worked to 

identify curriculum models and to make sure all of our schools are using quality 

curriculum models that are aligned with specific standards. Not just yearly standards but 

also following programs of studies so they’re covering the same subject areas at about the 

same time to impact mobility on the schools. 

Mrs. Biggert. Some have suggested using the free lunch to dually do the count because, 

particularly in high school, some of the families don't want to fill out the forms to say that 

they're really entitled. 

Mr. McGee. We do it half and half. 

Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Platts? 

Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. 

Dr. McGee, do I understand correctly that there's a state tax credit program in 

place now? 

Mr. McGee. We now have a $250 tax credit for parents that choose to send their 

children to private school. 
34

Mr. Platts. Public or just private? 

Mr. McGee. Just private. 

Mr. Platts. Has there been consideration of allowing that, say, here with school 

uniforms, for a public chartered school to be able to access it? 

Mr. McGee. There really hasn't been. It hasn't come across the General Assembly, and 

that's not one of our initiatives either. 

Mr. Vallas. They have an expenditure ceiling, so the expenditure has to be over $500 

and, in effect, rules out public school kids. 

Mr. Platts. Under state law, your charter school program has 45 authorized charters and 

only 19 filled. What's the actual process, and specifically, the appeal process? Is the 

charter granted by the local school district? 

Mr. McGee. Right, exactly. They apply to the local district, and we assist in that 

application. After they apply to the local district, that school district can either accept the 

charter, as happened in Springfield 186, Springfield, Illinois; however, too often in the 

suburbs they reject that application. Then, the appeal process goes to the state level, and 

in some instances we approve them and in other instances we don't. 

 We do insist that their curriculum meet state standards. We do insist that they 

have a lottery system, as you heard in previous testimony. They are public schools and 

accessible to all. 

 It disheartens me when local districts don't work with the charter schools. Part of 

that is over funding because the local districts do lose a good amount of the funds, 

certainly after three or four years. I can understand it, but goodness gracious, we're here 

about kids and we're focused on kids and that's what we need to think about. 

Mr. Platts. Your state appeal, is that a statewide appointed Board? 

Mr. McGee. Actually, the Governor appoints the State Board of Education. The 

Governor is the final judge and jury on that. 

Mr. Platts. Mr. Vallas, you briefly mentioned early childhood, and that's an area of great 

interest to me. Can you expand on what you're doing in that area? 

Mr. Vallas. Sure, and let me give you a statistic too. We've had improvement every 

year, but the Mayor is always beating us up because he never looks at a glass as half full.

He always looks at it as being half empty, and Max will tell you - he's met with the 

Mayor too - he's very demanding and always raising the bar. The Mayor is mobilizing all 

of the city's resources to expand early childhood programs, so let me tell you how 

important that is. 

 Our lowest test scores are third graders. They've been rising the last three or four 

years, and they're actually at their highest level probably in 10 years. So you know, 28 to 

30 percent of the third graders are reading at or above national averages. By the time 

they get to the 8th grade, they're pushing 50 percent. If we could invest up front and get 
35

those 30 percentiles to 50 percent, then by the time they get to 8th grade, they will be at 

80 or 90 percent. 

 What we're doing, we're expanding our traditional early childhood programs, our 

pre-K programs, our half-day programs, and they are funded largely from the state. We 

have Head Start in the school system, but we're going a step beyond that. 

 At the high school level, we're trying to identify every pregnant teen in the high 

schools so that we can make sure that every pregnant teen goes through parent training 

and stays in high school and doesn't drop out. We also want every baby to be born 

healthy and put in an early childhood or preschool program, because 90 percent of the 

pregnant teens drop out and 90 percent have a second child within five years. Probably 

90 percent never return to school, so we're actually doing that kind of outreach. 

 In fact, our Cradle to the Classroom program has a partnership with three 

hospitals in Chicago areas that produce 35 percent of the teen pregnancies. We're 

actually trying to catch the mothers who may leave high school but then go to the hospital 

to get them in the program. 

 We also center great attention on our Parents as Teachers First program. We train 

parents in our school system to go out and teach young parents how to be parents, and to 

reach out to young mothers that have dropped out of school and are at home raising their 

own children. It's modeled after the Israeli program that was started in the kibbutzes 

where you basically have parents teaching parents to be home preschool instructors. 

 This year we've also developed a web site, an interactive program. We're 

providing many of our teen mothers with home computers and getting them wired for the 

Internet so we can put somebody in that home to provide parenting support. So what 

we're doing is going beyond the traditional, conventional expansion of early childhood 

services and we're being aggressive. Like the Cradle to the Classroom program where 

we're trying to go out and identify the pregnant teens and keep them in school, and we're 

doing the parental outreach services where we train parents to go out and knock on doors 

and find pregnant teens and young mothers at home. 

 One more comment, too, is we've strongly advocated and Max has been strongly 

supportive at the state level of adjusting School Aid and reducing the minimum grade 

level to pre school. Therefore, if you have a child three and four years old and that 

school district is providing preschool services for that child, it gets included in the 

general state aid. 

Mr. Platts. What is the current age? 

Mr. Vallas. Kindergarten. 

Mr. McGee. If I might add, the Governor's wife and I have worked on a program called 

Future for Kids to support early childhood. Access to preschool is part of our strategic 

plan. Full day kindergarten is about 50 percent now, and that's moving. This is where, I 

think, we get the most bang for the buck. 

Mr. Vallas. There's no downside to supporting funding for early childhood programs. 

No downside, and it resonates across the political spectrum. It's something we absolutely 
36

need to do and we need it in particular because we have schools, I have many schools that 

are at a 90 percent poverty level and where maybe 80 to 90 percent of the children are 

living with a single parent. Most of those parents had their children when they were 

teenagers, and so most of the children have never been in preschool. We're serving, I 

would estimate, half of the kids who have needs. That's not adequate. 

Mr. Platts. I commend you for your local efforts. I come from Pennsylvania, where we 

have a much worse record. We have no state funding for Head Start or pre-K. We don't 

fund at the kindergarten level. We start at first grade, and so we do a lot worse. I 

commend you both on your state and local efforts. 

Chairman Boehner. Let me thank both of you for your excellent testimony and your 

time today. I also want to give special thanks to the Director of the Chicago International 

Charter School, Bucktown Campus, Dr. Nurek, for his hospitality. 

 If there's no further business, the committee is adjourned. 

 [Whereupon, the committee was adjourned.] 
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Table of Indexes 

Chairman Boehner, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36 

Mr. McGee, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35 

Mr. Milkie, 4, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19 

Mr. Murphy, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 

Mr. Platts, 16, 17, 18, 19, 33, 34, 35, 36 

Mr. Vallas, 3, 19, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 

Mrs. Biggert, 3, 14, 15, 16, 26, 31, 32, 33 

Ms. Collins-Brown, 6, 16, 17, 18