“WHAT’S NEXT FOR SCHOOL CHOICE?” 

HEARING

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND 

THE WORKFORCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JULY 23, 2002 

Serial No. 107-73 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education 

and the Workforce

82-141 pdf 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 

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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 

JIM DeMINT, South Carolina DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia DAVID WU, Oregon 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HILDA L. 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 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

 Paula Nowakowski, Chief of Staff 

 John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 
iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................................. i 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, COMMITTEE ON 

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

WASHINGTON, D.C..................................................................................................................... 1 

OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MINORITY MEMBER, GEORGE MILLER, 

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

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ............................................................................. 3 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD K. ARMEY, MAJORITY LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ............................................................................. 5 

STATEMENT OF TAMIKO WILLIAMS, PARENT, WASHINGTON, D.C. .......................... 12 

STATEMENT OF LINDA MOODY, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CONGRESS 

OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.......................................................... 15 

STATEMENT OF ELLIOT MINCBERG, VICE PRESIDENT AND LEGAL DIRECTOR, 

PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY, WASHINGTON, D.C................................................ 17 

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS W. KMIEC, DEAN AND ST. THOMAS MORE PROFESSOR, 

SCHOOL OF LAW, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, D.C.

...................................................................................................................................................... 19 

STATEMENT OF ROBERTA KITCHEN, PARENT, CLEVELAND, OHIO........................... 21 

APPENDIX A -- OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, 

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

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. ........................................................................... 45 

APPENDIX B -- STATEMENT OF RICHARD K. ARMEY, MAJORITY LEADER, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C........................................................ 49 

APPENDIX C -- STATEMENT OF TAMIKO WILLIAMS, PARENT, WASHINGTON, D.C.

...................................................................................................................................................... 57 

APPENDIX D -- STATEMENT OF LINDA MOODY, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF 

COLUMBIA CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS, WASHINGTON, D.C. ............ 67 

APPENDIX E -- STATEMENT OF ELLIOT MINCBERG, VICE PRESIDENT AND LEGAL 

DIRECTOR, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY, WASHINGTON, D.C.......................... 81 
iv

APPENDIX F -- STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS W. KMIEC, DEAN AND ST. THOMAS 

MORE PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF LAW, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, 

WASHINGTON, D.C................................................................................................................... 91 

APPENDIX G -- STATEMENT OF ROBERTA KITCHEN, PARENT, CLEVELAND, OHIO

.................................................................................................................................................... 107 

TABLE OF INDEXES ............................................................................................................... 112
1

HEARING ON "WHAT'S NEXT FOR SCHOOL CHOICE?" 

_________________________________________

TUESDAY, JULY 23, 2002 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:45 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office 

Building, Hon. John A. Boehner [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

 Present: Representatives Boehner, Petri, Ballenger, McKeon, Schaffer, Tancredo, DeMint, 

Isakson, Biggert, Tiberi, Osborne, Wilson, Miller, Kildee, Owens, Payne, Roemer, Scott, Woolsey, 

Rivers, Hinojosa, McCarthy, Tierney, Kind, Ford, Kucinich, Wu, Holt, Solis, and Davis. 

 Staff Present: Alexa Callin, Communications Staff Assistant; Blake Hegeman, Legislative 

Assistant; Sally Lovejoy, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Patrick Lyden, 

Professional Staff Member; Doug Mesecar, Professional Staff Member; Maria Miller, Coalitions 

Director for Education Policy; Krisann Pearce, Deputy Director of Education and Human 

Resources Policy; Deborah L. Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern Coordinator; Jo-Marie St. Martin, 

General Counsel; Holli Traud, Legislative Assistant; Heather Valentine, Press Secretary; John 

Lawrence, Minority Staff Director; Charles Barone, Minority Deputy Staff Director; Mark 

Zuckerman, Minority General Counsel; Maggie McDow, Minority Legislative 

Associate/Education; Alex Nock, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Joe Novotny, 

Minority Staff Assistant/Education; and Suzanne Palmer, Minority Legislative 

Associate/Education. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, COMMITTEE 

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

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Chairman Boehner. A quorum being present, the Committee on Education and the Workforce 

will come to order. We are meeting today to hear testimony on the future of school choice. 

 Under committee rule 12(b), the opening statements are limited to the chairman and ranking 

member of the committee; and therefore, if other members have statements, they may be included 

in the hearing record. And with that, I ask unanimous consent for the hearing record to remain 

open for 14 days to allow members' statements and other extraneous material referenced during the 
2

hearing today to be submitted for the official hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. 

 Good morning. Thank you all for being here. We are here today because all of us believe 

that every American child should have the chance to learn and pursue the American dream. 

 Unfortunately, as things currently stand, not every child in America today will get that 

chance. America is not yet a land of equal educational opportunity. Children of parents in poor 

communities do not have the same educational options as their counterparts in wealthier 

neighborhoods. This reality disproportionately impacts minority Americans, and it is a direct cause 

of the academic achievement gap that continues to exist in the United States between 

disadvantaged students and their peers. 

 Our first priority is to strengthen all of our schools with new resources, accountability, and 

local control. The bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act signed into law by President Bush in 

January takes this approach. The new law says that when schools are struggling, we will focus 

more attention on them and push them to excel. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, our nation's 

poorer schools this year will receive an historic increase in federal aid, and underachieving schools 

will qualify for extra help. 

 We can't turn our backs on underachieving schools, and we won't. But we can't turn our 

backs on children trapped in endlessly underachieving schools, either. When schools do not teach 

and do not change, even after repeated efforts to turn them around, there must be a safety valve for 

the students. And that is what today's hearing is about. 

 For low income parents, education choice can mean the difference between keeping a child 

trapped in a chronically underachieving school that refuses to change, or sending a child to a better 

achieving school that offers hope. And giving parents new options I believe is the critical next step 

in education reform, especially in light of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the 

constitutionality of the Cleveland school choice program. 

 The court's decision is a victory not only for low-income parents and students but for 

American education as well. It lays the groundwork for future progress on private school choice, 

and moves us decisively forward in the drive for equal educational opportunity. 

 Education choice not only gives parents of all income levels the chance to choose the best 

education possible for their children, but it also provides a powerful incentive for all schools to 

strive for high levels of academic achievement. 

 The decision should encourage lawmakers around the country to create new school choice 

programs that offer renewed hope for every parent who wants the best education for their child. 

 Expanding parental choice also helps to energize the public education system and spur 

struggling schools to succeed. Critics wrongly claim that giving parents more choice will result in 

resources being drained away from public schools, and the evidence we have seen in places like 

Florida, where parental choice and measures for low income families have been successfully 

implemented as a means of bolstering school accountability, Cleveland, Milwaukee and others 
3

suggest that these fears are unfounded. The Cleveland choice program has proven effective in 

enhancing academic achievement. 

 Parental choice doesn't drain resources away from public schools, but the absence of 

parental choice drains hope away from disadvantaged students. And this is the issue Congress I 

believe is compelled to address. 

 Last year, at the president's urging, Congress took significant bipartisan action to expand 

choices for low-income parents. The decision by the Supreme Court builds on the new options that 

parents have under the No Child Left Behind bill. The new law allows federal Title I education 

dollars to go to private, faith-based educational organizations to provide tutoring, after-school 

learning, and other supplemental education services to low income students in underachieving 

public schools. This provision confirms the portability of Title I funds and lays the groundwork for 

further expansion of parental choice and education. 

 Republicans and Democrats in Congress must build on this solid foundation by taking 

further action to expand parental choice in education. Choice is an essential element of 

accountability and makes our schools stronger, not weaker. If we truly hope to improve all of 

America's schools, equal educational opportunity for all students is essential. 

 And with that, I would like to yield to my friend and colleague, Mr. Miller. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. – 

SEE APPENDIX A 

OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MINORITY MEMBER, GEORGE 

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

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to the hearing. I think that this hearing 

comes at an interesting time for us as we have struggled over the last year to bring about what are 

considered some of the most far-reaching reforms in the federal role in public schools, elementary, 

secondary education in many, many, many years with the Leave No Child Behind Act. And, 

clearly, those reforms that are only now starting to be implemented and contemplated by state and 

local school districts were based upon the fact that also we would provide the sufficient resources, 

and we laid out a blueprint for those resources in the legislation. And in the second year of that 

legislation, the federal government has failed to keep pace with the expenditures that we believed 

were necessary to bring about the changes in student performance and teacher qualifications and 

the overall performance of the schools. 

 Obviously, the concern here is that an expanded voucher system, choice system starts to 

diminish those resources that we thought we could gather together, that we could cobble together at 
4

the federal, state, and local level to bring about those reforms, because unlike past efforts in the 

United States Congress, these reforms or the failure to enact them bring about real consequence.

And the failure to meet the standards set forth in the legislation, set forth by the Governors in the 

individual states bring about consequences; and those consequences, first and foremost, require 

additional resources to flow to those schools to try to improve the corps of teachers, if that is 

necessary in those schools, to improve the performance of the students in those schools and, if that 

doesn't work obviously down the road and in the timetable the blueprints set out, we can go to the 

reconstituting of those schools and administrative personnel of those schools and end up with a 

state takeover. Obviously, your or my belief is that none of that will become necessary, because 

the reforms and the resources will work so that in fact the student performance will meet the 

standards and will meet the goals for annual yearly progress. 

 Now comes along the effort, I think, to drill a major hole in that stream of funding that we 

have tried to cobble together through the use of vouchers and to drain off those needed resources.

As we know, this is a very difficult task, even with the new federal expenditures. And hopefully 

the appropriations bill will look more like what the Senate has done than what the House is 

contemplating doing with respect to education. 

 But we also know the states are now suffering because of the economy in terms of the 

resources they have available to the states. But to keep a critical mass of funding within the public 

system so we can bring about these reforms over the timetables stated with respect to the standards 

of performance is going to be a very tricky effort. To now start diverting those resources, and they 

are all the same resources, whether it is the diversion through a local voucher system or whether it 

is a diversion through a tax cut system or tax credit system, those in theory are educational dollars 

that would be going to fix the public system. 

 There is no doubt that the system needs to be fixed. We know we have at a minimum some 

8,000 schools that are failing to perform as we expect them to do. 

 So I look forward with interest at this hearing. I note that we rejected on a bipartisan basis 

voucher systems. We didn't reject it on constitutional or legal means; we rejected it based upon the 

impact of our concerns that it would have on our efforts to bring about the necessary public 

reforms, to bring about public resources, to bring about those reforms that members of this 

committee on a bipartisan basis and members of the entire Congress on a bipartisan basis and the 

president of the United States said are necessary if we are going to continue this federal role in 

education.

 And I see our first witness has arrived, so I will stop there and look forward to the majority 

leader's testimony. 

Chairman Boehner. Let me thank my colleague and it is my pleasure to introduce our first 

witness, who really needs not much of an introduction to this committee. He is the majority leader 

of the House of Representatives. And, I will add, he is on leave from this committee. 

 Not everyone may know that Dick has been a tireless education reformer. Even before we 

were in the majority, he and I worked together for years to expand educational choice options for 
5

parents and to improve education for all children. 

 And so it is a pleasure to welcome you, Mr. Armey, back to the committee, and welcome 

your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD K. ARMEY, MAJORITY LEADER, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Armey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 Let me say that my interest in educational choice scholarships for students in K through 12 

is born out of a commitment that America must have the best public schools of any nation in the 

world. I think, if you look back over the history of the United States for the first 200 years of this 

country, we were the envy of the world in the way we educated our young people, and for reasons 

that I am not sure I will ever be able to fathom how that has started to slip away from us. 

 I have been interested in school choice since my old days as a college professor, born again, 

as I said, out of my belief that educating our children is probably the most important thing we can 

do as a culture, and obviously our public schools is where that must happen. 

 I have always felt that there were two appeals to scholarships for public school children.

The first is to make the public schools better. I believe that we have a demonstrated observation 

that public schools get better when public schools are forced to answer to the parents who are able 

to move their children from a school that they believe fails their children. 

 My second interest is just purely a matter of the heart. I have seen school scholarships work 

in the lives of children in ways that I consider to be magical and encouraging. Let us just take the 

first instance. In Albany, Virginia Gilder, a philanthropist gave a large number of scholarships. 

They saw the impact in the Albany schools. In the one school that was targeted as an under 

performing, they lost most of their student body and ended up rehiring their entire administration 

for that school and brought it back. Again, we have seen this work in other cities as well. 

 The allegation that the desire to provide scholarships for poor children is somehow or 

another born out of a desire to do harm to the public schools I think is misguided and not very wellinformed. Let me talk about the point of view that I have come to realize lately. 

 For several years now, I have been involved with the D.C. scholarship fund, actually raising 

money for scholarships for five or six or for 15 or 20 young people. We work with people in the 

community to find the children who need the opportunity to go from one school to a better school, 

work with the child's parent on a voluntary basis; that is to say, the parent says I want to do 

something better for my children, can you help me? Then we try to make the help available. And I 

have had the opportunity to visit and play with many of these children, and I will just tell you about 

one in particular, a little child, 9 years old. This was several years ago now. 
6

 When I first saw him he was overweight, unhappy, shy, and scared. He was underachieving 

in school. His mama, bless her heart, wanted to do better. He had little opportunity to ever see his 

father, and the times that he did see his father were not happy experiences in the child's life. His 

mother, bless her heart, had difficulties of her own, and would lapse in and out of responsible 

parenting for the child. But she loved her baby, and she wanted to do the best she could. So we 

got him a scholarship; and as it turns out, for most of the school year he got himself up every 

morning, got on the bus and went to school. And I asked him, why did you do that? And he said, 

Congressman, he said, when I go to school, big people take care of me. 

 A year later he had gotten his weight down, he was active in sports, he was active in his 

association with these other children and was happy, smiling, and he making straight A's, and he 

eventually went on to one of our best schools in D.C. Why, because somebody took him from an 

environment of neglect and put him into an environment of love. And it, yes, was a parochial 

school.

 I learned a valuable lesson from the nuns. You can discipline a child if you first love a 

child. Without the love it is not discipline, it is punishment. And a child knows the difference. 

And our Catholic schools in D.C., quite frankly, are a godsend to thousands of little boys and girls. 

 So I am particularly thankful for the recent Supreme Court that cleared up the nonsense. I 

am always amused that a professor at Baylor University, SMU, TCU, BYU, Notre Dame, might be 

teaching his students who are there on Pell grants that it is a violation of church and state if you 

give the same opportunity to a second grader. But that kind of nonsense had life. Fortunately, we 

put a stake through the heart of that monster, and we can now, if we choose, follow up on your 

good work in your earlier education bill, to leave no child behind for public school choice, to allow 

a parent to take a scholarship and find any school they want. 

 Now, with respect to my own D.C. scholarship fund, people say, why does a fellow from 

Texas bother? I don't have children in my district who are going to fail school. I have a suburban 

district; there is lots of money. People move in there because of the schools, and they are all free 

and able, on their own financial resources, to take their child from a public school to a private 

school of their choice because they can afford it. D.C. is a city that has what is documented by 

most people to be among the worst performing school districts in America, and it is a city that has a 

population of people who have no choice if they have nothing other than their own devices. And 

for that reason I felt, and have for many years, wanted a bill written that would provide a number of 

scholarships for children in D.C. 

 A few years ago when Ted Forestmann and John Walton offered a thousand scholarships, 

one out of every six children in D.C. who qualified applied. They had so many children they had to 

turn them away. It broke Ted Forestmann's heart. And I remember being there in his presence 

when he heard the story: After one thousand, thousand dollar a piece scholarships were given out, 

he heard the story of one particularly broken-hearted little girl. And I watched him reach in his 

pocket and get the scholarship for her, because he cared, because the child wanted that opportunity. 

 We want to do the same thing. We are not taking money from the D.C. schools; we are 

bringing new money to D.C. It is as if somebody stood on a street corner in D.C. with $8,000 
7

available or next year and said to the D.C. Parents, if you choose, if you would like to have up to 

$5,000 to take your child from a school that fails him to a school of your choice, the money is 

available to you for that purpose. 

 For the life of me, I do not understand who could object to that. I have people that 

condemn me to death because I won't provide free needles to dope addicts on the streets of D.C. 

that resent my wanting to give $5,000 to a mama who wants to put her child in a better school. I 

can't make sense out of that. I am committed to this. 

 We now have a president that will not veto this. A couple of years ago the delegate from 

D.C. criticized me for carrying this bill to the president knowing that he would veto it, and 

challenged me, to see if I was really serious about that, to get this bill to a president who will sign 

it. This is my opportunity. I have the Supreme Court decision that gets the sophistry out of my 

way, and I have a president that will sign it, and I am determined to make this happen. 

 It is not about me, it is not about my district, it is not about the delegate from D.C. It is 

about up to 8,000 little boys and girls, beautiful children, who deserve to have a better chance in 

their life than their mamas are able to give them now. And I want to do it. I have no reason other 

than to just tell you those kids own me, and I will do what I can for them. 

 And I would ask that my formal statement be put in the record. 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD K. ARMEY, MAJORITY LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX B 

Chairman Boehner. Well, thank you, Mr. Armey, for taking the time to come over today. 

 Let me ask, how do you respond to criticism that your D.C. scholarship bill is an imposition 

on D.C. public schools and a violation of the local control of education? 

Mr. Armey. If we are bringing in $8 million for a few years and up to $10 million in the last 

couple years of the program, new money, it doesn't take a dime away from the existing budget of 

the school making it available to the parents to make a decision. No parent gets the money unless 

the parent comes up and says, hey, I want this for my child. No parent is persuaded to do it. And 

the child is then taken from whatever school is there. I don't know how that is an imposition on the 

D.C. school district or a violation of their civil rights. 

 We have roughly 435 members of Congress that come to this town from across the country. 

We come into this town and we put our children into private schools in this town. Nobody 

suggests that we are somehow or another neglecting or imposing an imposition on the local school 

district.

 So, my point is people that make that argument, I don't get your point. You will have to 

stone me again because I didn't get the drift. 
8

Chairman Boehner. Well, do you believe that your bill will damage D.C. public schools? 

Mr. Armey. No, I believe the particularly the experience that we saw in Albany testifies that, as it 

has been tried in the past where it has worked effectively, public schools get better, and I believe it 

with all my heart. School choice makes public schools better, because public schools are more 

acutely aware that they must answer to the parents. And when the schools answer to the parents, 

they are answering to the one person who loves the child the most. So I have no doubt the schools 

will be improved. 

Chairman Boehner. Critics of school choice options claim that the accountability measures that 

we have in public schools don't exist in many private or parochial schools. Where do we get the 

accountability? 

Mr. Armey. Well, how accountable am I to a parent when I have a law that says you will send 

your child to the school of my choice, and I will do with your child in the education of that child as 

I like; and, unless you can afford it, you had just better shut up and put up with it. Compared to 

bringing this child to my school because you believe I will do a good job, and if I don't do the good 

job you accept, you will take your child to another school. I believe the second principal is going 

to be more accountable than the first principal. 

Chairman Boehner. We have spent a lot of time working on this issue over the last 10 or 12 

years, but I need to give you the opportunity to explain to people why you think parental choice is 

such an integral part of overall education reform. 

Mr. Armey. Well, it already exists in America today where you find educational excellence. 

 Where I grew up, we moved into that community because we respected the quality of the 

schools. I am a product of public schools. All five of my children went to public schools. My 

wife and I never made a decision with respect to the purchase of a home that wasn't pursuant to our 

information about the quality of the public schools. 

 You take a look at any community in America today, when they are trying to attract 

somebody to move their business there and they talk about the quality of their public schools. So 

the fact of the matter is, school choice is practiced as a routine, normal part of our family decisionmaking process which most of us don't recognize it for what it is. But where schools are excellent, 

you have parents who have the ability to move children from schools that fail. When you have a 

city like D.C., with an enormously large population of people who are just trapped, you find 

schools that break down on you. It is not by accident that the schools in the suburbs tend to be 

better than the schools in the inner city, because the schools in the suburbs are populated by 

students of people who move there for that excellence and support that excellence and will move 

away if the excellence fails their children. 

 So, the fact of the matter is most of America school districts compete for children of highly 

mobile parents who will leave the community if the schools don't perform for their children. 
9

Chairman Boehner. Again, Mr. Armey, I want to thank you for coming this morning. And for 

the benefit of the members, under prior agreement with Mr. Armey and his schedule, the questions 

will be limited to the chairman and the ranking member. The members should note that we do 

expect to have a general vote at approximately 10:30. 

 With that, I would recognize my friend and colleague from California, Mr. Miller. 

Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Leader, welcome to the committee. 

We had, and I guess it was the President's Commission on IDEA, up before the committee, I think 

it was last week, on special education. He had a panel out reviewing it and taking testimony 

around the country. And while it was not clear in the report, I think I am accurately portraying. 

Their statement, or the gentleman who was reporting on the commission's statement, was that they 

believe that the federal mandates under IDEA would have to go with a voucher program, an 

individualized education plan and the various accountabilities for schools to provide a free and 

appropriate education. Do you see that that way; see some consternation in the communities on 

both sides about how that plays out? 

Mr. Armey. I don't want to set myself out as a comprehensive expert on IDEA and all that. As I 

know, for example, when you see charter schools grow up, they often grow up for the purposes of 

special case needs on the part of children, and you could have the evolution of schools that will be 

particularly designed for that. 

 My good friend, the former chairman of this committee, Bill Goodling, used to be 

concerned about IDEA mandates in that the mandates oftentimes provide an incentive to label 

children unnecessarily as troubled children. 

Mr. Miller. But do you see those mandates following your voucher idea for the District of 

Columbia? 

Mr. Armey. I really can't answer that. I don't know enough about it. I do think that what has 

happened with voucher or scholarship plans is it tends to be on behalf of the children whose parents 

care the most and get their applications in earliest. Whether or not there is any sorting out of the 

children in terms of special needs, I do not know. I don't think there are any processes to do that. I 

don't mean to be evasive on your question, Mr. Miller, but I am not sure I fully grasp your question. 

Mr. Miller. Well, you know, I guess if we have to consider legislation we will have to consider it 

on a more specific point because you are using public resources for this purpose, which is different 

than when Mr. Forestmann did his or other people have done their scholarship programs. Those 

are private resources, and they are obviously free to award those. 

Mr. Armey. But I might mention Pell grants for public schools. 

Mr. Miller. Pardon? 
10

Mr. Armey. Pell grants and GI bills are public resources. You take a look at D.C.'s schools. By 

their own testimony children do worse the longer they stay in the school district. A Pell grant for 

their college education is no good for them if they have had a K through 12 failed experience. I 

don't understand why we can do so much for the privilege of higher education and do so little for 

the necessity of K through 12. 

Mr. Miller. Well, that has been the argument we have been having in this Congress for some time 

now.

Mr. Armey. I would be happy to take the money that is now spent on Pell grants. 

Mr. Miller. Your recommendations would do far less for the disadvantaged in this society than 

most of us think should be done. So, I mean, that is answered four square in your appropriation 

submission. But that is an argument between you and me. 

Mr. Armey. Well, I would be happy to take the money that is spent on Pell grants for students to 

go to nonpublic institutions of higher education, and give that money to children to go to public 

schools or to exercise school choice in K through 12. I do not understand why we can be so 

generous for higher education and be so arbitrary and stingy in the lives of baby children that are 

just trying to get their feet under them for the first time in their lives. Bless their little hearts, why 

don't they deserve as much consideration as a college student? It just baffles me. 

Mr. Miller. Well, I think first of all, if you want to rob the Pell grants to have your voucher 

program that is your choice. But I mean that exactly makes the point. This is not a system that is 

rich in educational resources. And when you take a $5,000 voucher, $8 million, whatever it is, for 

1,400 kids a year, those are educational resources that could be used in the public school system to 

try to cobble together, to fix a system that is serving 75- or 80,000 kids. And that in theory was the 

goal of this Congress and this president when we passed the Leave No Child Behind Act. If you 

are now going to open the trapdoor and you are going to start siphoning those funds off, I assume 

those are educational dollars. You didn't take them out of the military. 

Mr. Armey. It absolutely does not come out of the current budget of any educational institution in 

America today. It doesn't come out of the Department of Education's funds; it doesn't come out of 

the D.C. school system. 

Mr. Miller. But that is on your theory that they already are sufficiently funded. I don't believe that 

they are sufficiently funded. If I thought they were sufficiently funded and this was leftover 

money, sort of like spare change. You know? Well, it isn't leftover money, because those 

programs are not sufficiently funded. And that is part of the problem you are having. That is part 

of the problem you are having in putting together a system to conserve the vast majority of 

American children and get them to an educational attainment that we can be proud of. 

Mr. Armey. The D.C. School District spends several times more money per child on the children 

than at least a hundred other school districts, all of which do better than D.C. The fact of the matter 

is education dollars spent unwisely, wastefully, ineffectively are the worst spent education dollars 
11

in America. 

Mr. Miller. Well, you can't support that, Mr. Armey, but you can go ahead and say it. 

Mr. Armey. I can win it on the floor. 

Mr. Miller. Oh, yeah, you can win it on the floor. 

Mr. Armey. And I can get it to the president. And this president will call me from Air Force One 

and say he is signing it. 

Mr. Miller. Well, if that is your only test that is a wonderful vision of government. 

Mr. Armey. I believe that is the test of government; it goes through the House, and then it goes 

through the Senate. 

Mr. Miller. So you can say whatever you want, whether it is accurate or not, because you have the 

votes on the floor. 

Mr. Armey. No. I can say whatever I want because I have seen it work in the lives of children, 

and I care enough to care of the kids rather than somebody else. 

Chairman Boehner. Well, you may have heard that the bells have gone off. Mr. Armey, thank 

you for your willingness to come over and testify. 

Mr. McKeon. Mr. Chairman, may I just make one point? Mr. Armey said that this would go to 

8,000 children in the D.C. district, and would actually then take them out of the public schools. So 

the money for those 8,000 that is already there would be able to help the children that are in the 

D.C. schools. So it seems like it helps, that it is a win-win all the way around. 

Chairman Boehner. All right. I want to thank Mr. Armey. We are going to take a recess. We 

will be ready for the second panel when we are finished voting on the House floor. The committee 

will stand in recess. 

 [Recess.] 

Chairman Boehner. The committee will resume the hearing on parental and choice education, 

and it is my privilege to introduce our second panel of witnesses. 

 Our first witness is Ms. Tamiko Williams. Ms. Williams is a parent and a recipient of a 

privately funded scholarship from the Washington Scholarship Fund, which enabled her daughter 

to attend The Owl School, an independent school northwest of Washington. However, due to an 

increase in tuition, Ms. Williams will have to remove her daughter and place her back in public 

school. I am glad that you are here. 
12

 The second witness is Ms. Linda Moody. Ms. Moody is President of the District of 

Columbia Congress of Parents and Teachers, commonly known as the D.C. PTA. In addition to 

her own two children, she has cared for 26 foster children, including with special needs, all of 

which attended public school. 

 Our next witness is Mr. Elliot Mincberg. He is the Vice President and Education Policy 

Director at the People for the American Way Foundation; previously, as a partner in the 

Washington, D.C. firm of Hogan & Hartson, where he specialized in education and litigation, and 

has been here on several other occasions. 

 Next, Mr. Douglas Kmiec is the Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Law at The 

Catholic University of America, here in Washington. Previously, he taught constitutional law for 

nearly two decades at the University of Notre Dame and served Presidents Ronald Reagan and 

George Bush as constitutional legal counsel from 1985 through 1989. He frequently contributes to 

the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and has co-authored three books on the Constitution. 

 And, lastly, Ms. Roberta Kitchen is a single mother of five foster children, has sent her 

children to four different schools, private and public, having selected institutions that best fit the 

children's educational needs. Her youngest child is now attending private school with a tuition 

scholarship from the Cleveland Scholarship Program. 

 And before the witnesses begin their testimony, let me remind the members we will ask 

questions after all of the witnesses have testified. I think all the witnesses understand the clock.

You have 3 or 4 minutes of green, you have a minute of amber, and when it turns red we are 

hoping that you are finishing your statement. 

 And, with that, Ms. Williams, you may begin. And don't forget to push the little button at 

the bottom of the microphone, and pull the microphone a little closer to you. 

STATEMENT OF TAMIKO WILLIAMS, PARENT, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Ms. Williams. Thank you. Hello, chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. My name is 

Tamiko Satay Williams. I am a long-time resident of the District of Columbia, 39 years. I am a 

product of the D.C. public schools. Excuse me, I am very nervous. 

Chairman Boehner. No reason to be nervous. It is just us chickens. 

Ms. Williams. You guys have the money. 

Chairman Boehner. Well. 

Ms. Williams. Okay. Excuse me. As you consider your responsibility in helping guide the next 

steps our country takes towards education, as has become known as school choice, I thank you for 

including the viewpoints of a parent, a single parent as myself. I commend you for inviting me. 
13

 I am not exactly a poster child for how school options work. My story is about how school 

options have failed my daughter and I. My reason for seeking scholarship assistance for my child, 

it is the obvious but least recognized reason. In the District of Columbia, in many inner-city areas 

around the country, our schools are basically still segregated, but you can call it demographics. 

You can rezone and bus but let us be honest it is still segregation. The bottom line is that you have 

school choice unless you are poor. That is why so few of us are willing to stand up for this 

important discussion. 

 I am not unhappy with the outer boundary school I begged and cried for my child; I am just 

determined to increase her chances of exploring the world outside of our neighborhood. Even 

though I am not unhappy with our public schools, it doesn't change the fact that it is still segregated 

schools, that my daughter and my daughter's perception of the world and her future is shaped by 

this experience. 

 I want to help my daughter realize her horizons are bigger than those in our neighborhood.

I want her to have a brighter future, and she will have a brighter future with me as her mom. 

 This is the reason for wanting choice: To be free to expand my daughter's horizon, because 

she deserves it. Not only is this the American way, it is the only way I see. 

 My elected representative recently told you from the floor of Congress that she doesn't 

believe D.C. residents are calling for school choice, and that D.C. charter schools and private 

scholarship programs make it an example of school choice. Well, I don't think so, and so do 

hundreds of families that I spent time with during research testing at Washington Scholarship Fund 

and thousands of families who are still applying for scholarships. 

 The current choice option failed me, and those same options will fail other parents without 

the financial resources to even use the private scholarship. Small private scholarships, charter 

schools, and intra-district choices, those are all nice options. But who are we kidding? It is still not 

the freedom of choice; it is just an illusion of choice because poor parents are still told they cannot 

go based upon their economics, their economic situation. 

 I recently read that 47 percent of Congressional Representatives and 50 percent of Senators 

with school-aged kids use private schools. Did you know that the Mayor of the District of 

Columbia went to private schools? He also sent his kids there, too. The Police Chief Charles 

Ramsey sends his son to a private school. Some of the most successful people in business today in 

the D.C. area went to private schools; some of their children are sent to private schools. So I want 

my child to be sent to a private school, also. 

 After participating in the lottery three times, three years straight, my daughter finally 

received the partial scholarship for last year. My daughter and I were so excited that we brought 

balloons and excitement, and we were just really happy that this happened for us. We were so 

appreciative of the Washington Scholarship Fund for doing this and their staff members to take 

time out of their weekend to come in and test so many families that I was overwhelmed. 
14

 I didn't know exactly what school I wanted my child to go to because I wasn't familiar with 

private schools, so I did a lot of research. I finally ended up having to have to send her to The Owl 

School, which is a very nice school. It was not the school of my choice. It has a great academic 

program. They teach you French, Latin, computer skills. It even has an after-school program, and 

it has a long study abroad program, which they go over to France and different countries over there, 

which is great, but I couldn't afford that. Needless to say, this school offers the type of 

environment that my daughter deserves, the type of environment that would allow her to meet 

students from different backgrounds and cultures, and help her see the possibilities that exists 

beyond my neighborhood. 

Soon after the first three days or so in the school, I found out that the resources that I have 

was not enough. We were receiving a minimum of $2,000 from Washington Scholarship Fund, 

and I was very appreciative of that. But, in fact, still I was still faced with a $700-a-month school 

expense. For someone whose biweekly check of, you don't need to know what that is, but it wasn't 

enough. By making tremendous sacrifices personally and financially, I struggled through last year 

and got my daughter through school. Jeraine enjoyed the best year of her life in that private school.

I was unable to give her a glimpse - I was able to give her a glimpse of the world she rarely sees 

and the world that she deserves. 

 Near the end of the school year, I found out that The Owl tuition was going up from $8,000 

to $11,450. Of course, I applied for financial aid, which gave me $2,000. That made it $4,000. 

But, again, the school went up $2,000. 

 Our plan now is for Jeraine to return to the D.C. public schools. We recently moved, and I 

am near Hine Junior High School, which is located in Georgetown off of Wisconsin Avenue. This 

is one of the best public schools that I could find for my daughter with diversity there. 

 My daughter is a very bright young lady. Her name is Jeraine Satay McElhaney, and I love 

her a lot and she deserves the best. But if I had financial assistance for the coming year and if I 

could, I would send my daughter back to The Owl School or to another private school that she 

could get the help she needs. The Washington Scholarship Fund staff has heard this from me many 

times and many other things. Sorry about that. But they have been really cool about it. I have 

been really bitching a lot, and I like them. 

 Let us see. This private scholarship is not enough. I know that Washington scholarship 

funds are among the highest in the cities for K through 12 assistance, but again it still isn't enough. 

I was fortunate to get that assistance from them. I was able to make it work barely for 1 year. 

 Let's see. It is amazing how many financial assistance options exist for the college level to 

the schools, which, to me, I found out it was outrageous. I would want to give my child a head 

start while she is in the sixth or fifth grade than to wait until she does not make it to the 12th grade. 

 Let's see. As for the future of the school choice, if you plan on helping the neediest of the 

children out there, they need help now, not when they are on their way to college. 
15

 Let's see. That is enough of that. 

STATEMENT OF TAMIKO WILLIAMS, PARENT, WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX C 

Chairman Boehner. Ms. Williams, thank you. We can include your entire statement in the 

hearing record. But we do appreciate your willingness to come in and testify. 

Ms. Moody, you may begin. 

STATEMENT OF LINDA MOODY, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Ms. Moody. Good morning, Chairman Boehner, and other committee members. I am Linda 

Moody. I am married and have been married for 35 years to the same man. I have been a 

volunteer for 35 years. I am a mother of two children, ages 34 and 31. I was the foster mom of 26 

children, but as of this morning 27. And I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to 

speak against vouchers for the District of Columbia, specifically the program proposed in Mr. 

Armey's bill, H.R. 5033. 

 I also want to add that I am the grandmother of two D.C. public school children. My 

daughter attended private school, a Catholic school, for one year, and I took her out because I 

discovered that the disciplinary problems that I was having in D.C. public schools was in the 

Catholic school as well, and I felt that I could get the service free instead of paying for it, because 

wherever she went to school I was going to be there for her, and she was going to succeed, which 

she did. 

 Voucher proponents say that low-income children should have the opportunity to attend the 

same high quality schools that are available to children in affluent neighborhoods. As the president 

of the D.C. PTA and the representative of its 6,000 members, I agree. However, we want to make 

that opportunity available to all children, not just a few the way a voucher program would. We 

could accomplish that goal by investing in public education and making sure that all schools are 

high quality. 

 Based on my work in the community, I can also tell you that public sentiment on vouchers 

in the district has not changed since 89 percent of us voted against them on a ballot referendum. To 

impose a voucher program on a school district that has so emphatically expressed its opposition 

completely contradicts the principle of local control of education. 

 Proponents nevertheless claim that vouchers are desperately needed to help children escape 

failing public schools. As a member of National PTA, I believe a quality public education should 

be available to all children, and families with children in schools needing improvement deserve 

solutions. However, the solution to failing schools should be programs that fix the problems facing 

public schools, not that encourage the abandonment of those schools. Vouchers do not improve 
16

public schools. Vouchers do not expand parents' educational options, either. 

Mr. Armey's proposal will provide no more than 1,600 vouchers worth $5,000 each year.

There are over 77,000 children enrolled in D.C. public schools. This program guarantees that most 

of them will be left behind. Why not implement reforms that benefit all children? And I want to 

add here that I am also a resident of a poor neighborhood. 

 This committee should also reject the Army proposal, because, like all voucher programs, it 

lacks accountability. H.R. 5033 purports to provide accountability by requiring that the program be 

evaluated according to comparative test scores, among other criteria. However, the bill does not 

require participating private schools to adopt academic standards such as those required of public 

schools, hire only highly qualified teachers or administer assessments identical to those required of 

students attending public schools in the district. 

 Voucher proponents claim that parents provide all the accountability that is needed. If 

schools fail to perform, parents can remove their children and reenroll them elsewhere. 

 There are several problems with this alleged solution. First, the threat to withdraw students 

and take vouchers elsewhere has not prevented fraud and mismanagement in existing voucher 

programs. 

 Second, the decision to remove a child from a school in their neighborhood is hard enough.

Parents should not be required to disrupt their children's lives a second time if schools receiving 

public funds fail to perform. 

 I heard Ms. Williams mention that she wanted to move her child so that she could better 

explore the world outside of her neighborhood schools. My solution to that was to keep my child 

in a public school, support the educational program of the schools that my children attended, take 

the dollars that my husband was earning, and invest it in extracurricular activities so that they 

would have an opportunity to participate in an interracial environment in outside activities, giving 

them exposure to both of the worlds, the low-income poor neighborhood, and the wealthy income 

and wealthy neighborhoods. And that worked out fantastically well for my children. 

 Third, this solution offers the taxpayers no recourse for the misuse of public funds. 

Voucher proponents nevertheless support this diversion of public funds to schools that are not 

publicly accountable, claiming that vouchers improve student achievement, not only for those who 

receive them, but also for those left behind through the alleged benefits of competition. 

 The balance of the research, however, does not support these claims. 

 In conclusion, adherence to the principle of local control of education requires this 

committee to reject vouchers for the District of Columbia. Vouchers would not improve public 

schools in D.C., where 90 percent of our children are enrolled. Vouchers do not expand parents' 

educational options. Vouchers undermine accountability. And vouchers have not been proven to 

improve student achievement. Parents have a lot to do with that. 
17

 The solution this committee can offer parents dissatisfied with their public schools is the 

support to improve those schools. And you heard Ms. Williams say her child is in a better school. 

 For example, if children are entering kindergarten unprepared, support early childhood 

education programs that are aligned with school readiness standards. If students need extra 

assistance to meet high academic standards, provide expanded learning opportunities. If parents 

need help improving their children's schools, support programs that promote and facilitate parent 

involvement. 

 We support investments in these and other research-tested, proven solutions. 

 Thank you for your commitment to our children, and for giving me the opportunity to 

address you. I would be happy to respond to any questions that the committee may have. 

STATEMENT OF LINDA MOODY, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CONGRESS OF 

PARENTS AND TEACHERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.—SEE APPENDIX D 

Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Ms. Moody. 

Mr. Mincberg. 

STATEMENT OF ELLIOT MINCBERG, VICE PRESIDENT AND LEGAL 

DIRECTOR, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Mincberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a privilege to be here again on behalf of People 

for the American Way, a citizen's organization with 500,000 members dedicated to protecting 

constitutional and civil rights, improving public education, and promoting civic participation. 

 Through the People for the American Way Foundation, we have worked with the NAACP 

on the Partners for Public Education Program that has worked to help improve education with 

thousands of residents of D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, many of the cities. I wish the 

committee could hear from these parents today, parents that will tell you that vouchers are the last 

things they want for their kids and for their public schools. 

 Speaking on behalf of them, I am here to tell the committee: Public school choice, through 

things like the No Child Left Behind Act, yes. Vouchers, absolutely no. Let me give you several 

reasons.

 First, referring specifically to Representative Armey's bill, it is simply wrong to impose 

vouchers on the District of Columbia. And here I will quote someone you won't expect me to 

quote, President Bush, who recently went to Cleveland after the Supreme Court approved the 

voucher program, and said this: "Washington shouldn't be telling Cleveland how to run its school 

system. It is up to you all to figure out how to run your school system. That is a local decision." 

No one in this Congress, after the Supreme Court approved it, would dream of commanding 

that Cleveland end its voucher program. By the same token, no one in this Congress should dream 
18

of forcing D.C. to have a voucher program when 89 percent of its residents, all of its elected 

officials, have opposed that program. 

 Second, not only in D.C. but also across the nation vouchers have lost in the court of public 

opinion. Twelve times there have been referenda between 1970 and 2000 on the subject of 

vouchers. Each time vouchers have lost by an average of 68 percent of the vote. 

 Just last election in 2000, California and Michigan saw vouchers overwhelmingly defeated. 

In fact, even those at whom vouchers were targeted rejected vouchers even more convincingly. 

African American voters in Michigan rejected vouchers by 77 percent. Detroit voters rejected 

vouchers by 82 percent. Hispanic voters in California rejected vouchers by 77 percent. 

 This Congress got that message last year and defeated voucher proposals. It should do the 

same this year. 

 Third, vouchers drain critical resources and effort from the public schools. Let me talk 

about Cleveland. Three times, three times the Ohio Supreme Court, no bastion of liberalism, has 

found that the state funding of education in Cleveland and throughout the state is so inadequate that 

it violates the state constitution. Yet none of that has been fixed in the City of Cleveland. Instead, 

$43 million has been drained out of disadvantaged people impacted for the voucher program even 

though four-fifths of the students in the voucher program never even attended the public schools of 

Cleveland.

 To give you one example, during the first year of the voucher program, the situation with 

public schools in Cleveland was so bad they had to eliminate all-day kindergarten. There were 

only two ways to get all-day kindergarten that year, if you were lucky enough to get into a magnet 

school or if you went into the voucher program. That wasn't free choice or fair choice. It is not a 

surprise people like Ms. Kitchen are dissatisfied with the Cleveland public schools. 

 But the answer is to fix the public schools and to give kids options within the public school 

system. The $45 million that Representative Armey's proposal would cost has to come from 

somewhere, and that $45 million could be much better spent on the D.C. public schools and other 

public school programs than draining it for purposes of voucher programs. 

 Fourth, vouchers offer choice for schools, not for parents. Private schools are by definition 

selective and, in fact, Representative Armey's proposal allows them to be quite selective. For 

example, there are only 11 private schools in D.C. that offer tuition of less than $5,000, so there 

would only be 11 schools that parents who couldn't afford more would be able even to apply to 

attend. But private schools can reject students under this plan because of their grades, because of 

disciplinary records. They can reject special education kids and reject kids based on religion and 

based on gender if they are a religious school that supports that. 

 Indeed, under the Armey bill, unlike Pell Grants, the aid is not considered aid to the 

students; so all of the civil rights protections that apply at the college level don't even apply under 

this proposal. Clearly, what this will do is provide choice for the schools but not afford meaningful 
19

choice for many, many parents. 

 Fifth, there is the serious problem of lack of accountability. Let me read you just one 

example from Cleveland. 

 One school that was in the voucher program operated for 2 years despite the fact that its 

110-year-old building had no fire alarm or sprinkler system was under a fire watch requiring staff 

to check for fires every 30 minutes. Lead-based paint, which can cause brain damage in kids, was 

found eight times greater than the level regarded as safe; and the school had to repay $70,000 in tax 

dollars for kids that in fact weren't even at the school at all. Those are just a few examples. 

 But finally, reforms in public schools do, in fact, work. Take D.C. There is an alleged 

finding in Representative Armey's bill that says that 72 percent of the kids in fourth grade are under 

fourth grade reading standards. That might have been true in 1998, but in 2001 the statistics show 

that over 76 percent of the kids are at or above grade level in fourth grade in the D.C. public 

schools. Reforms have worked successfully in the D.C. public schools and elsewhere. 

 Let us fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act so, where necessary, there can be choices 

for kids with respect to charter schools where more than 10 percent of D.C. kids go, with respect to 

better performing public schools. But vouchers are a bad option for this Congress, for D.C. and for 

America. 

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I presume my full written statement will be entered in the 

record.

STATEMENT OF ELLIOT MINCBERG, VICE PRESIDENT AND LEGAL DIRECTOR, 

PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY, WASHINGTON, D.C. – SEE APPENDIX E 

Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Mincberg. 

Mr. Kmiec. 

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS W. KMIEC, DEAN AND ST. THOMAS MORE 

PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF LAW, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF 

AMERICA, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. Kmiec. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. It is a privilege to address you 

this morning on this important topic. I also ask that my full statement be entered into the record. 

 In response to my colleague, Mr. Mincberg, I think it is important to understand that 

proponents of school choice and parental choice are not anti public schools, they are pro education, 

they are pro student and that the drive for additional choices is actually a drive that confesses that 

past efforts to throw money at problems haven't worked and that one sure recipe for improving the 
20

life of a student and their educational achievement is to create a public system of allocating public 

funds fairly and evenhandedly on the basis of a principle of nondiscrimination. 

 I have been asked primarily this morning to address the implications of the Supreme Court's 

recent opinion in Zelman, and so I will address most of my remarks to that. But I would be happy 

to further engage this colloquy to Mr. Mincberg, as well in your questioning, if that is the 

committee's desire. 

 I think we have in this country for the last 60 years suffered a double-barreled injury. Ms. 

Williams put her finger on it. School choice has always existed in this country for those who have 

the resources to buy a good home in a safe neighborhood or to pay private school tuition. 

 The aspect of that injury is compounded by the fact that school choice has been denied with 

regard to the allocation of public funds on the basis of a pretext, the pretext that it is necessary to 

have that denial to comply with the Constitution of the United States. The significant development 

in the Zelman case decided a few weeks ago by the Supreme Court now, after a tortuous 60-year 

history, makes it plain that that was a pretext based upon a misconstruction. 

 Beginning in the 1940s, the very important precept within the constitution of religious 

freedom became an excuse for religious exclusion. Just as it is no more acceptable to exclude 

religious believers from public universities, it should have never been acceptable to exclude 

religious parents and their children from the general funding for education. Yet the guarantee of no 

establishment became a wall of separation, a metaphor that was misconstrued time again and that 

was used to denigrate religious schools as pervasively sectarian institutions as if they were an evil 

to be avoided. 

 Oh, yes, in that period of time there were some modest supports given. There were a few 

morsels of public assistance gratefully received, some aspects of transportation, some computers, 

some basic assistance in terms of textbooks, but it was not until the 1980s and 1990s that the 

jurisprudence started to return to its original base and its original understanding. That 

understanding was and must always be that parents direct the education of their children, that they 

have a constitutional right to do so, and that when they choose to designate their fair share of the 

education fund to a private school, be it a private nonreligious school or a private religious one, 

there is no possible establishment of religion nor endorsement of religion that can be perceived 

there from. 

 The legislative design for a constitutionally acceptable voucher program is now clear from 

the decision in Zelman. So long as legislators draft a program that is available to all parents, public 

and private, that is not biased or skewed in favor of religious believers and so long as those who 

participate exercise their judgment as a matter, in the words of the Supreme Court, true, private 

choice, there is no federal constitutional violation. 

 It no longer matters as a constitutional question, nor should it have ever mattered, whether 

the assistance is tuition or computers, whether the overwhelming number of parents chooses a 

religious option rather than a public option, both of which may be acceptable in a given case. 
21

 I have five children. They have been in public schools. They have been in private schools.

Different children respond to different incentives in different places. 

 No longer does it matter as a constitutional question whether the amounts are substantial, 

but there is danger on the horizon. This question that took so long to settle at the federal level is 

now being unsettled at the state level. Provisions that were written into state constitutions as an 

outgrowth of late 19th century bigotry against Jews, Catholics and other immigrants to this country 

are now purported to be used to block the sound constitutional result that our Supreme Court has 

achieved.

 This body has a special obligation and responsibility with regard to civil rights. You know 

that, and I need not remind you of that. The most precious civil right is the right of religious 

freedom. The legislation you have before you with regard to the D.C. schools is an act of 

constitutional leadership. I urge you to go beyond that. I urge you as well to allocate public 

moneys to other states on the condition that they not discriminate on the basis of religion. It is 

entirely appropriate, entirely consistent with principles of federalism, and I do suggest it vindicates 

your role as constitutional leaders in our republic. 

 Thank you very much. 

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS W. KMIEC, DEAN AND ST. THOMAS MORE PROFESSOR, 

SCHOOL OF LAW, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, D.C. – 

SEE APPENDIX F 

Chairman Boehner. Thank you very much. 

 Ms. Kitchen. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERTA KITCHEN, PARENT, CLEVELAND, OHIO 

Ms. Kitchen. To the chairman and committee, good morning and thank you for inviting me. My 

name is Roberta Kitchen, and I am a parent from the Cleveland School District, Cleveland, Ohio. 

 A little over 18 years ago I made a choice. I chose to come in and take three children, to 

rescue them from a life of drugs and prostitution and all of the vices that are so prevalent in our 

community because of what their mother was involved in. I made that choice because I wanted to 

give them a chance to break the cycle of the welfare roll, of depending on a check, drugs, standing 

on a corner. I wanted to see three children survive. So I made that choice to be a parent, and I took 

that very seriously, and I still do. 

 Seven years later, two more children were born to this young woman; and I took them, too. 

And I made the same commitment to those two that I had made to the earlier three. I wanted to 

provide for them a chance to become the best that they could be, to be able to compete and stand 
22

next to anyone and be just as successful as anyone else. 

 I knew that one of the most important things for them was that they get educated. So I set 

out and sent them to preschools and enrichment centers, getting them ready for their educational 

journey. Then it was time for my first three to go into the public school; and I sent to the public 

school three very, very energetic, excited young people waiting to drain all that they could from 

their teachers. And I tell you not long after they were in that school system, what returned to me 

were three little apathetic, lethargic children who didn't want to read and they loved to read. They 

didn't want to talk. They didn't want to go to school. I suppose one of the most disconcerting 

things was that they weren't really learning anything. 

 It became apparent to me that, in order for me to accomplish what I had chosen to do in 

their lives, I needed to remove them. But I am a single parent who became a mother of five almost 

overnight, and my job didn't compensate me as my children increased. So I could not afford the 

schools that I would have chosen for my children that would have helped them so much become 

what they needed to be, to be the best they could be. I couldn't afford that. 

 I can't tell you the number of years I was totally frustrated, despairing, because my children 

were failing. Bright children were failing in a system that indeed was failing. I had a sixth-grade 

daughter who could not read. 

 I have heard Ms. Moody speak about support. I want you to know that every time that there 

was a PTA, every time that there was a workshop, I was there. Every time there was anything that 

involved the parent, because I took my job very seriously, I was there. But you know what? I 

could not help a failing system. I don't know what can. But I can help my children, and that is 

what I chose to do. 

 I had a sixth-grade daughter, who could not read, and I went to the school in my 

neighborhood that she attended, and I asked that teacher to hold her back because I did not want her 

to go to junior high school and senior high school and fail. I was told by the teacher that, “Ms. 

Kitchen, I can't do that because we have a quota here, and I have already failed the number that I 

can fail. Compared to the others, your daughter is making leaps and bounds.” 

 My daughter was failing. My daughter could not read, and there is nothing that anyone can 

accomplish if they cannot read. 

 I began then to go from school to school. I literally became a beggar. That is how 

important it was for my children to have a chance. I went from school to school asking if they 

would allow us to come. But I didn't have the money that they required. So I volunteered to do 

anything. I will make copies of papers for you. I will do whatever you need me to do. Please 

accept my children. I must remove them out of this situation. 

 The straw that broke the camel's back was when my daughter in this sixth grade that was 

infested with drugs and the gang leader was in her sixth grade class told her that he would rape her.

I want you to know that every day I took my lunch at 3 o'clock so that I could come home and park 
23

outside my daughter's school so that I could get her so she would not be raped. 

 Now I don't know what the school situations are here, but I don't think you would have 

wanted to have to be afraid that maybe traffic would have stopped you from getting there in time 

for him to carry forward on his threat. These and horrendous things were going on in the 

Cleveland public schools. There are people who today say to me that I should wait, I should give 

this school a chance; and I believe that there have been improvements. But I don't have time to 

wait for the school system to get itself together. 

 There were schools out there that accepted us, and it happened to be a Christian school.

They took my three children, and they gave me a program where I could pay. I never paid on time 

because I didn't make enough. I am in debt up to my neck. But I made a commitment over 18 

years ago that I would give these children the best opportunities that I could so that they would 

have a chance. 

 When the voucher program came out, my three children were already in other schools; and I 

was struggling. Two daughters received those vouchers. That helped me as far as my cash flow, if 

you will, to be able now to pay more money and more on time to the three schools that did not 

receive the vouchers. 

 I send my children to a Lutheran school. I am not Lutheran, and I did not send them to 

become Lutherans. But I sent them to this school because I went and found out that academically 

they were good schools, and I sent them because they taught things like right and wrong. They 

were able to say things to my children that I said to them at home. They taught character. 

 It was important that my children be put in a setting where they could learn what was right 

and how to live and how to touch and move in and out of this society. I don't want my children 

only to receive the benefits of becoming the best that they can be. 

 I appeal to you to consider other children in the City of Cleveland. If we must move 

forward as a nation, we have got to do that together; and we can't do it if we cannot read. Our 

children need a chance. We don't have a chance if we cannot read and write and not able to stand 

up and say what we want to do. 

 I want my children one day to sit in these places where you sit. You had an opportunity. 

Somehow you survived. I don't know if any of you went to public schools, but you had an 

opportunity. I want my children to have that opportunity. 

 I am not sure if I addressed what I should have here, but the most important thing to me is 

that children have a chance. They need a chance and whatever I need to do. I understand that my 

picture and interviews and things that I have said are all over this country. I take no pride in that.

But I do take pride in, hopefully, that following that picture there is something being said that I am 

standing for the children. That is why I am here. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERTA KITCHEN, PARENT, CLEVELAND, OHIO – SEE APPENDIX G
24

Chairman Boehner. Ms. Kitchen, we appreciate you coming and all the witnesses who have 

taken time to talk to us about this important issue. 

Chairman Boehner. As I said in my opening statement, we spent all of last year, all of the 

members of this committee, working diligently and working together in a bipartisan way to pass the 

No Child Left Behind bill. It was signed into law in January, and our goal clearly is to make sure 

all public schools improve. 

 It was important as we went through that process to make sure that there was a safety valve 

for schools that wouldn't change, couldn't change. There had to be some safety valve so, at the end 

of the day, every child would have a chance at a good education. 

 Now we had this long debate during last year about saving the system and saving every 

child; and I think where I would like to start with Mr. Mincberg. How can you explain to Ms. 

Kitchen why she shouldn't be afforded the opportunity to save her children when the schools, in 

fact, are failing her children? 

Mr. Mincberg. Parents, Mr. Chairman, should do what he or she needs to do for their children. 

But what this Congress did last year, as you just said, was to provide a safety valve that says that if 

Ms. Kitchen had her kids in a failing public school today, a school that, I think it is 3 years, has not 

been able to demonstrate progress, she can get her schools out of that school today and doesn't have 

to go begging, borrowing and finding a school that maybe doesn't meet her religious convictions, 

but in fact can go to a better-performing public school and provide that safety valve. 

 What I would say, Mr. Chairman is, number one, this Congress should fully fund the No 

Child Left Behind Act. Mr. Miller and others have pointed out that the budget this year would not 

do that, and that is a serious problem. 

 Number two, give that safety valve an opportunity to work rather than going with 

experiments that, frankly, have not been proven to be successful. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Mincberg, I appreciate that. We get into a classic debate about whether 

we are saving the system or whether we are going to save the children; and while we are all for 

improving the system, in the meantime and thereafter, where you have got serious problems in 

some areas, tell me what specifically is wrong with helping a young lady like Ms. Kitchen who is 

deeply interested in taking care of her kids. 

Mr. Mincberg. There is nothing wrong with helping, but the question is how to help. With the No 

Child Left Behind Act you provide an option to transfer immediately if you have a failing school 

for 3 years to a better-performing public school with all of the accountability, with all the civil 

rights protections that that has. We have no objection to that, and we think it is a very good idea. 

 But vouchers in our view don't help, because the vast majority of parents will find out it is 

the schools, not them, that will do the choosing. They will find out that the private schools will not 
25

be accountable the way this Congress has mandated the public schools have to be accountable. 

Chairman Boehner. Mr. Kmiec, how do you feel about the answer that Mr. Mincberg provided? 

Mr. Kmiec. I know each of my five children by name. I know each of us here know their children 

by name. Each of them knows their history, their prospects. Which one of us at this table is going 

to say, well, it is okay for the first three to go through a failing system, and we will bump around to 

the next public school system and hope for something better because, after 3 years of wasting their 

life and their educational potential, we can try and get an escape. 

Mr. Chairman, I think the answer has to be that you design the best public system you can 

focused on the child; and I think Ms. Kitchen has given you ample evidence for the proposition that 

that is a system that is built around the maximization of choice. 

 We have had years and years of trying to build in testing requirements for public schools to 

no avail. We have expanded budgets. We have increased per capita spending. And yet we know 

that in the District of Columbia and throughout this United States, especially in urban and 

disadvantaged areas, the public school systems, yes, as Mr. Mincberg has confirmed, are failing. 

There is, therefore, no reason not to maximize a system of true private choice that has now been 

declared, as I said originally, perfectly constitutional under our constitutional system. 

Chairman Boehner. Since you said something that I think Mr. Mincberg probably took exception 

with, I will give him an opportunity to respond. 

Mr. Mincberg. One specific thing, as I understand the law, you don't have to have your child in a 

school for 3 years, the school has to have been failing for 3 years. If you enroll your child in 

kindergarten in a failing school and that school has not had a good performance record, you can 

take your child out of that school immediately. So it is not a question of waiting a long period of 

time. It is a question of doing the best thing to make sure that no child is left behind; and, 

unfortunately, vouchers leave many behind. 

Chairman Boehner. My time has expired. 

 The chair recognizes the gentle lady from California, Ms. Woolsey. 

Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 I want to congratulate all of you parents what lucky kids you have in your lives because you 

care so much about them. Not all children are that fortunate, and we know that. 

 We also know that we passed leave no child behind legislation. It came out of this 

committee in a bipartisan way, Mr. Chairman, and, guess what, we didn't fund it. So indeed what 

we are faced with is trying to make American schools the best in the world, but we are not funding 

it.
26

 So what I would like to suggest is the answer is not to cherry pick a few children whose 

parents care enough about them to get on their knees and beg like you did, Ms. Kitchen, virtually 

symbolically, to get your kids taken care of; put them in schools that you can't afford like you did, I 

think, Ms. Williams, a school that your kid didn't get to go to France with the rest of the children. 

What we want is a school system that cares about our children, cares about the facilities, cares 

about the educators and says that education is valued in this nation. Now, until we do that, we can 

pick a handful of children, put them in private schools and pay for it and leave everybody else 

behind.

 So my question to you would be, particularly to you, Mr. Kmiec, what happens to the child 

that has a special need? What happens to the child that has a reading disorder? 

 I mean I happen to know a friend of mine's grandchild in Washington State whose great 

granddaughter has a learning disability. She goes to a Catholic school, and guess where they send 

her to meet her reading needs? They send her to the public school. 

 What is going to happen to these kids or only the good kids going to these private schools? 

Mr. Kmiec. It is a good question, and I appreciate the opportunity to answer it. 

 I served on a local public school board in southern California, so I have some experience 

with how well public schools address the needs of special education children, and it varies from 

public school to public school. Some are addressing them quite well; others are merely ensnared in 

bureaucratic paperwork pretending to address their special needs. I don't think it is at all true that 

private schools that have participated in voucher programs are leaving people behind. In fact, these 

private schools, by and large, are the ones that have stayed to stabilize neighborhoods, to hold out 

their services at a time when others have moved their households and their businesses to suburban 

areas and basically shut the door. 

Ms. Woolsey. Let us hear what Ms. Moody has to say about that question. 

Ms. Moody. What I want to say is that there is a deep-rooted problem to educating children; and it 

goes beyond congressional action to submit vouchers, to grant vouchers. I heard Ms. Kitchen say 

that her child was in the sixth grade and could not read. We have a way of knowing before a child 

reaches sixth grade that he cannot read. I know in 6 weeks after school starts or 9 weeks the status 

of that child's success. When I get that information and if I am monitoring that information all 

along I know before they send me the report card. So I have the option to request or talk to the 

teacher to see how I can help to improve that child's education. 

 Now we have parents who are not capable of participating in their child's education because 

of some of their personal circumstances. That is where Ms. Kitchen came in, which was 

outstanding, and that is where I come in with all the children I help. I had a sixth-grade child who 

came to me who could not read. The first thing I did is I sat down with her with a reading program 

and taught her how to read. Then I talked to the English teacher to explain to her what I was doing 

at home with this child, and the English teacher took a better interest in that child and became the 
27

child's tutor. 

 When we start talking about what we want to do for children and for parents, we need to 

understand what the deep-rooted problem is that is causing our children not to succeed. In many 

instances, it is because of nonallocation of the appropriate funding to staff and to fund a school 

based upon the needs of that particular community. 

 You can give money to the whole school district or to a few parents to educate their 

children, but there are going to be some parents that cannot reach out like Ms. Kitchen did and say 

I need my child in another environment. In the District of Colombia we have offered choice for 

over 20 years. We still offer choice to our children. They can apply to go from school to school, 

elementary, middle school, junior high, and senior high school, whatever school they want. 

Mr. Armey mentioned earlier that he supports making public schools better and the way to make 

those schools better is not to issue vouchers to 1,600 children. We have 90 percent of our children 

who go to public schools; and, as a part of that process, most of them come from low-income 

communities. I live in a low-income community. Many of our parents transport their children 

across town, two or three, to the schools. 

 My thing is, stay in the neighborhood school and fight for every child's right on education 

to be better, and you will see those changes occur. When the test scores were presented to the D.C. 

Public schools this particular year, there were major increases in those test scores. We anticipate 

that there will be additional test scores, and we need the Congress to stop comparing the District of 

Columbia, quote, and unquote, to what is happening statistically unless they are using current data.

Because everything changes on a regular basis, and we will be able to prove to you that we have 

made drastic strides in the education of children in D.C. public schools. 

 I can go on and on and talk to you about my personal feelings concerning what needs to 

happen because I have been in the system for 35 years; and I have been on that public board of 

education, also. So I know it from the inside and the outside. 

Mr. Isakson. [Presiding.] Thank you, Ms. Moody. 

 I would ask the panelists on their questions to be as specific but relatively brief as we can so 

we can get to multiple questions for the gentle lady from California and others. 

 The chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Tancredo. 

Mr. Tancredo. It is also in a way disheartening to listen to the discussion on the issue of school 

choice and to listen to people, supporters of the public school system characterizing this particular 

debate in a way that would lead us to believe that if, in fact, every parent that presently had a child 

in the public school, if they were given the key to the door to unlock it and get out, everyone would 

do it. I mean, that is the impression that is given by your testimony, because you have such fear of 

allowing that key to be handed out. 
28

 I would suggest, and have often, that just as Mrs. Moody who has experienced success in 

the public school system, that there are, I am sure, thousands and thousands of people who have 

that same impression of their public schools, even in D.C. and would be happy and would stay 

there. And, of course, there is nothing to suggest, nothing inherent in the concept of school choice 

or vouchers, nothing that suggests that they should leave or have to leave. They would continue to 

have their children in that public school. 

 To hear people talk about this in a way that suggests that if we give them the choice, if we 

just give people the key, they will all run for the door, if that is true, it tells us something about the 

nature of the system, if it is true. If it is true, we have to actually see that. 

 Now I don't think it is, either. I think that, in fact, there will be plenty of people who will be 

happy to stay. But for those who are not happy to stay, why is it so hard, I wonder, for us to 

comprehend their needs, their desires and try to address them. 

 The idea that I have heard expressed over and over again from the panel, from those 

opposing school choice is that we are cherry-picking, that we are only giving a few people this 

opportunity and leaving the rest behind. Does that mean that you would support a universal 

voucher for every single child in the public school system? Is that how I should interpret your 

comments? If we did that, if we made it available to every student, that would be fine. But we are 

only doing it for 1,600, and that is the problem. That is what I heard you say over and over again. 

 I wonder, Ms. Williams, what do you say to the other members of the panel that suggest 

that you are doing something very negative and your desires are very harmful to the public school 

system, that you, in a desire to get your child into a private school, that you are actually destroying 

the public school system? What do you say to somebody like that? 

Ms. Williams. I don't care. You wanted me to keep it short. He wanted me to keep it short. 

Mr. Tancredo. It is a candid answer. I mean, you do have a concern about your child and you 

know you can't perhaps overcome the problems that confront the public schools; and I can certainly 

understand and appreciate your desire to do everything you can for your child. 

 But I would ask, I guess, any other member of the panel there to address the issue for the 

time we have left. Just in terms of that one point of I would like to know, those of you who oppose 

this concept, why is it so hard to allow someone else to have that choice even if you personally 

choose not to elect to send your child to a private school? Why is it so hard to allow Ms. Williams 

that particular opportunity? 

Mr. Mincberg. The question is not whether she should have that opportunity. But the question is 

whether the public should pay for that opportunity or whether the public funds should be spent 

instead of public school choice. 

Mr. Tancredo. I am reclaiming my time. Why do you care whether or not it is a publicly funded 

if it is a dollar coming from a taxpayer that goes to Ms. Williams to achieve that educational goal 
29

or a dollar that comes from a taxpayer that goes to Ms. Moody for that same purpose. 

Mr. Mincberg. The evidence shows, Congressman, when the money goes into voucher programs 

there are not significant educational programs. 

Mr. Tancredo. That is absolutely not true. There are statistics that will show just the opposite that 

education improves and parent participation improves. 

Mr. Mincberg. I would be happy to give you the statistics. 

Mr. Tancredo. How about Harvard University? 

Mr. Mincberg. The money is drained from public school systems that need it badly, and the 

choice ends up being made by the private schools and not by the parents. 

Ms. Moody. May I respond, also? 

Mr. Isakson. The gentleman's time has expired. 

 The chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott. 

Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony. 

 Many studies have shown that those who get vouchers would have gone to private school 

anyway, and therefore all the money you spend covering them is money that is coming out of the 

system that doesn't do anybody presently in public school any good at all. 

 Does anybody know how many people in Washington, D.C., who go to private schools, 

would qualify for a grant? Anybody know? 

 Let me ask another question. Mrs. Kitchen, if this bill passes, what are the odds that your 

child might actually get a voucher? 

Ms. Kitchen. What bill are you speaking of? 

Mr. Scott. Regarding the D.C. voucher bill, Mrs. Williams, if the bill passes, what are the chances 

of your child actually getting a voucher? 

Ms. Williams. I would say pretty high for me, because I know myself. I know I would go and I 

would get it. I am not the type that is going to sit. 

Mr. Scott. As I understand it, there are 1,600 out of the 77,000 people in the school system, that is 

about 2 percent, will get vouchers. Fifty-to-one odds against you getting a voucher, is that not 

right?
30

Ms. Williams. Yes. I made a deal with God. If he gives it to me, I will be nicer to people. I think 

we have an understanding. 

Mr. Scott. Ms. Moody, this will take care of about 2 percent of the students, one out 50. What is 

going to happen to the other 49? 

Ms. Moody. That is our major concern in that we don't know what will happen to the other 49, 

other than they will remain in D.C. public schools. 

Mr. Scott. If this bill passes, what will happen to the political support for getting more money into 

public schools or will the political support be for more vouchers for more people? 

Ms. Moody. They will take money from the D.C. public school budget. Right now, it is an 

allocation per pupil cost; and what will happen they will decrease the budget because we don't have 

the students in the school anymore that need the money to go to the D.C. public schools. 

Mr. Scott. That is assuming people actually leave public school to go to private school because of 

the voucher, not just the money going to those already there. 

Ms. Moody. That is correct, but I assume that most of them will be people who are already there. 

Mr. Scott. Mr. Mincberg, there is a provision in here that says the grant shall not be considered 

state aid to the institution, that scholarship under this action not be considered assistance to a 

student and shall not be considered assistance to an eligible institution. What does that do to a 

student's rights under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act? 

Mr. Mincberg. It eliminates them, Congressman, and eliminates in fact a student's right under a 

whole panoply of laws like title VI, title IX, et cetera, which do apply, I should point out, at the 

college level. If you have a Pell Grant, which is the analogy that the people are using for this 

legislation, and you use it in an institution, that institution has to comply with federal civil rights, 

IDEA and other related laws. This bill would exempt all the voucher schools from all of those 

requirements. 

Mr. Scott. Just by inserting this language, not school aid, is there any purpose to that language 

other than to exempt the schools from civil rights laws? 

Mr. Mincberg. None that I can see, Congressman. We might want to try to argue whether that 

provision alone does it, but certainly this bill is attempting to exempt them from all such laws. 

Mr. Scott. Civil rights enforcement, obviously, there are certain anti-discrimination laws. If you 

are exempted from title VI does that mean the government can't on its own enforce civil rights law? 

Mr. Mincberg. That would be part of the problem. There is a provision in the bill that purports to 

prohibit, for example, racial discrimination, which title VI covers, but there is no enforcement 

mechanism in the bill. Under title VI there is an enforcement mechanism, both private litigation 
31

and action by the government to make sure that people's civil rights are protected. 

Mr. Scott. This language would exempt the institution from that enforcement provision. 

Mr. Mincberg. That is my understanding of its intent. 

Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is just about up. 

 I just would like to point out it is curious that 89 percent of those in D.C. voted no on the 

voucher program when they had an opportunity to express themselves. It seems to me we would 

impose this system on a city that has no voting representation in Congress when we would not 

impose it on people who do have voting representation in Congress. 

 I yield back. 

Mr. Tancredo. [Presiding.] Mr. Tiberi. 

Mr. Tiberi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Williams and Ms. Kitchen, thank you for your testimony today. You made your 

children proud. 

Ms. Moody, Mr. Mincberg, I know I am not going to convince you on your position today, 

but, Mr. Mincberg, I will take issue with your testimony. 

 I am a proud product of the second largest public school system in the state of Ohio, the 

Columbus public schools. We have great schools in Columbus. I was in the legislature when the 

Cleveland scholarship program was passed, and I had an open mind when that was introduced. I 

am the first person in my family to graduate from high school. My parents believed that education 

is the great equalizer in America. I was fortunate. 

 In the middle 1990s, we had bus loads of parents from Cleveland come to the legislature, a 

two-and-a-half hour drive to the state house. They didn't have a lobbyist or a political action 

committee. These were parents from the Cleveland public schools who came with hope in their 

eyes and a heavy heart to try to convince the legislature to give their children an opportunity. It 

was unbelievable. 

 Let us talk about the politics of this. You talk about ballot issues in state after state. You 

talk about the legislature in the state of Ohio. You talk about the Supreme Court. The reality is 

what you didn't talk about on the ballot issues, the Supreme Court or anywhere else, is how much 

money is spent against these initiatives and how much money is spent for these initiatives. 

 These parents who came down didn't have any organized effort on their behalf. They were 

just poor parents who were coming down for hope. 
32

 The Supreme Court in several five-four decisions ruled the way you said they ruled. But 

those five justices, there is a whole story behind those five justices and the four justices, so let us 

put that in context as well. 

 You said there was a mandate. There is no mandate. There is no mandate in Cleveland. It 

was a choice that parents were given in Cleveland. They could opt to choose if, one condition, they 

met the financial guidelines. I wouldn't have qualified. You wouldn't have qualified. But if you 

were a poor mom or a poor dad you qualified to apply. That was the only mandate, a drain. 

 Let me tell you about the drain in Cleveland that is rarely talked about. Cleveland is one of 

the state of Ohio's school systems that spends the most money per child and have one of the lowest 

test scores. A public school system where the former Democrat African American mayor urged us 

in the legislature to allow him to take over the Cleveland public schools because they were 

bankrupt and in disarray. Not a very popular thing for him to do, but he came down with many 

ministers and many parents urging that. 

 In Cleveland, if a parent was lucky enough to get a scholarship after we passed that bill by 

one vote and take their child out of that school, they took the state portion of the funding of their 

child with them. They left that classroom. What remained in that classroom wasn't that child but 

was the local funding. So, actually, in that classroom, more money stayed; and that is a fact. Less 

money went with the child; and that is a fact. 

 Public school choice, the panacea, in Ohio, Mr. Mincberg, we have had public school 

choice for many years. And guess what happens in Columbus? Guess what happens in Cleveland? 

The suburban school systems don't offer the opportunity for the kids in Columbus and Cleveland to 

go to their schools. So, in essence, you don't have public school choice. Doesn't exist. It is on the 

books. It is the law. But, in reality, there is no public school choice. 

 Let me tell you what happened, final comment, Mr. Chairman, in Columbus this last week. 

My home school system that I am a proud graduate of, they have 140 elementary schools in 

Columbus; and under this safety valve of No Child Left Behind, 70 of those elementary schools 

last week were announced to have failed where parents are now going to have the opportunity to 

choose to go to another elementary school. Well, guess what, they announced that there is not 

enough room at the 70 other elementary schools in Columbus, and there is probably no opportunity 

at the suburban schools. 

 So the theory is great, Mr. Mincberg, but the reality is something entirely different. 

Mr. Tancredo. Gentleman's time has expired. 

 Gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Holt. 

Mr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 I think we would all agree that the best long-term solution would be when we had a school 

system in every city and every town that was so good that parents wouldn't feel the need to shop 
33

around. But we are talking, as I hear the witnesses say, about the short-term needs, the immediate 

needs of the students. We want to look after the students who are in failing schools right now. 

 And I don't doubt that there are failing schools out there. I don't doubt that there are 

dangerous schools out there. But, really, what are the choices? 

 I guess I would like to look at some of the numbers. Maybe, Ms. Moody, you have some of 

these figures. I don't know. How many students in the D.C. public schools? 

Ms. Moody. Approximately 77,000, which includes our charter schools. 

Mr. Holt. How many of those are in charter schools? 

Ms. Moody. About 14,000. 

Mr. Holt. How many private schools? 

Ms. Moody. 496. 

Mr. Holt. How many private schools? 

Ms. Moody. I think it is about 496, is what I quoted in my testimony. 

Mr. Holt. How many slots might possibly exist in the next few years in these private schools? 

Ms. Moody. I cannot answer that question. 

Mr. Holt. Does any of the panelists have any suggestion of how many slots might possibly exist in 

the D.C. public schools if this went forward for students to transfer from, putting aside the question 

of Mr. Scott of how many students already in the private schools might get vouchers. 

Mr. Mincberg. One piece of information I have is that there are there are only 11 of those schools 

that have tuitions of $5,000 or under. So that alone would suggest a pretty small number. 

Mr. Holt. Mr. Kmiec, let me ask, if this went forward, when would you consider the program a 

success? Would it be when 5 percent of the students have moved out of public schools into private 

schools or 50 percent or 100 percent? When is it considered a success? 

Mr. Kmiec. I think it is a success, Congressman, the moment you give parents the opportunity to 

make the fundamental decisions about the direction of their own children's lives. 

Mr. Holt. So if two or three students move out of a failing school into a private school and the 

other 77_76,997 students are left behind in those failing schools, it would be a success. 

Mr. Kmiec. That is the challenge left to this body and to every local education body. No one is 

going to be satisfied with a program that only has a narrow range of opportunity, yet no one is 
34

satisfied with the existing status quo. 

Mr. Holt. Is it choice that we are after or success for our students that we are after? 

Mr. Kmiec. The two are interrelated. 

Mr. Holt. If there is choice available, maybe 3,300 or 3,000 students are able to take advantage of 

that choice that the other 74,000 are not, not enough slots, not enough money, the parents are 

disengaged, then it would be a success because there is choice. 

Mr. Kmiec. Well, what we know happened in Ohio is that an opportunity was given for the public 

school system to maximize choice for the suburban public schools to participate, and they did not.

So it wasn't a question of leaving children behind, Congressman. It was a question of slamming the 

door in their face. 

Mr. Holt. What you want then is for all 77,000 leave the public schools in D.C.? Is that what you 

are suggesting? 

Mr. Kmiec. No. I think the sovereignty over a child is in a parent. It has been acknowledged 

under our legal system that that is where it belongs. It has been acknowledged by sociologists that 

that is where it will most successfully educate. When that is exercised as completely as it can by a 

legislature that facilitates it, that is the day we will have achieved or begun to have achieved 

success, in my judgment. 

Mr. Holt. I know every parent wants for his or her child for them to have a productive job, maybe 

summer job, maybe a good job out of college. So we should use taxpayer dollars to make that 

happen, is that what you are suggesting? 

Mr. Mincberg. You are already doing that, to some degree. I think every parent wants a life well 

lived for themselves and their children. Part of a life well lived is a life of responsibility and a 

decent education in a safe place. All that choice advocates ask for is don't be afraid of the parents. 

Stop being afraid of families and family instruction. 

Mr. Holt. I can understand that. I want to make sure that we are not deceiving the parents of 

77,000 students about what choice they would really have under this program. Thank you. 

Mr. Tancredo. Gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Schaffer? 

Mr. Schaffer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 I have a bunch of questions I want to get answered, but I was sidetracked by the gentleman's 

comments, and I just offer some of my own insight on this particular question. 

 I started charter schools six years ago, not single-handedly but with a bunch of parents in 

Fort Collins, Colorado. We had similar debates in the community that if you allow just a handful 

of kids, about 700 at this point, to have school choice, what about the other thousands of kids who 
35

won't be able to go to that school when the seats are all full and why should we set up a system that 

would only benefit those that would be lucky enough to get in the door? 

 That argument is nuts and, frankly, shortsighted because what happens in Fort Collins is 

what happens anywhere school choice exists, and that is what we hope to achieve by way of school 

reform which when it actually happens and the entire system improves. A market approach to 

education, even if it is just a small step in the right direction, benefits education in general, which is 

what we are all about and what we are hoping to achieve I think in the end, even though all don't 

agree on the particular methodologies and the goal of everyone on the panel and on the committee 

here as well. 

You know, our test scores at that charter school started climbing through the roof on 

mathematics. And so we had about 1,000 families on our waiting list that wanted to get in. And so 

every elementary school principal in Fort Collins realized that they had about $200,000 worth of 

bodies in their classrooms whose parents wanted them to go somewhere else, and so the principals 

actually got competitive about it. They started marketing their schools and trying to come up with 

areas of expertise where they specialize. One school, the school in my neighborhood that I took 

my kids out of and put in the charter school, they produced a brochure, started handing it out in the 

neighborhood trying to talk about what they were going to start doing better than anyone else. 

 Some of the principals came over to the school. They said, you know, what are you 

teaching your kids in math? We want to know how you get the test scores up. And we said, well, 

we have a different curriculum than you use in the regular schools, and we will show you 

everything you want to know about it. You can come to a seminar we are holding on it. 

 And so some of the principals showed up. And we use a Singapore math program because 

Singapore, the country, has the highest math scores in the world. And so we want to do what they 

do, and researched it. It wasn't quite that easy, but researched it and trained our teachers on it. And 

so we use Singapore math. And now about a third of the schools in my community are using 

Singapore math, because of the score, they had choice, was the only one that had the guts and the 

courage to try something different. It wouldn't happen otherwise. Our kids started reading better, 

too.

 And so, sure enough, those principals that had $200,000 worth of children on the waiting 

list at our school came over and asked, how do you teach them to read over at your place? And so 

we helped them and taught them, and so some other schools in our district are starting to use the 

reading program that we use at our school. 

So the notion that only the kids who go to Liberty Common Charter School are the ones 

who benefited is just unfounded. The reality is that every school in my school district has 

improved dramatically because of the introduction of one school of choice. 

 So a scholarship program that provides additional money on top of what your schools are 

already receiving, Ms. Moody, and going to receive, the increases in the future, this is new money 

we are talking about, offers a new opportunity for a variety of children in the D.C. area so that they 
36

can select the kind of schools that make the most sense of them. 

Ms. Williams, I read your testimony. I am sorry I didn't hear it personally, but I read 

through it while I was sitting here. You chose to go to a different school because the school that 

the government told you that you must send your kids to was basically still segregated and that is 

something you don't want, and so you pulled your kids out and left. Am I characterizing that 

correctly? 

Ms. Williams. Correct. 

Mr. Schaffer. Mr. Mincberg, in his testimony, said: Voucher schools in Cleveland are bad 

because there are some of them, one of them was in a voucher program, operated 2 years, despite 

the fact it was in a 110-year-old building, had no fire alarm, sprinkler system, and was under a fire 

watch. Lead-based paint, which can cause brain damage in children, was found in a school at a 

level eight times greater than generally allowed. 

 Let me ask you, Ms. Williams, which is worse, lead-based paint on the walls or segregated 

school? . 

Ms. Williams. Come on. 

Mr. Schaffer. Let me refer to your testimony again, a school that is still basically segregated.

Which is worse, in your opinion? 

Ms. Williams. Segregation. 

Mr. Schaffer. I am sorry? 

Ms. Williams. The desegregated school. 

Mr. Schaffer. The segregated school? 

Mr. Tancredo. The gentleman's time has expired. 

Mr. Schaffer. Let me. 

Mr. Tancredo. The gentleman's time has expired. 

Mr. Schaffer. Well, I didn’t get anywhere. 

Mr. Tancredo. Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 This committee historically has not been rigid or unbending on this issue. Nonpublic 

schools do qualify for the school lunch program. I can recall after Ronald Reagan put a tuition cap 
37

on that program, we removed it. When the Felton decision was changed, we went back and took 

the kids out of the trailers and let them go back into the school buildings with public school 

teachers in nonpublic school buildings. We do provide equipment, books, and computers under 

Title VI. It was my amendment that made permanent the status of the Office of Nonpublic Schools 

within the Department of Education. So we have not been rigid or unbending. 

 My question, I guess, would be, Mr. Mincberg, do you have concerns with what the 

committee has done historically through the years? 

 And, Mr. Kmiec, do you feel this has not gone far enough? 

 So, Mr. Mincberg first, and then Mr. Kmiec. 

Mr. Mincberg. We have not objected to the steps that you have taken so far, Congressman, which 

I think demonstrates that we are not against private schools, as many people charge. I think our 

concern, however, is that when we are dealing with public schools, they are the ones that are, after 

all, supported by the public. They are the ones that need the taxpayers' support. And we don't want 

to take money that is supposed to be going for those kids and drain it off, particularly in a situation, 

and this is what concerns me about the so-called extra $45 million that has been talked about with 

Mr. Armey's bill, particularly in a situation where the president's budget doesn't fully fund the No 

Child Left Behind Act, where it cuts it from what it was supposed to be, where several hundred 

million dollars is cut from Safe and Drug-Free Schools programs and technology programs. Under 

those circumstances, before we start talking about voucher programs, which, in our view, don't do 

the job, we ought to be more fully funding the programs that this Congress has adopted, but which, 

unfortunately, are not being fully funded thanks to the proposals in the president's budget. 

Mr. Kildee. Mr. Kmiec. 

Mr. Kmiec. Congressman, I think the previous steps you allude to were all salutary. I think they 

are all taken under the constitutional jurisprudence as it then existed; that you properly studied that 

and allocated those things that complied with the court's direction as to what would and would not 

constitute a violation of the Constitution and in an overarching sense, and provided as much 

assistance as you could. 

 The reason they were salutary is because it provided the necessary insight that when we are 

talking about education, it is not a presumption for one school or school system over another. In 

your judgment and our interest as parents and as educators is to have a presumption in favor of 

children and their education. There is only one general education fund, and all taxpayers, religious, 

nonreligious, unbelieving, believing, are all interested in a fair, nondiscriminatory allocation of that 

fund. You did it with respect to books, you did it with respect to school lunches, you did it with 

respect to computers and other equipment. 

 I think it is time, now that the jurisprudence has opened up, to do it with respect to the 

system as a whole, because, after all, as Justice O'Connor pointed out in her concurring opinion in 

the Supreme Court, parents don't think in terms of when a program was enacted or whether 

vouchers are a separate enactment from the public school system. They only want to know, what 
38

are my choices for my child? And I think our responsibility now is to maximize those choices and 

to take that next step. 

Mr. Kildee. I come from Michigan, and Michigan and California had a referendum on the 

question of aid to the nonpublic schools and these referendums where turned down by great 

margins. How should Congress respond to that expression of public opinion? 

Mr. Kmiec. I think these referenda, unfortunately, in the past have been manipulated by the 

perception that this was somehow going to violate our principle of religious freedom; that 

somehow we were going to breach the principle of no establishment. I lived in Michigan for a 

while and taught at Notre Dame, and I think I was there during the period of that referendum. 

Many people anticipated that this was somehow stretching the boundaries of our constitutional 

system and somehow was inherently wrongful, and they didn't want to give up that valued 

protection of religious freedom. 

 But I think the court has now wisely told us that you don't do that when parents are making 

the choice. The only time there is a risk is when this government or state governments directly 

send finances to a particular religious school, because then you worry that there is an improper 

endorsement of one faith over another. 

 So I think one of those problems with those referenda is that they were unfortunately tinged 

to a greater degree than we would like to believe by that constitutional misunderstanding. 

 I think part of the problem also is that when you are lucky enough to have a good job and to 

live in a good public school district, you like what you have. And a lot of people get talked into 

that the only way you can protect what you have is by not sharing it with others. Now, I think one 

of the things we all know as Americans is that we are in this together, and all of our children count.

And I think by the steps you were taking in the past and the steps we are talking about today in 

terms of amalgamating the general education fund and then fairly distributing it is the step that 

shows we are all in it together. And I think we will overcome that referenda intransigence. 

Mr. Tancredo. The gentleman from New Jersey Mr. Payne. 

Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. 

 You know, this all in it together stuff sounds pretty good. However, one thing we do find is 

that most of the proponents, Mr. Armey, many of the strongest pushers for vouchers find that this is 

not an issue in their district. They don't go back to their little town and say, I got a great idea; we 

have got vouchers, and we want that to come out of the public school. None. Zero. Not even our 

current chairperson of the committee. 

Mr. Tancredo. If the gentleman will excuse me, but I have, let us see, once put it on the ballot in 

Colorado and introduced it when I was the chairman of the education committee in Colorado, and I 

certainly push it as aggressively as I possibly can in Colorado; not successfully so far. 
39

Mr. Payne. Well, you are unique, because most of the persons supporting vouchers don't advocate 

them locally. 

 I am a product of the public schools. The lady asked did any of us go. Major Owens and I 

laughed at each other, because we wondered, well, where else did we go to school? We all went to 

public schools. I was actually a single parent; my kids went to public schools. I have triplet 

grandchildren; they go to public schools. 

 We live in the same block I lived for 40 years, so the neighborhood has certainly changed. I 

didn't move out, but we weren't satisfied with the schools, so I made a lot of noise. Since I had to 

go to the PTA meetings, I became the president of the PTA, like you, Ms. Moody. 

 In New Jersey we have charter schools that started. Guess what? It is against the law in 

New Jersey to have more than 18 kids in a charter school class. Interesting. 

 What do we want? Why don't we have the same thing that they have in the schools in Mr. 

Armey's district? 

 Secondly, I have never seen so much money. You talk about referendums being fought. 

Every single morning in the District of Columbia, if you look at the Today Show or Channel 7, you 

see this grandparent that really wants to see their child do better, African American, so forth. 

 I would really like to find out how much money, I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars 

that is being spent for the proponents of this voucher thing. So it goes beyond, and, as a matter of 

fact, many of the people who are very sympathetic with vouchers, when I look at civil rights issues 

and look at aid to homeless families or full funding of Head Start or more funds for HIV and AIDS, 

all of the people who are pushing this voucher are all kind of no on those things. We don't like to 

spend money. We don't feel that a person needs this handout. 

 And so there is some kind of disconnect and I am trying to get to really what the bottom of 

this is. I know there is frustration, and there needs to certainly be improvement of the public school 

system. However, if this voucher thing continues, I see an end to the public school system, what 

has made America great. 

 And when I went to school, there were private schools and there were parochial schools. I 

passed them. My good buddy used to walk up to Good Counsel. He went in; I went up to Elliott 

Street Elementary public school, and I never felt that because he went to that parochial school or to, 

even a couple went to private schools, I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. If they 

had the interest and ability to go, that was fine. And then we used to walk back home together after 

school. So I didn't feel I was being shut out or left out, or he or she had some opportunity that I 

didn't have. You know, I just never thought about it much in that way. 

 And so my concern is as we continue to take money out of public schools, it is going to 

really have them fail worse than what they are failing now. And I don't know what the answer is. 

One, there is not enough room. You talk about private schools; they are 10- to $12,000. Even if 

we increased it to 6,000, we can't even get a Pell grant over $3,900 for college. We tried to get it 
40

increased this year. The Pell grant is going to be less this year than it was last year because they 

are not funding education. 

 I don't blame a person who is worried about their child, so in no way, Ms. Williams or Ms. 

Kitchen, do I say that you are wrong; you are 1,000 percent right. And that is not your 

responsibility to worry about anybody but your child, and that is the way I felt about mine, too. 

 However, I think those of us who are in public policy do have a responsibility. We didn't 

like our roads in this country, and so, you know, you see those red, white, and blue signs on 

highways. We just fully funded highways. Everywhere you go, you see them built because we 

were failing in that area, I guess someone felt. Why don't we do the same thing with education? 

Our defense, they felt it was a little bit weak. We are fully funding defense. If we want to make 

education a priority, we should have the same opportunity in Milwaukee and in Washington in the 

public school system as we have on public highways, as we have on everything else. It is just a 

disconnect. We take this and put it on the side and make it like a special thing when we go and do 

everything else that we feel is urgent in this nation. 

 So I guess my time has expired. Thank you. 

Mr. Tancredo. The gentleman's time has expired. 

 We are going to go for one more round here, if you want. And I think Mr. Schaffer has 

some follow-up. 

Mr. Schaffer. Thank you. I do. I didn't finish because I was responding to Mr. Holt before. 

 But I wanted to ask Ms. Kitchen, you mentioned in your testimony and also in your verbal 

testimony, which I did hear, in your written testimony at the same time, one of Tiffany's teachers 

had her arm broken by a student who then threatened rape. You talked about drug dealers, 

prostitution that your five children were exposed to in the government-owned school. And in the 

Cleveland schools, again, according to Mr. Mincberg, there was one of the voucher schools that 

was in a 110-year-old building. What is worse, in your opinion, the 110-year-old building or 

having the rapists in the school? 

Ms. Kitchen. You know, as I sit and listen to all of this stuff going back and forth, what is 

important are lives. Children's lives are important. There are failing and dilapidated school 

buildings all through the Cleveland public system; it is not the building, it is the child. 

 You know, we can go on and on but this issue has changed to something called voucher 

when the problem is the school system was not delivering the product that we sent our children 

there to receive, which was a decent education. We don't really care what you call it. Call it 

voucher, stipend, help, whatever. If something doesn't work, parents, anyone, needs the 

opportunity to remove that that belongs to them from that thing that does not work and place them 

where it does. If 77,000 children are left, the problem isn't that they are left; it is because of what 

they are left to. The system is broken. Fix it, and no children will be left. 
41

 What is most important, to answer your question, are the lives of these children. 

Mr. Schaffer. Amen. But the overall debate here is over who should be in the position of 

authority to make these important decisions, to make decisions about the lives of these kids. And 

there are some who believe that you must be maybe a board member of a government-owned 

school or some kind of education professional to make that decision; others who believe parents are 

equipped and capable of making those decisions. 

 That is why I ask these kind of graphic questions; because they are presented as testimony 

that the voucher is a bad thing because some of the schools that receives the voucher children are in 

110-year-old buildings and have lead paint on the wall. Your testimony, the both of you, were that, 

I wanted to get my kids out of the other setting, which was not conducive to learning. 

 And the point being is that there are lots of bad places you could send your kids and some 

of them are private, some of them are public. The question is, who should decide? And when the 

government decides, they force kids at somebody else's expense often to go to schools that their 

parents don't want them in. And I think the basis of Mr. Armey's bill is that for those parents who 

want to send their kids to someplace that has inspired their confidence and earned their trust, they 

should have the same freedom that others do. 

Ms. Williams mentioned in her testimony, and again, I am sorry I missed it, that Police 

Chief Charles Ramsey sends his kid, your police chief, sends his son to a private school. Why did 

you mention that? Why is that important to you? 

Ms. Williams. Because I think I am better than the mayor, and I want my child to go to a private 

school also. 

Mr. Schaffer. This was the police chief. 

Ms. Williams. Chief, whomever; I just want my child to have a better education. I don't see what 

is wrong with it. This is ridiculous. I didn't come here for this. This is silly, all this statistics and 

going back and forth and all this crap. If you have the money, you want to give it to the people, 

give it to them and let them make their choice. But all of this statistics and bickering and back and 

forth with one another, this personal thing you guys got going on, I am about sick of it. Really.

And to be truthful, I don't mean to cut you off, but I have to go. I wanted to sit here and I wanted to 

see exactly what was being said, because this is new to me. 

 You know, I am thinking you guys have got something going on, you know. You are going 

to get your minds together and make a decision, either you give it up or you don't. But I have to go 

to work. I appreciate your time and listening and everything, but I have to go. 

Mr. Schaffer. That is probably the best testimony I have heard all day. I appreciate that. I am 

serious about that. 

Ms. Williams. I see you guys. Thanks. It was fun. 
42

Mr. Schaffer. That concludes my questioning. 

Mr. Tancredo. Thank you, Ms. Williams. 

Mr. Scott.

Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, one of the statistics that has been bandied around that apparently aggravates 

somebody is the 2 percent, 1 out of 50, which is the chances that Ms. Williams' child might actually 

get one of those vouchers. She said she would get one, but people will win the lottery. Let us 

change Social Security to the lottery. People who win the lottery would be much better off than 

fooling around with Social Security. Get the lottery. That is not a very viable situation because 

everybody who doesn't hit the lottery will be a lot worse off. 

 So here we have people shooting for a 1-out-of-50 shot. If they hit, they might be, just 

conceding the point from the gentleman from Colorado, might be better off, might not, but it is a 1-

out-of-50 shot. 

 Let me ask Mr. Mincberg, we talked about the civil rights protections. The general, that got 

exempted, the general civil rights protection in here that says you can't discriminate on race, color, 

race, national origin, or sex, there is one little element that is conspicuously omitted. Would 

religious discrimination be possible? 

Mr. Mincberg. Yes, Congressman. As I said in my testimony, as I understand it, schools could 

discriminate as they please on the basis of religion. 

Mr. Scott. And deny admission to someone solely based on religion and still participate? 

Mr. Mincberg. That is the way the bill reads. 

Mr. Scott. Ms. Moody, do you deal with the school board? Do you lobby the school board and try 

to get them to enact certain initiatives? Do you deal with them on any frequent basis? 

Ms. Moody. Yes. I work with the school board, and I have been on the board of education. And, 

as a PTA person, yes, I work with the board of education. 

Mr. Scott. Well, let me ask you. If we pass this and gave a $5,000 benefit to the poor, how long 

would it take before other parents would demand the same benefit for them? And who would be 

stronger, the low-income parents or everybody else? 

Ms. Moody. Everybody else would be, not the low-income parent, because they are not going to 

be the ones to come out and beg for their children. 
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Mr. Scott. And so if the faucet gets turned on for those that are already in private school, would it 

be your assessment that this program would be expanded to include everybody in private school? 

Ms. Moody. You are asking me my personal opinion, and I believe that is the future intent. 

Mr. Scott. Thank you. 

 I don't know who this would be aimed at. We have a finding in here that the costs are lower 

at private schools. Does anybody know whether that is a cost of the education or the tuition they 

charge?

Ms. Moody. I cannot answer the question specific, but I want to piggyback on what Ms. Williams 

said. She had that the tuition at her school was $11,000. She received two $2,000 grants, which 

was $4,000. If she gets this $5,000, she still has a $2,000 bill to pay. 

Mr. Scott. Well, the cost of the education or the tuition is sometimes two different things. Some 

people can charge a low tuition because they are being bankrolled by endowments, foundations, 

church, and everything else. The finding on page 4, line 3 says the costs are lower at private 

schools, and my question is, does anybody know whether that means the cost of the education or 

the tuition they charge? 

Mr. Kmiec. I think it means the administrative costs, Congressman, because I think there have 

been a number of studies that have demonstrated that the per capita administrative cost between 

private and public schools is much more favorable to the private side. 

Mr. Mincberg. If I can interject, Congressman, my understanding of that statistic in terms of its 

alleged cost of public schools is that it takes total costs and then averages them by student. So, 

therefore, what is built into that are costs such as special education, which is extremely costly, and 

which, of course, private schools don't pay for. 

 So my understanding, in addition to the reason that you cited, is that the alleged finding in 

the bill is really not an accurate one. 

Mr. Scott. We talked about this be thing being perfectly constitutional. There is a difference 

between not being illegal and whether it is good policy. Mr. Kmiec, you are familiar with the 

Cleveland case. The concurring opinion that suggested that the establishment clause does not 

apply to the states, do you agree with Thomas's concurring opinion? 

Mr. Mincberg. No, Congressman. 

Mr. Scott. This is to Mr. Kmiec. 

Mr. Mincberg. Oh, I am sorry. 

Mr. Scott. Do you agree? 
44

Mr. Kmiec. I think Justice Thomas was engaging in a bit of historical commentary there. Justice 

Harland before him had indicated that the establishment clause was originally intended to apply, of 

course, against the federal government and not the states. The 14th amendment changed that. 

There was a debate at the time of the 14th amendment as to whether or not the meaning was the 

same at the federal and state level. As a matter of constitutional law, the meaning is the same. 

Justice Thomas, I think, was raising the historical question that it might not always have been 

thought to be so. 

Mr. Tancredo. The gentleman's time has expired. 

 I thank the witnesses and the members for their valuable time and participation. If there is 

no further business, the committee stands adjourned. 

 [Whereupon, at 12:44 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
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TABLE OF INDEXES 

Chairman Boehner, 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 25 

Mr. Armey, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 27 

Mr. Holt, 32, 33, 34 

Mr. Isakson, 27, 29 

Mr. Kildee, 36, 37, 38 

Mr. Kmiec, 19, 25, 26, 33, 34, 37, 43, 44 

Mr. McKeon, 11 

Mr. Miller, 3, 9, 10, 11 

Mr. Mincberg, 17, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 42, 43 

Mr. Payne, 38, 39 

Mr. Schaffer, 34, 36, 40, 41, 42 

Mr. Scott, 29, 30, 31, 42, 43 

Mr. Tancredo, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44 

Mr. Tiberi, 31 

Ms. Kitchen, 21, 29, 40 

Ms. Moody, 15, 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 42, 43 

Ms. Williams, 12, 28, 29, 30, 31, 36, 41 

Ms. Woolsey, 25, 26