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



                    PROVEN RESULTS: HIGHLIGHTING THE
                      BENEFITS OF CHARTER SCHOOLS
                       FOR STUDENTS AND FAMILIES

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

                                HEARING

                               Before The

                     SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,
                     ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY EDUCATION

                                 of the

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

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION
                               __________


             HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 6, 2024

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-40
                               __________

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





                [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]





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

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

57-461 PDF                   WASHINGTON : 2024


























                COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE

               VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina, Chairwoman

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

                       Cyrus Artz, Staff Director
              Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff Director
              
                                 ------                                

           SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, AND
                          SECONDARY EDUCATION

                     AARON BEAN, Florida, Chairman

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



























                                     
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on March 6, 2024....................................     1

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

    Bean, Hon. Aaron, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, 
      Elementary, and Secondary Education........................     1
        Prepared statement of....................................     2
    Bonamici, Hon. Suzanne, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Early 
      Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education.............     3
        Prepared statement of....................................     4

                               WITNESSES

    Raymond, Dr. Macke, Founder and Director, Center for Research 
      on Education Outcomes, Stanford University.................     7
        Prepared statement of....................................     9
    Heilig, Dr. Julian Vasquez, Founding Board Member, Network 
      for Public Education.......................................    12
        Prepared statement of....................................    14
    Pondiscio, Robert, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise 
      Institute..................................................    20
        Prepared statement of....................................    22
    Campbell, Kenneth, CEO, New Schools for Baton Rouge..........    26
        Prepared statement of....................................    28

                         ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS

    Chairman Bean:
        CREDO Policy Brief entitled ``A Closer Look: Examining 
          the Impact and Effectiveness of Online Charter 
          Schools''..............................................   173
    Ranking Member Bonamici:
        Letter dated March 3, 2024, from The Network for Public 
          Education..............................................    36
        Report dated November 15, 2018, from the National Council 
          on Disability entitled ``Choice & Vouchers--
          Implications for Students with Disabilities''..........    43
    Foxx, Hon. Virginia, a Representative in Congress from the 
      State of North Carolina:
        Statement dated March 19, 2024, from the National 
          Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA)......   178
        Statement dated March 6, 2024, from the National Parents 
          Union (NPU)............................................   180

 
                    PROVEN RESULTS: HIGHLIGHTING THE
                      BENEFITS OF CHARTER SCHOOLS
                       FOR STUDENTS AND FAMILIES

                              ----------                              

                        Wednesday, March 6, 2024

                              House of Representatives,
               Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary,
                                   and Secondary Education,
                      Committee on Education and the Workforce,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15, a.m., 
2175 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Aaron Bean (Chairman 
of the Subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Bean, Owens, McClain, Miller, 
Kiley, Williams, Foxx, Bonamici, Hayes, Bowman, Wilson, 
DeSaulnier, Norcross, and Scott.
    Also present: Letlow
    Staff present: Nick Barley, Deputy Communications Director; 
Mindy Barry, General Counsel; Isabel Foster, Press Assistant; 
Daniel Fuenzalida, Staff Assistant; Amy Raaf Jones, Director of 
Education and Human Services Policy; Georgie Littlefair, Clerk; 
RJ Martin, Professional Staff Member; Hannah Matesic, Deputy 
Staff Director; Audra McGeorge, Communications Director; Eli 
Mitchell, Legislative Assistant; Rebecca Powell, Staff 
Assistant; Brad Thomas, Deputy Director of Education and Human 
Services Policy; Maura Williams, Director of Operations; Nekea 
Brown, Minority Director of Operations; Rashage Green, Minority 
Director of Education Policy & Counsel; Christian Haines, 
Minority General Counsel; Stephanie Lalle, Minority 
Communications Director; Raiyana Malone, Minority Press 
Secretary; Veronique Pluviose, Minority Staff Director; Olivia 
Sawyer, Minority Intern; Clinton Spencer, IV, Minority Staff 
Assistant; Maile Sit, Minority Intern.
    Chairman Bean. Ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to 
each of you. Welcome to your nation's capital, the House of 
Representatives, and the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, 
Elementary, and Secondary Education will come to order.
    A quorum is present. Without objection, the Chair is 
authorized to call a recess at any time. It is a special time 
of year in our Nation's capital, and no, not because cherry 
blossom season is almost upon us, for children across the 
country trapped in failing school districts, this is the season 
of opportunity. Each year, in the spring, thousands of parents, 
families, and eager young students gather around their 
computers to wait and pray for a name to appear. The room is 
still. Parents sit quietly with bated breath. They know the 
next few minutes could have a profound impact on the course of 
their children's lives.
    A name appears and happiness erupts. A lucky winner has 
been picked, but with the good fortune comes the opportunity 
for a student to escape an abysmal traditional public school 
and enroll in a school that meets his or her individual needs. 
This is the story of our Nation's charter school lotteries.
    The joy in a parent's heart is when their child is accepted 
is one of the foremost reasons that I support charter schools. 
I also recognize there is a flipside to the story, charter 
schools have limited seats in the lottery system, while fair, 
does not pan out for every family. For the smiles, there are 
tears. This is a sad reality, but it is not an argument against 
the schools.
    On the contrary, it is an argument for expanding charter 
school access so that every child can receive a high-quality 
education no matter his or her zip code. Expand they have, 
charter schools are relatively new in terms of the American 
education system, with the first charter issued in Minnesota in 
1992.
    They have since ridden the school choice way to over 8,000 
communities serving nearly 4 million students across 45 states. 
Furthermore, charter school growth is accelerating. Enrollment 
doubled in the most recent decade, and 74 percent of parents 
would consider sending their child to a charter school if just 
given the chance.
    Charter schools' success is linked to thousands of success 
stories across the Nation. As studies and testimoneys emerge 
from the first class of charter schools, they have proven what 
we all have expected. Removing the educational bureaucracy is a 
boon to student achievement.
    Now, charter graduates have the chance to send their own 
children to charter schools, and I see it as the Committee's 
role, give them the best possible chance to do it. Today, we 
will embark on a journey to learn more about where charter 
schools are, how they are benefiting students, and to get more 
information.
    With that, I yield to the Ranking Member for an opening 
statement. Ranking Member?
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Bean follows:]

     Statement of Hon. Aaron Bean, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early 
             Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education

    This is a special time of year. No, not because cherry blossom 
season is almost upon us. For children across the country trapped in 
failing school districts, this is the season of opportunity.
    Each year, in the spring, thousands of parents, families, and eager 
young students gather around their computers to wait--and to pray--for 
a name to appear.
    The room is still. Parents sit silently with bated breath. They 
know the next few minutes could have a profound impact on the course of 
their children's lives.
    A name appears, and happiness erupts. A lucky winner has been 
picked. With the good fortune comes the opportunity for a student to 
escape an abysmal traditonal public school and enroll at a school that 
meets his or her individual needs.
    This is the story of our nation's charter school lotteries. The joy 
in a parent's heart when his or her child is accepted is one of the 
foremost reasons that I support charter schools.
    I also recognize there is a flipside to this story. Charter schools 
have limited seats, and the lottery system, while fair, does not pan 
out for every family.
    For the smiles, there are tears. This is the sad reality, but it is 
not an argument against these schools. On the contrary, it is an 
argument for expanding charter school access so every child can receive 
a high-quality education, no matter his or her zip code.
    Expand they have. Charter schools are relatively new in terms of 
American education, with the first charter issued in Minnesota in 1992. 
They have since ridden the school choice wave to over 8,000 
communities, serving nearly four million students across 45 states.
    Furthermore, charter school growth is accelerating. Enrollment 
doubled in the most recent decade. Seventy-four percent of parents 
would consider sending their child to a charter school if given the 
chance.
    The charter success story is linked to thousands of student success 
stories. As studies and testimonials emerge from the first class of 
charter schools, they have proven what we all expected--removing the 
education bureaucracy is a boon to student achievement.
    Now, charter graduates have the chance to send their own children 
to charter schools. I see it as the Committee's role to give them the 
best possible chance to do so.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Chairman Bean. Thank you 
to our witnesses for being here today. As recognized by the 
founding fathers, numerous Supreme Court Justices and many 
State Constitutions, the provisions of a free, high quality, 
public education to all children, serves a compelling community 
interest.
    Mr. Chairman, I see your scenario not as a case for more 
charter schools, but as a case for making all public schools 
the best they can be. When we invest in education, we are 
investing in our future. Members of this Committee should 
understand that children, regardless of where they live, or how 
involved their parents are, they deserve access to high 
quality, public education that allows them to achieve their 
full potential.
    Now most agree that parents should have a say in their 
child's learning environment, and under some circumstances this 
may include well-regulated public charter schools. Well-funded, 
transparent, and accountable public charter schools in some 
instances may be a better fit for some students.
    For example, KairosPDX is a charter school in Portland. 
They work to dismantle structural racism, close opportunity and 
achievement gaps for students of color, through hands on, 
culturally competent teaching.
    Unfortunately charter schools are not subject to the same 
level of oversight and accountability as traditional public 
schools, and as a result we often do not know whether charter 
schools will provide the students with benefits, and any 
meaningful benefits.
    Concerningly in many instances, charter school schemes are 
another way for my colleagues across the aisle to divert 
taxpayer dollars and community resources from already 
struggling public schools. Now, we must not ignore the growing 
number of charter schools that are operated by for-profit 
corporations, located in states that have lax, or even 
nonexistent oversight.
    According to the Network for Public Education, more than 
1,100 charter schools are now run by for-profit entities, and 
that is more than 14 percent of charter schools. Prior to the 
Education Department's updates to the Charter School Program, a 
2016 audit found that charter school programs run by for-profit 
entities in California, Florida, Michigan, New York, 
Pennsylvania and Texas, all lacked internal guardrails that 
posed risks to student learning, and enabled waste, fraud, and 
abuse of Federal funds.
    I also have serious concerns about the effects of charter 
school programs on students' civil rights. Although charter 
schools by law are required to honor students' and families' 
civil rights protections, such as individual education plans 
for students with disabilities. Gray areas surrounding a 
school's legal status may leave them ill-equipped to provide 
every study with the legally required fair and equitable 
education.
    Studies show that charter schools are more segregated than 
traditional public schools. In addition, students may be 
rejected, unnecessarily disciplined, or expelled for reasons 
that would not be allowed in a traditional public school, often 
with few or no avenues for recourse.
    Then there is the issue of the number of charter schools 
that close, often abruptly. In fact, about 25 percent of 
charter schools close within 5 years, leaving students and 
families without support, and sometimes without information. 
Often for-profit management, entities are based outside the 
bounds of Federal oversight, not really the choice parents are 
looking for.
    Yes, parents should be able to decide the best way to 
educate their children, however this should not come at the 
expense of a strong quality public education system that 
protects and supports every child. That is why I ask that 
Committee members join me in supporting more Magnet schools, 
schools that provide choice within the public school system, 
and that come with accountability and nondiscrimination.
    My home district in Beaverton, Oregon for example, offers 
some very popular options, an Arts Magnet, a Science and 
Engineering Magnet, an International Magnet. Instead of 
proposing an 80 percent cut to the Title I program, my 
colleagues should invest in public education and evidence-based 
choice programs, so that every family can send their child to a 
high quality, accountable, and safe public school.
    Thank you to our witnesses for being here, and I yield bank 
the balance of my time.
    [The prepared statement of Ranking Member Bonamici 
follows:]

  Statement of Hon. Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 
          Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education

    Thank you, Chair Bean. Thank you to our witnesses for being here 
today.
    As recognized by the Founding Fathers, numerous Supreme Court 
justices, and many state constitutions, the provision of free, high-
quality public education to all children serves a compelling community 
interest. Mr. Chairman, I see your scenario not as a case for more 
charter schools but as a case for making all public schools the best 
they can be.
    When we invest in education, we are investing in our future. 
Members of this committee should understand that children, regardless 
of where they live or how involved their parents are, deserve access to 
high-quality public education that allows them to achieve their full 
potential.
    Now, most agree that parents should have a say in their child's 
learning environment--and under some circumstances, this may include 
well-regulated public charter schools. Well-funded, transparent, and 
accountable public charter schools, in some instances, may be a better 
fit for some students. For example, KairosPDX is a charter school in 
Portland. They work to dismantle structural racism and close 
opportunity and achievement gaps for students of color through hands-
on, culturally competent teaching.
    Unfortunately, charter schools are not subject to the same level of 
oversight and accountability as traditional public schools, and as a 
result, we often do not know whether charter schools will provide 
students with any meaningful benefits. Concerningly, in many instances 
charter school schemes are another way for my colleagues across the 
aisle to divert taxpayer dollars and community resources from already 
struggling public schools.
    Now, we must not ignore the growing number of charter schools that 
are operated by for-profit corporations located in states that have lax 
or even non-existent oversight. According to the Network for Public 
Education, more than 1,100 charter schools are now run by for-profit 
entities. That is more than 14 percent of charter schools. Prior to the 
Education Department's updates to the Charter Schools Program (CSP), a 
2016 audit found that charter school programs run by for-profit 
entities in California, Florida, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and 
Texas all lacked internal guardrails that posed risks to student 
learning and enabled waste, fraud, and abuse of federal funds.
    I also have serious concerns about the effects of charter school 
programs on students' civil rights. Although charter schools by law are 
required to honor students' and families' civil rights protections--
such as Individual Education Plans for students with disabilities--gray 
areas surrounding a school's legal status may leave them ill-equipped 
to provide every student with a legally required fair and equitable 
education.
    Studies show that charter schools are more segregated than 
traditional public schools. In addition, students may be rejected, 
unnecessarily disciplined, or expelled for reasons that would not be 
allowed at a traditional public school, often with few or no avenues 
for recourse. Then there is the issue of the number of charter schools 
that close--often abruptly. In fact, about 25% of charter schools close 
within 5 years--leaving students and families without support and 
sometimes without information.
    Often for-profit management entities are based outside the bounds 
of federal oversight--not really the ``choice'' parents are looking 
for.
    Yes, parents should be able to decide the best way to educate their 
children; however, this should not come at the expense of a strong, 
quality public education system that protects and supports every child. 
That is why I ask that committee members join me in supporting more 
magnet schools--schools that provide choice within the public school 
system and that come with accountability and nondiscrimination. My home 
school district in Beaverton Oregon, for example, offers some very 
popular options--an art magnet, a science and engineering magnet, and 
an international magnet.
    Instead of proposing an 80 percent cut to the Title I program, my 
colleagues to invest in public education and evidence-based choice 
programs so every family can send their child to a high-quality, 
accountable, and safe public school.
    Thank you to our witnesses for being here, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ranking Member. 
Pursuant to Committee Rule 8-C, or Sub-C, all Committee members 
who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so 
by submitting them to the Committee Clerk electronically. You 
have to use Microsoft Word format to do it by 5 p.m. after 14 
days from today's hearing, which is March 20, 2024.
    Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 
14 days after the date of this hearing to allow such 
statements, and other extraneous material referenced during the 
hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I note 
for the record the Subcommittee that some of our colleagues who 
are not permanent members of this Committee may be waving on 
for the purpose of today's hearing.
    Now, I know you are wondering how does our Committee staff 
find foremost experts in the field, but once again, they have 
done so. They have traveled across the Nation, and we have got 
some premier experts on charter schools. Once again, it is my 
pleasure to introduce today's all-star panel.
    Our first witness is Dr. Macke Raymond, who is the Founder 
and Director of the Center for Research for Education Outcomes 
at Stanford University, located in Stanford, California. Dr. 
Raymond has served as Director of the Center since its 
inception and has steered the group to national prominence as a 
rigorous and independent source for policy and program 
analysis.
    She leads the Center in investigating the effectiveness of 
public charter schools and has spearheaded several landmark 
studies on charters.
    Our next witness will be introduced by our Ranking Member, 
Ms. Bonamici. Ranking Member?
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Julian Vasquez 
Heilig is a Founding Board Member of the Network for Public 
Education and an academic whose research focuses on K12 
education practices that impact equity and innovation. He 
previously served on the Executive Committee, and as Education 
Chair for both Kentucky and California NAACP.
    Dr. Vasquez Heilig received his Ph.D. in Educational 
Administration and Policy Analysis, and a Master's Degree in 
Sociology from Stanford University--kind of west coast heavy 
here so far. He has also earned a Master's Degree in Higher 
Education and a Bachelor's Degree in History and Psychology 
from the University of Michigan. Go Wolverines. Welcome Dr. 
Vasquez Heilig.
    Chairman Bean. All right. Let us go to the east coast where 
our third witness is standing by waiting to be introduced. Mr. 
Robert Pondiscio who is a Senior Fellow at the American 
Enterprise Institute located in Greenville, New York. Mr. 
Pondiscio is a Senior Fellow at the AEI where he focuses on K 
through 12 education curriculum, teaching school choice and 
charter schooling.
    Before joining AEI, Mr. Pondiscio was a Policy Analysist 
for Education Reform at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and 
education policy think tank. He worked previously for the 
Corps, this is good, previously for the Core Knowledge 
Foundation as an advisor and civics teacher at Democracy Prep 
Public Schools, and then became interested in education policy 
issues where he started teaching fifth grade at a struggling 
South Bronx Public School in 2002.
    We will hear from him in just a moment, but our final 
witness is Mr. Kenneth Campbell, who is the CEO of New Schools 
for Baton Rouge, which is in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
Previously, Mr. Campbell served as Executive Director for IDEA 
Public Schools of Southern Louisiana.
    President of the Black Alliance Educational Option and as 
Founding Director of Charter Schools for the Louisiana 
Department of Education where in the years following Hurricane 
Katrina, he was responsible for rebuilding New Orleans 
education infrastructure to high-quality charter schools.
    Mr. Campbell served 8 years of active military duty, and 13 
and 1/2 years of Reserves before retiring as a Captain in 2005. 
Thank you for your service, Mr. Campbell.
    We thank all our witnesses. We are eager to hear you. There 
is this one little rule that you need to know about, and it's 
the 5-minute rule. Everybody has 5 minutes, we do too, and so 
pursuant to Committee Rules, I ask each of you to limit your 
oral presentation. If you go over or get near, you will hear 
this sound, that means to wrap it up.
    We appreciate you, but you can submit your written 
testimony as long as you want, I have received--I think we have 
all received the written testimony. We also remind everybody 
that we have a duty to be responsible in the information that 
you provide to the Subcommittee. With that, let us get to it. 
Dr. Raymond, you are first of all, welcome. We are glad to have 
you here, and you are recognized. The floor is yours. Dr. 
Raymond, your mic. Mine is clicking off too, but.

       STATEMENT OF DR. MACKE RAYMOND, FOUNDER AND DIREC-
        TOR,  CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON  EDUCATION OUTCOMES,
        STANFORD UNIVERSITY, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA


    Ms. Raymond. All right, starting over at zero. Chairman 
Bean, Ranking Member Bonamici, and other members of the 
Committee, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to 
speak with you today. I am joined by Dr. Won Fy Lee, a lead 
analyst with the study that I will discuss today.
    For over two decades, CREDO has studied national charter 
schools, and have produced three national studies of the 
academic progress in charter schools, compared to carefully 
selected comparison students in nearby district schools, in 
partnership with 29 states and the District of Columbia.
    By the time I saw the results of our third analysis in 
early 2023, we had waited 10 years to solve a mystery. To tell 
you more, I need to frame the results in the context of the two 
prior studies. In 2009, our studies showed charter students 
learning less than their District peers in both reading and 
math, by a statistically significant amount.
    Using a comparison standard of 180 days of learning in a 
typical District year of 180 days of schooling, charter 
students only had a 174 days of learning in math, and 163 days 
of learning in--I am sorry, 174 in reading, and 163 in math.
    In 2013, the second study showed improvements across the 
sector, posting a positive advantage of six extra days in 
learning and reading, and breaking even with District students 
in math.
    As everyone knows, two points make a line, but they do not 
make a trend. The latest results from 2023 were keenly 
anticipated. Our findings showed charter school students had 16 
more days of learning in reading, and 6 additional days of 
learning in math than similar peers in local District schools, 
and both comparisons were statistically significant.
    I will return to this trend later. Good results for charter 
school students were even more pronounced for urban students, 
for black and Hispanic students, for low-income students, and 
students served by charter school networks. For each of these 
groups attending charter schools led to more learning in a 
year's time compared to peers in adjacent District schools.
    Not all the results in the national charter school study 
were positive. The learning for rural charter school students 
is not strong, and special education students in charter 
schools also lagged the learning of their peers in District 
schools.
    While comparative progress of black and Hispanic charter 
school students is positive compared to their District 
counterparts, both sets of students learned substantially less 
than their white peers on average.
    Targeted improvement would benefit all of the groups I have 
just mentioned. The study revealed insights about charter 
school networks, also called Charter Management Organizations 
or CMOs. The average student in a charter school network gained 
more than a month of extra learning compared to their District 
school counterparts in both reading and math.
    More importantly, charter school networks do not sacrifice 
learning as they replicate in scale. The final set of results I 
want to mention are the so-called gap busting schools.
    We look for charter schools that had above average 
achievement in their respective states, and of these, we subset 
schools that had learning for minority or poverty students that 
was at least as strong as the learning of their white or non-
poverty charter school classmates.
    We found hundreds of schools who met the criteria. In fact, 
over 1,000 schools where Hispanic students exceeded the 
progress of their white classmates. Moreover, we found dozens 
of charter networks able to produce these impressive results 
across their entire networks.
    The implications from the national charter school study are 
important and timely. Millions of charter school students have 
been well served, adding to their education progress, and their 
life outcomes. The charter school community also delivered many 
examples of successful schools and showed that scaling 
successful models is now common.
    These examples hold promise for adding more charter 
schools, and for fulfilling their charge to be laboratories of 
new, and now proven ideas. The long-term trend of these three 
studies shows especially what legislators like of this 
Committee, are able to do, to devise policy levers to create 
good outcomes.
    The Charter School Law pairs flexibility and 
accountability, and these forces produce incentives for 
continuous improvement that are readily apparently in the data 
we study. We see thousands of schools getting a little bit 
better each year, which explains the upward trend line.
    The insight we think is welcome, considering the general 
State of schools coming out of the pandemic. I will conclude 
with the idea that there are untapped opportunities for 
exporting successful models to other schools, and for other 
laws to use similar incentives to provide further improvements 
in our public school system. Thank you very much.
    [The Statement of Ms. Raymond follows:]
    
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Dr. Raymond. Well done. 
Next, let us go to Dr. Heilig. Dr. Heiling, thank you for 
coming today and welcome, and the floor is yours.

        STATEMENT OF DR. JULIAN VASQUEZ HEILIG, FOUNDING
         BOARD MEMBER, NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION, AU-
         GUSTA, MICHIGAN

    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Thank you, Chair and members of the 
Committee. I am honored to contribute to this critical 
discussion on school choice, sharing insights from my multi-
faceted engagement with the charter school sector. As a former 
charter school educator, donor, parent, board member and now 
researcher.
    These experiences combine with my academic inquiry have 
provided me with a deep understanding of the nuances and 
complexities surrounding charter schools. In the late 1990's, 
my research of charter schools began in Michigan, as a State at 
the forefront of the charter school movement.
    This journey continued through an instructional role as the 
Aspire charter school in East Palo Alto, California, and as a 
Board member of a charter school in Austin, Texas. Witnessing 
my daughter's education within a charter school further 
personalized my insights into the sector's impact on students 
and families.
    As a researcher and tenured scholar, I have published 28 
peer reviewed articles, reports and law reviews and other 
publications on school choice. The foundational premise of 
charter schools was to foster innovation and provide an 
alternative that would spur improvements within the traditional 
public school system. The body of peer reviewed academic 
research, including my own studies, increasingly questions the 
efficacy of charter schools in delivering on these promises.
    Data from the NCES indicates no significant academic 
advantage for charter school students over their public school 
counterparts. Furthermore, CREDO's series of ongoing reports 
have sometimes noted positive achievement results, and other 
times they have found negative results.
    Often in the hundredths of a standard deviation. CREDO has 
also faced criticism for the methodology from the National 
Education Policy Center and the Network for Public Education, 
casting doubt on the significance and replicability of their 
days of learning framing of their findings.
    Beyond the question of academic outcomes, charter schools 
have been shown to exacerbate pre-existing challenges within 
the public education system. As noted by the 2016 resolution 
from the NAACP that came forward when I served as NAACP 
Education Chair in California, charter schools on average 
exhibit higher rates of teacher turnover, decreased teacher 
quality, serve less special needs students and intensified 
racial segregation, and have exhibited inequitable disciplinary 
practices.
    The work of such scholars as Kevin Welner, among others, 
have illuminated how charter schools' selective recruitment and 
retention practices contribute to a deepening of educational 
disparities. My own research corroborates these findings, 
highlighting the troubling extent of racial segregation in 
charter schools, and challenging the inclusivity and equity of 
the choice model.
    Here is the flip side. The issue of accountability, or lack 
thereof in the charter sector is particularly alarming. The 
absence of rigorous oversight in many states has paved the way 
for financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and a 
disturbingly high rate of school closures. A recent study by 
NPE found that over 25 percent of charter schools closed within 
5 years.
    By year ten, the closure rate was 40 percent. Millions of 
public funds from the Department of Education have been spent 
on charter schools, they either never opened after receiving 
those grants or closed within a year. These dynamics not only 
disrupt a students' educational paths but have resulted in 
documented misallocation of billions of dollars in public 
funds.
    The governance structure of many charter schools, 
especially those managed by for-profit entities, often fail to 
align with the broader community interests where they are 
located, undermining the principal of public accountability and 
education.
    Moreover, the unchecked expansion of the charter sector 
poses significant risks to the public education system because 
it dilutes resources and exacerbates the challenges of 
delivering a high-quality education in all sectors.
    The problem is accentuated by the expected nationwide 
decline of K-12 student populations in public schools, 
underscoring the urgency of focusing our efforts on improving 
existing infrastructure, rather than expanding the charter 
sector indiscriminately.
    Given these concerns, my stance on charter schools has 
evolved toward a more cautious and critical perspective. While 
most have heard the original idea that charter schools would 
serve as laboratories for educational innovation, and provide 
families with diverse options, it is imperative that we address 
the profound existing issues of accountability and financial 
management that currently beset the school choice movement.
    In consideration of the predominant perspective of 
educational research data, it is imperative that we unite in 
advocating for strategic reassessment of the charter school 
model, with a focus on upholding educational excellence, 
reinforcing our value of education as a public good, and 
enhancing community's involvement in charter schools.
    Only through a concerted effort to confront and resolve 
these challenges can we ensure that charter schools will 
instead contribute positively, rather than negatively, to our 
collective goal of an effective education system for all 
students. It is my sincere hope that this testimony serves as a 
catalyst for thoughtful and comprehensive reevaluation of the 
charter school landscape.
    I do not mean to be the skunk at the garden party, but may 
it ignite initiatives and policies aligned with our highest 
educational aspirations, guaranteeing every child access to a 
high quality education that is emblematic of our Nation's 
dedication to excellence in education for all children and 
families. Thank you for considering these perspectives on this 
critical issue.
    [The Statement of Mr. Vasquez Heilig follows:]
    
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    Chairman Bean. Dr. Heilig, well done. Thank you very much. 
I was following along because you have submitted your written 
testimony earlier. Mr. Pondiscio, you are recognized. Welcome 
to the Committee, and you got 5 minutes, and your mic needs to.

      STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT PONDISCIO, SENIOR FELLOW,
     AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, GREENVILLE, NEW YORK

    Mr. Pondiscio. Thank you, Chairman Bean, Ranking Member 
Bonamici and members of the Committee. Thank you for having me. 
My name is Robert Pondiscio, I am a Senior Fellow at the 
American Enterprise Institute and a former teacher. In 2002, I 
became a fifth-grade teacher at the lowest performing public 
school in the south Bronx, New York City's lowest performing 
school district.
    A mere 16 percent of PS277 students could read at grade 
level. The first charter schools were just opening up in the 
neighborhood. Back then there were virtually no alternatives to 
the schools that had failed children for decades. In my role at 
AEI, I study and write about education, including charter 
schools, but my focus has seldom strayed from the question that 
motivated me to become a teacher in the first place.
    How can we ensure that disadvantaged children in places 
like the south Bronx have every opportunity to succeed in 
school and in life? A few years ago, that very question took me 
back to the south Bronx where I spent a year at Success Academy 
Charter School, literally across the street from where I had 
been a student teacher, and a few blocks from my old school.
    This charter school was delivering astonishing results for 
children. In the years since I had left my classroom, Success 
Academy had grown from a single school in nearby Harlem, to 45 
schools across New York City, educating 17,000 children. The 
lowest performing of those schools had 85 percent of its 
students pass the New York State English Language Arts test.
    That was the worst one. The Success Academy school with the 
lowest pass rate in math had 92 percent of its students at or 
above proficiency, the others were even better. Said 
differently, if Success Academy were a school district it would 
be the highest scoring district in New York State. It gets 
better results than the city's gifted and talented programs, 
and better results than wealthy suburban districts with 
multimillion dollar homes.
    More than 90 percent of Success Academy students are 
children of color, mostly low-income, black and Hispanic. By 
comparison, only 1 in 3 black and Hispanic children in New York 
City test at or above grade level in math or reading.
    I spent a year embedded at Success Academy Bronx 1, not as 
a teacher, but this time as a reporter and researcher, writing 
a book about the lessons that Success might teach us that could 
be applied to K-12 education at large. After all, a founding 
ideal of the charter school movement was to serve as an engine 
of innovation and experimentation.
    I welcome the opportunity to discuss in detail what I 
observed, but in a sentence, what I saw is what is possible 
when you allow parents to select a high-functioning school, and 
when every adult in a child's life teachers and parents alike, 
is pulling in the same direction, just as it has been 
demonstrated time and again in America's past.
    For years I have applied what I call the Tiffany test to my 
work in education. It is named after a real-life student that I 
had when I taught fifth grade. You have heard of the expression 
``a problem child''? Well, Tiffany was a not your problem 
child. She came to school every day in my fifth-grade classroom 
in a spotless school uniform.
    Never missed a day of school, never missed a homework 
assignment. She was hard-working and conscientious. Tiffany was 
solidly at grade level in a school where that was rare. I 
called her a not your problem child because 1 day I pointed out 
to my Assistant Principal that I was not doing very much to 
challenge Tiffany, this incredibly diligent, dutiful, perfectly 
behaved, entrusting kid who was deeply devoted to her school 
and her education.
    The Assistant Principal said something I'll never forget. 
She said, ``She's not your problem.'' What she meant was, why 
are you worried about Tiffany? You have got kids who are far 
below grade level in reading and math, you have got behavior 
problems, you have got special needs kids. Who cares about 
Tiffany? She will be fine.
    Reading and doing math at grade level is the starting line 
for my child, and for yours, but it is the finish line for 
Tiffany, and kids like her in America. No one would tell the 
parent or teacher of a well-off student we have got bigger 
problems than your kid. She is doing well enough.
    Even in the most dysfunctional schools and classrooms in 
America, you will find some number of diligent and hard-working 
kids whose parents believe in the promise of education, but 
whose teachers have bigger problems than the not your problem 
child. The Tiffany test is simply this. There are parents and 
kids who demonstrate faith in education and upward mobility and 
the American dream.
    Are we doing all in our power to ensure that faith is 
rewarded? Ten years later, what did I see at Success Academy? 
Tiffany, in nearly every seat. Tiffany, or someone like her. It 
is commonly said in teaching that we should meet the children 
where they are. It is equally important, I believe, to have an 
education system that meets families where they are.
    There is no rational or moral reason for government policy 
at any level to prevent the children of motivated, engaged, and 
invested Americans of any race, ethnic group, or income level, 
from reaping the full rewards of their talents and ambitions.
    There is no reason to interfere with parents' earnest 
efforts to do what is best for their children. I title my book 
How the Other Half Learns, and I chose that title frankly, 
because I do not think I am wrong, or over-simplifying to 
suggest that if you are wealthy, you have every conceivable 
option available to you.
    If you are poor, black or brown, you get a lecture. You get 
hand wringing over fairness. You are told to be patient. You 
are told your most promising student is not your problem. 
Public charter schools pass the Tiffany test. Thank you very 
much.
    [The Statement of Mr. Pondiscio follows:]
    
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    Chairman Bean. Mr. Pondiscio, thank you very much, and 
right on time. Our final witness, who has given service to our 
country, thank you again, Mr. Kenneth Campbell from Louisiana. 
Welcome to the Committee, and you are recognized.

      STATEMENT OF MR. KENNETH CAMPBELL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE
       OFFICER,  NEW  SCHOOLS FOR  BATON  ROUGE,  BATON,
       ROUGE, LOUISIANA

    Mr. Campbell. Thank you. Good morning. Chairman Bean, 
Ranking Member Bonamici, and members of the Committee, thank 
you for this opportunity to speak with you. My name is Kenneth 
Campbell, and I am the CEO of New Schools for Baton Rouge, a 
nonprofit founded in 2012 by civic and community leaders to 
transform public education in our city.
    Our core belief is that every child deserves a great 
school, and our mission is to ensure that every child has 
access to an excellent education. I have spent the past 30 
years advocating for, and working with educators, parents and 
community leaders across the country to develop and implement 
thoughtful and impactful charter school policies and 
initiatives.
    In 2007, I was tapped by the Louisiana Department of 
Education to serve as the Founding Director of the State 
Charter School Office, and to help lead efforts to rebuild New 
Orleans education system following Hurricane Katrina. We did it 
by empowering local educators to restart their schools as 
charter schools, so that they would have the autonomy to make 
the best decisions for students.
    Before Katrina, New Orleans was the second lowest 
performing school district in Louisiana, with the graduation 
rate of less than 60 percent. Recent studies now say that New 
Orleans, an all charter district, has one of the highest 
academic growth rates of any urban school district in the 
country.
    As CEO for New Schools for Baton Rouge, my energy and 
efforts are focused on utilizing charter schools to drive the 
same type of improvement and innovation in Baton Rouge. Our 
work with charters is centered around two questions. First, are 
charter schools serving students and families well?
    Second, are they accelerating learning for our most 
vulnerable children? We believe the answer to both of those is 
a resounding yes. As with most school districts nationwide, 
Baton Rouge schools have struggled to recover from COVID.
    However, in the state's most recent performance evaluation 
almost 70 percent of our charter schools surpass their 2019 
school performance scores, compared to less than 40 percent of 
the District's traditional schools.
    Almost 80 percent of charter schools in our city improve 
their performance year over year. Not surprisingly, this 
academic success and innovation are driving greater demand. We 
are celebrating 30 years of chartering in Louisiana this year. 
We have 87,000 kids in charter schools in Louisiana, and in 
Baton Rouge, almost 30 percent of students who attend a public 
school, attend a charter school.
    That tells us that moms, dads, grandparents, continue to 
seek out new and better schools for their kids, and we should 
be in the business of trying to help them do that. Charter 
schools serve as catalysts for educational innovation. Bell 
Chase Academy, just south of New Orleans was the Nation's first 
charter school on a military base was founded to meet the 
unique needs of military children.
    We have two charter schools in our city that partner with 
large healthcare centers and hospitals to collaborate on 
academic resources and opportunities in STEM education. GEO 
Next Generation High School is committed to ensuring that every 
student graduates from high school, having also earned an 
associate's degree.
    Unfortunately, as has been mentioned here a couple times a 
day, not every charter school is successful. In fact, 
accountability is a cornerstone of the charter school model. 
Unlike traditional public schools, when charter schools are not 
performing up to standards, they can be closed.
    While the decision to close any school is regrettable, we 
must be committed to evaluating performance, and when 
necessary, making the difficult decision to redirect resources 
to schools that better serve students, and our communities' 
needs.
    Earlier I spoke about the growth of charter schools in 
Louisiana and across the country. While local leaders deserve 
all of the credit for the hard work of planning and launching 
schools, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the key 
role that the charter school program has played in the growth 
and expansion of charter schools over the past 25 years.
    We are deeply appreciative that Congress continues to 
allocate resources to the charter school program, and we hope 
that charter schools continue to enjoy strong, bipartisan 
support.
    I also want to acknowledge Congresswoman Letlow, and 
Senator Cassidy, both from the great State of Louisiana, for 
partnering with colleagues, and their respective chambers, to 
introduce legislation to help charter schools solve two of the 
biggest hurdles, access to facilities and resources to help 
educators and community leaders strengthen their charter 
applications.
    Charter schools provide viable options for families and 
students who want more from their public schools. They empower 
families with the ability to choose the school that best fits 
their child's needs. They engage communities with a sense of 
ownership and pride.
    There is no question that our public education system is 
struggling, and I believe charter schools can be important 
collaborators with school districts to develop programs and 
services that improve all public schools for all students. 
Again, thank you for this opportunity to speak, and thank you 
for recognizing the vital role that charter schools play in the 
education of our students.
    [The Statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]
    
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    Chairman Bean. Mr. Campbell, thank you so much. Leave it to 
the military man to finish early and give us time back. Thank 
you so much. Under Committee Rule 9, we will now question 
witnesses under the 5-minute rule. I will begin the 
questioning. Put the clock on Bean as we embark. You all did a 
great job by the way. Thank you all for coming forward.
    Mr. Pondiscio, you have got a unique perspective because 
you were a teacher in a public school, and now you have been 
involved in a charter school. Is it possible for you to tell us 
what is the difference? What is the secret? What is the secret 
sauce in charter schools and the difference?
    Mr. Pondiscio. I was a teacher at a public school and at a 
charter school. I taught high school civics for a time at 
Democracy Prep public charter schools in Harlem, New York. The 
difference is, and let me be clear, I do not think there is any 
particular magic that happens when you put the name Charter on 
a school building.
    What it is, is a permission structure, right? Chartering 
allows you to innovate, allows you to do something new and 
different that you could not do in the public school system. 
Some charters take full advance of that, some do not. Let us be 
honest. The best charters embrace this, and innovate around 
curriculum and instruction, which is my particular interest.
    Some of the very best charters think thoughtfully about the 
job of the teacher, and making--how do you make that job, as I 
like to say, doable by mere mortals? As a former public school 
teacher, I can tell you that it is--I like to say it is the 
easiest job in the world to do badly, the hardest job in the 
world to do well.
    One of the things that I have studied over the years, 
particularly in charters, particularly like the one that I 
reference in my testimony is innovative ideas around making the 
job doable by the teachers we have, not the teachers we wish we 
had.
    Chairman Bean. Were you coached differently? Is the 
administration at one or the other?
    Mr. Pondiscio. Oh, no question. Well, back to my experience 
as a charter school teacher, I got more observations in 
coaching on a single day than frankly, I got in 5 years at 
PS277 where I had two observations in 5 years. I do not mean 
two a year, two observations period, in 5 years.
    In my first day teaching high school civics at Democracy 
Prep, my principal was in my classroom giving me feedback. If I 
may----
    Chairman Bean. I believe we will, I have got to move on, 
but hopefully we will explore that because I know you have had 
that insight right there. Dr. Raymond, we have heard we all 
want what is best for kids. We all want a system that thrives. 
We want an accountable system. We want to be measuring 
everybody's report card. All of our report cards should be the 
same because we can measure.
    There has been some criticism on charters today that we do 
not measure them appropriately and what not. How do you respond 
to that criticism? Is that fair?
    Ms. Raymond. I think that all schools should face the same 
outcomes performance criteria, and I think if we do that you 
will find, as Mr. Pondiscio said, some charter schools do not 
do very well, but the vast majority of them do. Those sets of 
criteria should apply regardless, and they ought to be tied to 
our learning standards that we think kids need to know in order 
to be successful in life.
    Chairman Bean. Is the CREDO measuring stick, and that is 
the measuring stick of how we based on educational outcomes. Is 
that fair? Does that need to be reformed? Is it accurate?
    Ms. Raymond. Well, if we thought it was unfair we would 
change it. No. The idea that we have is that we have precisely 
matched on all things that we can measure, a student in a 
charter school, with students who look exactly like them, 
including their starting score, so, their educational 
endowments, in local District schools.
    It is a peer reviewed methodology. We have had four 
published critiques, evaluations, of our methodology, and not 
only do we hold up well as a regular matching methodology, but 
our results actually approximate what you would get with so-
called experimental designs. I am confident it is useful.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Campbell.
    Mr. Campbell. Yes, sir?
    Chairman Bean. You have got a distinguished career as a 
military veteran, but also as a business leader. You could do a 
lot of things, probably go elsewhere and make a lot of money, 
but you have made a decision to engage in bolstering charter 
schools and educational choice. Why are you doing that?
    Mr. Campbell. Very simple. I mean just the hundreds and 
hundreds of families, parents that I have talked to. I have 
been in living rooms where I have heard them talk about the 
challenges of getting a great education. I have heard them 
share their hopes, their wishes, their dreams, their 
aspirations for their kids that they felt like were being 
unmet.
    Anything that I can do to help them do that, I think that 
is the most important work, and work that I will always look 
back upon fondly. If I could help parents be able to do that, 
that is what I am going to do.
    Chairman Bean. Was my opening statement accurate when I 
said there is a lottery, there are lines to get in, families 
literally live on that computer trying to get in. They know 
that sometimes it is the only way they can get out. They can 
elevate their family. Is that accurate?
    Mr. Campbell. It is in some cases. That is absolutely 
accurate in some cases. Others, you know, the reality is that 
you know, if we do this well, our schools will be better, and 
also traditional public schools will be better.
    My hope again, is that we have great charter schools. They 
push our district in ways that they might not always want to be 
pushed, but that they get better also.
    That we have a variety of offerings that parents, 
especially those parents who have a limited means can be able 
to access those schools.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Campbell. I now 
yield the floor to Ranking Member Bonamici for 5 minutes, you 
are recognized.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 
to the witnesses. I would like to start by reiterating that 
research on charter schools is mixed at best when it comes to 
determining their effectiveness at providing high quality 
academic instruction for students.
    Additionally, research has shown that charter schools are 
less likely than traditional public schools to enroll and 
support students with disabilities, more likely to be 
segregated by race, socioeconomic status, class, and student 
language proficiency. I think, Dr. Raymond, you made a great 
case for a longer school year.
    Mr. Pondiscio, you certainly made a case for more 
professional development, a differentiation, a great case for 
smaller class sizes, and more engaged administration, but I see 
our role as policymakers to care about all students, not just 
with those students with the parents who say okay, well we want 
to find a right fit for our students because you still have to 
look at everybody and give everybody a great education.
    When I was in the Oregon legislature, I was on a charter 
review Commission, where we looked at it was 10 years after our 
charter law passed, and we were grappling with issues back 
then, maybe 12--15 years ago. A lot of questions still have not 
been answered today. How are charter schools determining which 
students enroll? Who serves on boards? To whom are they 
accountable?
    What happens when charter schools close? Where do their 
students go? We had a lot of questions about the proliferation 
of online charter schools, which tend to have an abysmal 
record. Dr. Vasquez Heilig, you mentioned the lack of 
accountability and rigorous oversight of charter schools in 
many states, and also the high percentage of schools that 
closed.
    What do students and families do when their charter school 
closes its doors? What recourse is there? What options do they 
have? If a charter school closes in the middle of an academic 
year, how does that affect the local public schools?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. I have to work in an example about 
the University of Michigan. I can want to go to the University 
of Michigan, but the University of Michigan also wants to have 
me too.
    I think that is one of the issues that we have with charter 
schools is we talk about lotteries and these types of things, 
but the charter schools get to decide who is eligible for that 
lottery in a lot of cases, right.
    If those students leave, then they are able to backfill 
those students, and they can decide how they want to backfill 
students when students leave, et cetera. When charter schools 
close, we know that public schools are going to welcome them 
back. Because public schools are a part of education as a 
public good, and so they are going to bring any student that 
comes to their door, they are going to allow them in.
    We have to understand the school choice does not mean that 
parents can willy nilly choose a student they want in the 
school that they want to go to, they also have to be chosen by 
that school. It is the same premise for vouchers too. Whether 
it is charters or vouchers, school choice means that the 
schools have a role in that choice.
    If a charter school is closed, and we know that quite a few 
charter schools do close. I gave those numbers in my opening 
statement, that disrupts their education. That disrupts their 
families, and so those students are welcomed back with open 
arms to their public schools.
    They do also have a lot of other opportunities for choice. 
Many districts have in-district charters. Those are community 
engaged charters. There are Magnet schools, there are community 
schools, there is a lot of community driven choice.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. I want to get another question in. 
Like many other states, Oregon's witnessed of proliferation of 
online charter schools as I mentioned. In 2015, a CREDO report 
about online charter schools found such poor performance that 
Education Week actually quoted Dr. Raymond as saying it was 
literally as though the student did not go to school for the 
entire year.
    Despite this enrollment, we know that they have long been 
some of the worst performing schools in the charter sector. 
There was a rise, of course, during the COVID 19 pandemic. In a 
2022, a GAO report found that virtual charter schools had 
significantly lower proficiency rates on State tests compared 
with other school types.
    What are the long-term outcomes for students who attend 
these schools, and what if anything, can we do to hold online 
charter schools accountable for poor performance?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Right. I think that the CREDO has been 
very consistent in finding that the online charters perform 
especially poorly, especially in math, that they have been 
performing very poorly. When I was in California as Education 
Chair, this was something that California was tackling.
    This is one of the biggest challenges in the charter 
sector. I think it is in the best interest of the charter 
sector to support accountability, because then their numbers 
would look better than hundredths of standard deviation of 
improvement. I think it is in their best interest for the good 
apples to call out the bad apples.
    Ms. Bonamici. I appreciate that----
    Ms. Raymond. Can I clarify for the record?
    Ms. Bonamici. Go ahead, Dr. Raymond.
    Ms. Raymond. The numbers that you have quoted are accurate, 
but of just a few weeks ago our team in part led by Dr. Lee, 
behind me, published a policy brief about online charter 
schools. I would be happy to enter that into the record during 
the follow-on period.
    What we found is that in most online charter schools, while 
the average performance is bad, and that is certainly the case, 
there are in every school a substantial proportion of students 
who do well. The problem that I see now in this additional 
insight is that online schools are not for every student. They 
do not have the necessarily clearing and matching.
    Ms. Bonamici. I have to reclaim my time. They are also 
significant equity issues for students who do not have a parent 
or someone at home with them. Mr. Chairman, as I yield back, I 
want to enter into the record a letter by the National Network 
for Public Education about charter schools and enter into the 
record as well, a report by the National Council on Disability 
entitled ``Choice and Vouchers--Implications for Students with 
Disabilities.''
    Chairman Bean. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you 
very much Ranking Member.
    [The information of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
    
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    Chairman Bean. We will now yield to the State of Michigan, 
where Representative Lisa McClain is recognized for her 5 
minutes. Representative McClain, you are recognized.
    Mrs. McClain. Thank you. Before I get started, Ms. Raymond, 
did you want to finish your thought?
    Ms. Raymond. I was done. Thank you.
    Mrs. McClain. Okay. Thank you. Then I will start just with 
a general question to Mr. Heilig because we have talked a lot 
about charter schools and what happens if they close, and we 
are all concerned about that, right? Goodness gracious, what 
happens if the close in the middle of a school year, right?
    We want to make sure that we are protecting the children. 
What happens when a public school fails?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, that is a good question. How do 
you define failing, Congresswoman?
    Mrs. McClain. Same way we define failure for charter 
schools. What happens--it is real simple. One, do you have a 
determination whether a public school is failing? Yes or no? 
Yes, you do?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, I was asked to do that at work 
for Rod Page when I worked in Houston. Did you want me to say 
more on that, or just leave it?
    Mrs. McClain. I am just asking. Do we have a measurement 
for when a public school fails? Yes we do, no we do not.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Bureaucrats do create arbitrary 
measures for a failing school. Yes.
    Mrs. McClain. Yes, we have that measure for when public 
schools fail?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. Bureaucrats do create that now. 
Yes.
    Ms. McClain. Okay. I appreciate that. What happens to a 
public school when it fails?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, we should make investments in----
    Ms. McClain. I am not asking what should, I am asking when 
a public school fails what happens?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, I could tell you what happens in 
Texas. In Houston, they have gone and taken away the schools 
from the community. That is what is happening in Houston. I 
think that we need to make investments in the things that we 
know matter.
    Ms. McClain. I understand. When a public school fails, this 
is what I am trying to wrap my head around.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Sure.
    Ms. McClain. We have two separate sets of rules for the 
same children, which is kind of interesting to me.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Okay.
    Ms. McClain. If a charter school fails, we have all these 
rules and regulations and it closes, right? If a public school 
fails with less rules, less regulations, we just want more 
money to fix the problem. If money is the answer for public 
schools, why would we not give money to the answer for charter 
schools? With that, I am going to switch my questioning now to 
Mr. Pondiscio.
    The National School of Choice Awareness Foundation 
January's survey found that 72 percent of parents considered 
not--but considered different schools for their children. A 35 
percent increase since 2022, right? What do you see is driving 
such a significant increase in school of choice? 35 percent.
    Mr. Pondiscio. Yes. I think the short answer may be COVID. 
For years I have pointed out that what happens inside of the 
American school classroom is a bit of a black box. We do not 
really know. COVID ripped the lid off of that black box, as it 
were, so suddenly your child's school was coming onto your 
laptop, onto your kitchen table every day all across America.
    In many, and hopefully most instances, the parents were 
edified by what they saw. In some number of cases, 
unfortunately, parents were aghast at what they saw. When 
parents are unhappy with their school, they tend to want 
something else. If they are in a public school that is not 
doing well, then they are going to seek choice.
    Congresswoman, if I also may just answer your previous 
question about what happens when a public school fails, well in 
2002, I went to work at the lowest performing public school in 
New York City's lowest performing district. It is now 2024, 
that school is now the lowest performing school in New York 
City's lowest performing district.
    Mrs. McClain. Well, we just have measurements, I thought we 
just talked about we had measurements for those public schools 
when they close. Why did that one not close?
    Mr. Pondiscio. That is a very good question, Congresswoman.
    Mrs. McClain. Hmm. Did we have--that is interesting, but we 
care about the children, right? Okay. Just checking. In my 
district over--we have 3,300 charter school students, right? I 
am wondering if you could help--there is a need, there is a 
want, maybe not a need, but a want for more charter schools, 
right?
    There is a waiting list to get in, right, which I would 
think would be a good thing. Can you describe the roadblocks 
that exist at the local and State level in developing more 
options?
    Mr. Pondiscio. Sure.
    Mrs. McClain. Why can we not have more of these schools 
that parents are demanding for their children?
    Mr. Pondiscio. I understand that we are talking about this 
at the Federal level, but in New York, where I have spent my 
entire education career, there has been a charter school cap in 
place for nearly a decade. Despite the fact that the City in 
particular, New York City, is home to some of the highest 
performing, highest demand public charter schools in the 
country, there has been no more room at the inn, so to speak. 
State lawmakers have blocked the creation of new charters.
    Mrs. McClain. Why do you think we are so afraid and so 
scared of charter schools?
    Mr. Pondiscio. That is a very good question. I do not have 
an answer for you.
    Mrs. McClain. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much. Let us go to the great 
State of Connecticut, where Representative Hayes is recognized. 
You are recognized.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you and thank you to all of our witnesses 
for being here today. I just want to make a few corrections to 
the record before I get into my remarks. First of all, teaching 
virtually is a skillset, so this idea that people turned on 
their computers and were aghast by what they saw, many of our 
educators had never had the investments made in what it takes 
to teach students virtually, which is a different skillset.
    For that to be the metric of evaluation for what is 
happening in our public schools, it is just wrong and 
inaccurate. I am not sure where in the country a teacher would 
only be evaluated two times in 5 years. Teacher evaluations are 
part of our school systems.
    I was evaluated every year, multiple times a year, on 
things like student learning objectives, standards-based 
observations. Parent and peer feedback, whole school measures 
and also student feedback. You cannot advance as a teacher and 
maintain your certification without evaluation, so that needs 
to be said. There is already a partnership in place between 
parents and teachers.
    I have to shout out from my own home State of Connecticut, 
our PTA Chairman, Joe Accomando, who is here in the gallery 
today listening. Listen, I am an educator, and I support school 
choice. I support high quality public charter schools. There 
are no exceptions, but I also recognize the importance of 
specialized learning.
    Schools with a focus on a particular strand or a topic 
because these schools can engage students in a very different 
way and help them to excel in their learning. Charter schools 
get to pick and choose if and when they will accept a special 
education population. They get to choose to exclude students 
based on disciplinary or attendance issues.
    Public schools cannot do that. We have to support all 
students, no matter what they bring to the table. Even the kids 
who have no one else advocating for them. Even to your point 
the Tiffanys.
    That is our job, to support all students, so why then are 
we not talking about making all schools the best that they can 
be, instead of picking off and creating subsets where a select 
handpicked group of students have access to high quality 
specialized learning.
    As a parent, I would expect that for my child, and I want 
that as a teacher for every child. That should be our response. 
I also do not support moving public funds from students who 
need it most, to fund for-profit charter networks. The 
Department of Education invests millions of dollars in charter 
schools, so we must have transparency and oversight of these 
funds, and that is not unreasonable.
    To my colleague's point, these are questions that for a 
decade still have not been answered. Dr. Vasquez Heilig, in 
your testimony you mention that charter schools have higher 
rates of teacher turnover, and lower teacher quality than 
traditional public schools.
    Can I ask you why public schools are able to retain quality 
teachers at higher rates than most public charter schools?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. That is a great question, and I think 
there is a lot of peer reviewed research on this topic. The 
charter teachers say it is because there is a lot of 
inexperienced teachers in charter schools. One fifth of public 
school teachers have less than 3 years' experience.
    One third of charter school teachers have that experience. 
They also have a challenge with experienced leaders and working 
conditions. Right here in D.C., 25 percent of teachers turn 
over in public, neighborhood public schools, 40 percent in 
charter schools according to a Washington Post piece that I 
recently saw.
    It is very well established in the research literature on 
average because we are talking about the averages here, that 
charter schools have less experienced teachers, and they are 
less qualified, and they have higher turnover.
    Mrs. Hayes. According to the Network of Public Education, 
over 15 percent of charter schools around the country are run 
by for-profit corporations. Do you think that a mandatory 
spending report, or other measures by Congress would help in 
providing transparency to where these funds are going?
    Mr. Vasques Heilig. We absolutely need more accountability. 
There was a comment about money for these planning grants, with 
the CSP grant, and I have been a CSP reviewer for the U.S. 
Department of Education. We have seen a billion dollars going 
to planning grants for schools that either never opened or 
closed after a year.
    There is excessive malfeasance in terms of the finances in 
the charter school sector.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. I do not have much time, so I will 
end by thanking you all for your testimony, and just reminding 
you that investing in our teachers and in our public schools, 
is the way that we reach all students. This idea about picking 
out and pulling out the most egregious statistics about failing 
schools should be our call to action, not us turning away from 
the kids who need it most, or the kids that have no one but us 
advocating for them. With that, I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Representative. Let us 
go to the great State of Illinois, where Representative Miller 
is recognized. Representative Miller.
    Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Chairman Bean, and thank you to all 
of our witnesses for being here today.
    Mr. Campbell.
    Mr. Campbell. Yes, ma'am?
    Mrs. Miller. You mentioned in your testimony that 67 
percent of Baton Rouge charter schools are surpassing their 
pre-pandemic test scores. Congratulations.
    Mr. Campbell. Thank you.
    Mrs. Miller. Which is roughly double the percentage of 
traditional public schools in Baton Rouge achieving the same 
success. That number is simply remarkable. What do you think 
explains the charter school success in Baton Rouge?
    Mr. Campbell. I think several things. One, being able to be 
in that smaller environment where you are worried primarily 
about the kids in that building gives you a laser like focus on 
those kids and their needs and their interests.
    We have a school district, and you are kind of worried 
about everybody and everything, it is kind of hard to forget 
about the one kid, and what does that one kid need? I think 
charter schools being mission aligned, and mission focused 
really digging in on instruction, and understanding you know, 
kind of what the learning loss during COVID entailed, and how 
they can get past that.
    I think our schools have done a wonderful job. We have 
further to go, but by far we want to be far better. We are 
really encouraged that those schools are back to that level. We 
think they could be even better next year, so that is what we 
are focused on.
    Mrs. Miller. That is great. Mr. Campbell, I am also deeply 
impressed by your dedicated service to our country, having 
served 8 years on active duty, and an additional 13 years in 
the Reserves. First and foremost, thank you so much for your 
commitment and sacrifice to preserve our freedom.
    Mr. Campbell. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
    Mrs. Miller. Your contributions are truly commendable, and 
our Nation is indebted to individuals like you. In your 
testimony you highlighted the potential of charter schools in 
addressing the unique needs of military families. Could you 
elaborate on how charter schools can effectively cater to the 
specific needs of military families?
    Mr. Campbell. Yes, ma'am. First, it is knowing the kids. 
The reality is you know, our military families, especially in 
the post-911 era, you know, they were facing frequent 
deployments, and so our family members were gone all the time. 
What does that mean to a kid who is in your school, you know, 
if they have a dad gone, or a mom gone for an extended period 
of time?
    Frequent TDY's, the fact that they are moving every two to 
3 years and they are at a different community with different 
friends, all those things affect kids and how they learn, and 
their ability to be deeply connected to teachers and schools. A 
school that recognizes that and those little things, for 
example, when you walk into Bell Chase, you know, shortly after 
9/11, you would see banners hanging in the entryway with the 
names of every parent who was deployed, right?
    That kids would walk through that on their way into school 
knowing that people cared about their family member, and that 
they were praying for them, and hoping for their success. The 
fact that these kids have to go on to different school 
district, and they need to be on grade level.
    All those sorts of things I think made a big difference to 
the families, you know, just south of New Orleans, and I am 
hoping that other schools can have also that laser like focus 
on particular kids who go into their doors.
    Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Campbell, and may God continue 
to bless and grant you wisdom as you seek to be impactful in 
these children's education, and Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Representative. Let us 
go to the great State of Florida where Representative Wilson, 
you are recognized, good morning.
    Ms. Wilson. Thank you, home boy. Thank you, Chairman Bean, 
Ranking Member Bonamici, and thank you to our witnesses for 
your testimony today. I must State upfront that I find your 
claims of charter schools outperforming public schools to be 
not only misleading but entirely deceptive and unfounded. 
Charter schools have failed to uphold their promises to the 
communities they serve.
    A number of years ago, I became a public school teacher to 
keep the promise that traditional public schools make. My 
mission was clear to provide Black and Brown children with 
opportunities for life, knowledge, civic engagement, and the 
pursuit of the American dream.
    Charter schools fall short of this promise. Instead, poorly 
monitored charter schools deliver subpar academic results, 
snatch money from our public schools, and then wash their hands 
clean of any responsibility. On top of that in my home State of 
Florida, we see charters exacerbate patterns of resegregation 
along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines.
    In Florida, Black students consistently perform worse in 
charter schools than in their traditional public schools. While 
Florida's charters boast more A rated schools, they also lead 
the pack in F rated institutions, compared to public schools, 
and that is just the reality.
    In fact, in 2022, News4Jax report revealed that 10 out of 
40 Duval County charter schools received D or F grades from the 
State. Does this sound consistently successful to you? Help me 
make sense of this. Again, the assertion that charters are best 
for minority, low-income communities, is not just misleading 
but downright dangerous and destined for failure.
    In a WTSP Tampa Bay report, Florida's charter school 
statistics paint a grim picture, a staggering 409 charter 
schools have shut down since the first opened in Florida in 
1996. That is a 40 percent failure rate. As a former teacher, 
and former principal, myself, let us recap what we have 
learned.
    What are charter schools actually good at, if anything? We 
have learned that charter schools are good at snatching 
Florida's money that should be going to public schools, leaving 
them deprived. Then, they peddle substandard education. When 
the damage is done, they shut down and leave nothing but chaos 
in their wake.
    This is what we get with charter schools. We as a nation 
have worked very hard, made so many gains, and we simply cannot 
continue to regress into an educational landscape where we fail 
to keep the promises we have made to our children. The very 
first charter school in the Nation was established in my 
hometown of Florida, Miami, Florida, by Jeb Bush, who used that 
platform to win the Governorship of Florida.
    After the school board, which I served on, passed the 
charter provision, despite my protest, I worked with Mr. Bush 
side by side to make sure that the school was at least halfway 
equal to our public schools. It was not, and it soon closed. 
Please stop diverting funds from public schools to experiment 
with our children. With that, I have a few questions.
    Dr. Vasquez Heilig, data is consistently showing that 
traditional public schools are increasing in performance over 
time. Meanwhile, charters have higher teacher turnover rates. 
Would it not make sense to invest in our traditional public 
school system, rather than splintering our resources in a 
variety of school types?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. This is particularly important for 
the African American community. The NAACP has had five 
resolutions on charter schools, and the one in about 2010 made 
exactly this point. This is why the NAACP called for a 
moratorium on charter schools in 2016, and this is especially 
important because in urban areas, one in every five Black 
students is now attending a charter school.
    Ms. Wilson. I am out of time. Thank you.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you, Representative Wilson. Let us go 
to Utah where the Chair of the Higher Ed Subcommittee is 
recognized. Burgess Owens, Representative Owens, you are 
recognized.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 
Heilig, I would like to ask a quick question. Would you agree 
with--I will get to what the question is, what is the priority 
of education? The child or the institution?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, part of the education system 
should be to make the investments in our students, so they can 
have successful futures----
    Mr. Owens. No, no, no. Just--is it the child? Is that the 
priority? Or is the institution? There are two different 
focuses I think we are kind of dealing with right now?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Investments in the children.
    Mr. Owens. Okay. Okay. The State of California 2017, 75 
percent of the black boys in the State of California could not 
pass standard reading and writing tests. Here in Baltimore, 
three districts--zero proficiency in math. Should the parents 
of those children--well, let me also ask this.
    Would you agree the parents of these children care about 
their kids as much as everybody else, even if they are poor, 
black, Hispanic, they still care about those kids that are 
failing?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. I am sorry. I do not understand.
    Mr. Owens. Would you agree that the parents of those 
children care about their kids as much as we do care about our 
kids?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Absolutely.
    Mr. Owens. Okay. In a situation where there in these 
schools should parents have a choice of leaving failing public 
schools to go someplace else? Can I just reState this? 75 
percent of black boys in the State of California fail to read, 
write and think. Should those parents have a choice of leaving 
those public--failing public schools, to go someplace where 
their kids have a chance to succeed?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. The question you asked has limited the 
responses I can provide. The response to the actual question is 
we need to make an investment in these children.
    Mr. Owen. Well, let me just say this. If we were talking 
about your child, I am sure you will say I want to choose 
someplace else. I have been hearing this for 40 years that we 
need to reinvest in these schools. Guess what happens? Every 
three to 4 years, kids are graduating not understanding how to 
succeed as we are talking about investing more into failing 
schools.
    Should public school systems have the same level playing 
field, in terms of the outcome, as charter schools?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, I think the record should say 
that charter schools should have the same accountability. 
Public schools have vastly more accountability in State law 
than charter schools do.
    Mr. Owens. Okay. Why are we having so much failure across 
our country? This is not just California, by the way. 
Everywhere, and by the way, let me just say this. It is 
happening more in black, Hispanic and low-income that this is 
going on.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes, yes, yes. That is the elephant in 
the room in our country. We know that inequality is--20 billion 
dollars more go into districts that are primarily white 
compared to districts that are primarily Black and Latino.
    Mr. Owens. Well, let me just say this. I know that charter 
schools in the same communities as these public schools, so if 
you go to a charter school you have a majority of black, 
Hispanic and low-income. You go to the same public school, 
charter, you are going to have the same geographics.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes, but here is the answer. Here is 
the answer to that question. If I go into your local 
supermarket, I have $10.00, and I have to split it three ways, 
that is completely different than if we invest it in a public 
choice decision. The vouchers, charters----
    Mr. Owens. Okay. Just let me say this because I do not want 
to get into too much of the weeds. I am going to ask you, and I 
look at this. The problem is accentuated, this here statement, 
by nationwide declining K through 12 student populations at 
public schools. That could be because parents realizing it is 
not working for their kids.
    I think we have to--I understand this, how about we look at 
best practices? Have you ever thought about this? You look at 
what is going on in Baton Rouge, you look at what is going on 
in the Success Academy. If those are working, should we not 
replicate that if the focus is our kids?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, I think that is a great question. 
We have a district in Louisiana that is all charter schools, 
and I do not think anybody is arguing that they are a model of 
educational success. After Katrina, charter schools were forced 
on New Orleans, and nobody is arguing that they are a beacon of 
educational success.
    Mr. Owens. No. We can also not argue, we have to argue that 
there is 75 percent failure rate in California, so those public 
schools are failing too. My point is we should have a standard 
for all of them because failing our kids, they should not be 
part of the equation, right? Would you agree with that?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. I agree we should have a high standard 
for all schools, absolutely.
    Mr. Owens. Okay. That means public schools also. If the 
public schools are failing, let us get rid of them. If charter 
schools are failing, let us get rid of them. A bottom line is 
our output of our kids being able to sit and have these kinds 
of conversations, to have a dream, the ability to move forward, 
only happen if they can read, write and think.
    For us to talk about putting down the best practices of 
college, of situations that are working is we are--I am trying 
to understand why that is happening. If it is succeeding, if it 
is in Baton Rouge it is succeeding, New York, I would go to the 
Success Academy upstairs in the same building is where Success 
Academy is.
    Downstairs is public. The biggest--the biggest 
disappointment of those kids and those same families, one knows 
they are going to be succeeding because they are a part of that 
lottery ticket, and the other know they are not going to 
succeed because they are going downstairs to a public school 
system that is going to guarantee their failure.
    We need that focus on our outcome, focus on our kids, not 
the institution. Thank you guys, actually, for what you are 
doing. I appreciate particularly those in these communities 
that these kids have not had a chance in the past. Thank you, 
guys, so much for that, and I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Representative Owens. 
Let us go to the great State of California where the Chair of 
the Subcommittee of the Workforce is recognized. Representative 
Kiley, you are recognized.
    Mr. Kiley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Campbell, I want to 
ask you about the New Orleans experience because it is such an 
important case study that in the wake of Hurricane Katrina you 
had to rebuild the whole education system. New Orleans went 100 
percent charter. Is that correct?
    Mr. Campbell. That is correct.
    Mr. Kiley. What have the results been in terms of student 
achievement?
    Mr. Campbell. The results have been nothing short of 
remarkable. As we said, it was virtually a wasteland. It was 
one of the worst school districts in America prior to Hurricane 
Katrina. You look today and you actually see a vibrant school 
system.
    It actually works very well. Contrary to what a lot of 
people said, the folks who started schools after Hurricane 
Katrina were education leaders who were already from New 
Orleans. It was not like there was some invading force that 
came in with all these charter schools.
    The reality is we empower local educators who were already 
there, already operating schools, with a new way to be able to 
do it, that they have embraced and ran with and done phenomenal 
things with. Right now, if you look at our State, New Orleans 
again was always at the bottom. It is in the top tier in terms 
of school district performance, and top 40 percent.
    There is no way you would have expected that in New Orleans 
when you look at the demographics of New Orleans. We have 
veteran educators who love New Orleans, who have lived there 
their entire lives, who are running great charter schools.
    If you ask a person, they will tell you they will never go 
back. That is the reality of what is happening in New Orleans.
    Mr. Kiley. New Orleans went from among the worst to among 
the best.
    Mr. Campbell. Yes.
    Mr. Kiley. After going 100 percent charter?
    Mr. Campbell. Yes.
    Mr. Kiley. We see in some parts of the country charter 
schools are under attack. One of the first things that the 
Biden administration Education Department did was propose 
cutting charter school grants. In California, a number of laws 
have been passed, and have been signed into law by the 
Governor, making it harder to open and to reauthorize charter 
schools.
    In Los Angeles, Unified School District, the second largest 
district in the entire country, that we are proposing right now 
to significantly restrict the ability to operate charter 
schools. We have heard today, several just blatantly false 
statements about how charter schools work from our friends over 
there, as well as one of the democrat witnesses, who just 
blatantly mischaracterized the New Orleans experience.
    What would your message be to those who are waging this war 
on charter schools when they have been shown to produce 
remarkable results?
    Mr. Campbell. I think the first thing we have to understand 
is that this is really about money and control, right? We can 
talk about all these other things performance, others, it is 
money and control. It is who gets to decide how kids are 
educated, where they are educated, and who gets to spend the 
money.
    The fact is now we have a situation where all of a sudden 
it is not all housed in one district. There are other people 
who can say this is how we are going to spend our dollars. 
These are the results we are trying to achieve. For the first 
time, we have empowered poor families to say I do not like what 
is happening in this school, so I am going to take my money, 
and I am going to move and go somewhere else.
    At the end of the day, as long as we are talking about 
money and power and control, you are always going to have this 
kind of contentiousness but let us not make it something else. 
It really is about money and power and control, and who has it 
and who does not.
    Mr. Kiley. In other words, the attacks on charter schools 
are about putting politics over kids.
    Mr. Campbell. Absolutely.
    Mr. Kiley. Dr. Raymond, I wanted to ask you briefly about 
the CREDO study because this is really the gold standard when 
it comes to measuring charter school success. I think you have 
results specifically from California as well, which is my 
State. Can you speak to that a little bit about how charters 
are done in California?
    Ms. Raymond. I knew I would get a detailed question. Hang 
on just a second. Yes, thank you. In our charter school study 
of 2023, students in California charter schools were able to 
host 11 extra days of learning in reading, and four extra days 
of learning in math.
    These are 1,300 charter schools across the State, so on 
average they are moving students forward faster than students 
in traditional public schools that are right down the street.
    Mr. Kiley. Is it not interesting that the politicians in 
Sacramento see those results and decide these are precisely the 
schools that we need to go after, and to target, and make it 
more difficult to operate them? Thank you very much for your 
work, and thank you as well for your testimony, Mr. Campbell, 
and your work--the tremendous work that you are doing to 
provide opportunities to students.
    The beauty of charters is that not only are they helping to 
close achievement gaps in districts that have historically 
struggled when it comes to student success, but you know, they 
also allow for just different options for different types of 
kids, and different types of families. In the area that I 
represent, we actually have some truly excellent traditional 
public schools, and then we also have some outstanding charter 
public schools that some families choose to opt into.
    I want to thank the Chair for holding this hearing. I think 
it is very important that we continue to support the charter 
movement and to support successful charter schools and charter 
leaders. I think it is highly unfortunate that that cannot be 
as bipartisan as frankly it should be. Thank you, and I yield 
back to the Chair.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Chair Kiley. Let us go 
to the great State of North Carolina, where the Chair of the 
Education and Workforce is standing by. She is now recognized 
for questions. Representative Foxx, you are recognized.
    Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Chairman Bean. I want to thank our 
witnesses for being here today. Dr. Raymond, coming to you 
again, you mentioned that charter school results for students 
in urban areas, and for minority students are especially 
positive. Could you say something more about that?
    I know you have done excellent research and have terrific 
numbers about this, so we would love to hear more about that.
    Ms. Raymond. I love it when somebody asks me for more 
numbers, thank you.
    Mrs. Foxx. Will you turn your mic on? I am not sure it is 
on.
    Ms. Raymond. Yes, ma'am, it is on. Can you hear me now?
    Mrs. Foxx. Okay.
    Ms. Raymond. Urban students enrolled in charter schools 
learn an extra 30 days in a year's time in reading and 28 extra 
days of learning in math in a year's time compared to district 
students that they're matched with. For black students, those 
numbers are 35 extra days of learning in reading, and 29 extra 
days of learning in math.
    Hispanic students, reading 30 extra days in reading for 
Hispanic students, and 19 extra days for Hispanic students in 
math. The poverty results are 23 extra days of learning in 
reading, and 17 extra days of learning in math. What this means 
is over a course of several years, students are making months 
and months and months of additional academic progress.
    This means they are better prepared to graduate. They are 
better prepared for life after high school.
    Mrs. Foxx. Which makes it again even more puzzling as to 
why policymakers do not want these students to have these 
opportunities. It is just maddening. Mr. Pondiscio, in the last 
few years we have seen parents in traditional public schools 
get silenced, excluded and shamed for simply wanting to be part 
of their children's education.
    I think that is inexcusable. How can charter schools help 
ensure parents have a voice in their child's education?
    Mr. Pondiscio. The best schools, charter, public, privates 
alike, recognize the power of getting every adult on the same 
page so to speak, or pulling in the same direction. I think one 
of the potential benefits of charter schools is to encourage 
again, innovation, and create a more--a wider variety, an 
ecosystem if you like, of different school types.
    With respect to my research-based colleagues, I focus on 
curriculum, on instruction, on school culture. If you think of 
the choices that an affluent American parent has at his or her 
disposal, depending on where they live of course, they likely 
have access to a classical school, a Montessori school, a 
project-based learning school.
    They have, without controversy, unfettered access to make 
the best choice for his or her child. Imagine if we had a 
similar range of options for low-income families, where--and 
this should be the magic of chartering. Let us be honest, if 
there is a weak link in the charter ecosystem, it is that we 
are not encouraging this robust flowering of different school 
models and cultures.
    If we use the chartering process to create an equal system, 
a system that it was just as robust and diverse and had as many 
different options as well-off families have, well then you 
would more likely match parents and children to schools that 
match their interest, their values, et cetera.
    That I think is the promise of chartering that is 
unfulfilled, but it is fulfillable.
    Mrs. Foxx. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Campbell.
    Mr. Campbell. Yes, ma'am.
    Mrs. Foxx. We have heard a lot of concerns about how having 
too much red tape can stifle charter school flexibility and 
growth. As someone who has been involved in charter schools for 
several years, what kind of regulations could be eliminated 
without compromising charter effectiveness?
    Mr. Campbell. Yes. Honestly, ma'am, I do not know where to 
start, right? There are so many regulations, and I must say 
this is not only the case for our charter schools, this is for 
traditional public schools also. Like the amount of red tape 
that we throw at education is ridiculous.
    I will give you a really quick story. In Louisiana, we 
passed a bill several years ago that would allow every kid to 
get $1,000.00 in free tutoring. A report just came out last 
week that only 1 percent of eligible students were taking 
advantage of that. The reason was because we made the mandates 
for being a tutor so hard, like you had to be a retired 
teacher, you had to have so many hours of training, that we 
could not find enough teachers to do it.
    Across the board, we are always bringing in additional 
mandates, cursive writing. You have to learn about this one 
little obscure thing. At the end of the day, let us set the 
outcomes and let us try to get out of the way. Let us take the 
handcuffs off. I mean we certainly want to protect kids. We 
want to protect families. Those things are really important.
    I would argue our whole system is overly burdened by 
regulator red tape, and it certainly affects charters, which 
are supposed to be exempt from that.
    Mrs. Foxx. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Chair Fox. Let us go to 
the great State of New York, where Representative Bowman is 
recognized. Good morning.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
to our witnesses for being here. Before I get into my 
questions, Dr. Vasquez Heilig, is there anything you want to 
clarify based on questions you may have been asked before I 
arrived?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. I would like to clarify. There is a lot 
of conversation about why CREDO's results are valid. I am 
really surprised that they are spending so much time trying to 
convince us that they are valid, which to me tells a story. 
Now, one of the things about being at Stanford was I was 
subjected to a lot of statistical torture in my graduate 
program.
    I would like to talk a little bit about CREDO. Our 
understanding of that report, and only they really know, is 
that less than 40 percent of public school students are 
compared to more than 90 percent of charter school students. It 
is not really a comparison of charter schools and neighborhood 
public schools. It is a very--and she said carefully selected, 
and I want to underline selected.
    It is really narrow subject groups, rather than actual 
samples, so I think that is very important to say. I do not 
think that we should cherry pick results about educational 
outcomes. They note in their report that they had issues with 
sampling, especially for Native American students, and ELL 
students, sub-50 percent, and their ability to match in those 
areas.
    She talked about CMOs, and they decided to omit several 
states that have CMOs. Ohio, one of those. 78 percent of the 
charters in Ohio are CMOs, and one in every two is for-profit. 
I think it is important that I am just really surprised that 
they spent a lot of time trying to justify their methodology, 
and I think that is because of the last 14 or 15 years that 
scholars have had lots of critiques of their methodology.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much. As a former teacher, 
principal, and founder of a district run public school across 
New York City, I have also seen countless examples of the ways 
that charter schools can negatively impact traditional public 
schools, and often go against the wishes of local communities.
    Dr. Vasquez Heilig, how do charters impact students in 
communities at traditional public schools, especially as it 
relates to things like funding, available space, and student 
enrollment? Can you say more about how, as you stated in your 
testimony, charters often fail to align with the broader 
community interests?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. I think this is a very important 
point, and I was able to make it briefly to the other 
gentleman. What is happening now is we are opening charters. We 
are offering opportunities of vouchers, et cetera. We are using 
the same educational dollars, and we are funding three separate 
systems, which is a very inefficient way of going about public 
education.
    Now, we have examples from other countries. I will give you 
an example of Chile. Chile is a place where they have universal 
choice. What we see in those situations is that you have your 
great public schools in the nice neighborhoods. You have your 
other public schools where most of the lower achieving and low 
SES students go, and then you have some private schools where 
those voucher students go.
    What these systems actually do is they promote 
stratification of students. You see less special ed students 
being served by charter schools. You see greater segregation. 
When we did our study on segregation, we looked at every single 
school in NCES.
    We did not say here is 40 percent of neighborhood public 
schools. Here is 95 percent of charter schools. We looked at 
every single school in the NCES dataset and found that charters 
are more segregated. I think it is very important that we are 
attentive to these critiques, and that where the NAACP was 
coming from in 2016. There are significant critiques of charter 
schools, and I think charter school supporters could get a lot 
more people onboard if they would actually address the 
critiques, and they have not.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you and let us try to get this one in 
before the time runs out. Can you also discuss in more detail 
the harsh discipline practices that exist more often in charter 
schools than in traditional public schools, and how these 
practices disproportionately impact marginalized students, 
including students with disabilities?
    I mean, I have seen kids thrown--just thrown out of the 
charter schools, the public schools cannot do that.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes, yes.
    Mr. Bowman. Get suspended for long periods of time, public 
schools cannot do that.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes, yes.
    Mr. Bowman. Can you say more about that, please?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. I think the big picture is that it 
really disturbs me that we spin these sort of negative aspects 
of charter schools, that we need to have these harsh 
discipline, no excuses charter schools. That it is Okay that 
charter schools close. That it is okay that we have lower 
quality teachers. That spin.
    For me, as a former charter school instructor, I think of 
Gary. He reminded me a lot of myself, and I do not want to cry 
here, but he reminded me a lot of myself. He got into a little 
bit of trouble now and then, but one day he got into a little 
bit too much trouble, and the charter school kicked him out.
    I came back 1 day, and Gary was not there, and it broke my 
heart. I just think about all the Gary's out there who charter 
schools have decided that they do not want to serve, and they 
want to send them back to our neighborhood public schools.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Representative Bowman. 
Let us stay with the great State of New York where 
Representative Williams is recognized. Welcome, and good 
morning.
    Mr. Williams. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. 
Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here. I am an 
advocate for school choice. I believe that parents, not 
bureaucrats, make the best decisions for their parents, I am 
sorry--for their kids' success, and particularly for their 
education.
    In my district, we are very fortunate to have some 
excellent public schools, and I commend those administrators 
and teachers and school boards that deliver excellence in their 
communities. I also have excellent charter schools, and they 
are usually located in the most disadvantaged communities in my 
district.
    They are also very successful. They are wonderfully 
diverse. They are skillfully led, and they are in great demand. 
In fact, right now there are ten families waiting on a wait 
list just to get into kindergarten in their community charter 
school. Every year they have more applicants than seats 
available.
    Dr. Vasquez Heilig, do you believe that charter schools 
cherry pick students to inflate positive academic results?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, I think that I made a point 
earlier before you arrived, Congressperson.
    Mr. Williams. It is a real easy question. Do you believe 
that charter schools cherry pick students?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. They have the ability to do that. Yes.
    Mr. Williams. You believe they do?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. They have the ability to do that if 
they so choose.
    Mr. Williams. You have on record for having said an option 
is that we can ban charter schools altogether in a September 
2019 interview. Are you really considering banning all charter 
schools?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Well, I think that--I do not think that 
we should ban all charter schools. I think all charter schools 
should be democratically accountable to the public.
    Mr. Williams. Can you provide some context for me to 
understand your comment that an option is that we can ban 
charter schools altogether?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes.
    Mr. Williams. That sounds like banning charter schools, 
that is what it sounds like to me.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Again, great question. I do not know 
the context of the comment? Do you know where that comment was 
made?
    Mr. Williams. They are your words. I assume that you meant 
them when you said them.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. I do not know the context of the 
comments, but----
    Mr. Williams. It is always context.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. I do believe that all charters should 
be democratically accountable.
    Mr. Williams. Okay. Is it not your whole mission really 
just to avoid direct competition to local public schools? Is 
that really your mission?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Sorry. I am a scholar, so my job is----
    Mr. Williams. Well, scholars can have political objectives.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. My job----
    Mr. Williams. Please do not interrupt me, sir. Thank you. 
Scholars can have political points of view, as we have all 
learned. I am educated in engineering, and engineers have 
political opinions. This is a very political issue. Is it not 
your whole mission simply to avoid direct competition to local 
public schools? Is that your mission?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. No.
    Mr. Williams. That is not your mission? Mr. Campbell has 
pointed out that this is really about money, control and power. 
Mr. Campbell, you made some very compelling statements there. 
What is a good reason to ban charter schools altogether?
    Mr. Campbell. Sir, I could see no good reason to ban 
charter schools altogether. They are viable, they are popular 
with our families, and they are doing well. There is no reason 
to ban charter schools.
    Mr. Williams. Well, we have scholars who are saying that 
that is a viable option. What animates and motivates that point 
of view? I am surprised to have heard it today?
    Mr. Cambell. I think sometimes there is a tendency to look 
at something that is not perfect, and to try to equate 
something else to it, to try and compare and contrast. We have 
had conversations today, and I have heard people talk about 
stratified schools. Our public school systems are stratified 
today, right?
    The reason we have charter schools is to help those folks 
who are stuck where they are, and so you know again, it is not 
as if parents are leaving to go to charter schools because 
everything is perfect. They are leaving because of the 
challenges that are already there.
    Now our public school system needs to be better, and our 
working in Baton Rouge, we support great schools regardless, 
Magnet, outside under a tree, whatever it is. If it works we 
are for it, and the reality is that too many of our schools do 
not work, and we need more schools that do.
    Mr. Williams. It just seems that getting back to where I 
started--that putting power in the hands of parents, and 
letting them choose, like in my community where they are on a 
wait list for these wonderfully diverse schools that achieve 
just remarkable results, not at the exclusion of public 
schools. We have excellent public schools as well that dot my 
landscape.
    Mr. Campbell. Yes.
    Mr. Williams. I am proud of both.
    Mr. Campbell. Yes.
    Mr. Williams. This idea that to avoid direct competition of 
local schools, and perhaps even ban charter schools altogether 
as a scholarly option is absurd, and I appreciate you all for 
testifying here today. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Mr. Williams. Let us go 
to the great State of Louisiana, where Representative Letlow is 
recognized. Good morning, and you are recognized.
    Ms. Letlow. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
to all the witnesses for being here, especially my fellow 
Louisianan, Mr. Ken Campbell, from New Schools for Baton Rouge, 
for coming to testify in front of the Subcommittee.
    Mr. Campbell. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Letlow. I have previously visited Mr. Campbell's 
charter school operations and was so impressed by the 
educational innovation occurring at your schools, and how they 
are meeting the student's needs, and catering to their learning 
styles. It is no secret that I am a strong supporter of charter 
schools.
    The charter school's program at the U.S. Department of 
Education, and in fact, last September, the Louisiana 
Department of Education was awarded 55.5 million in Federal CSP 
grants to support Louisiana's charter school movement. Over 5 
years LDOE will support the addition of over 5,000 seats at 25 
new, expanding or replicating the charter schools primarily 
located in failing school districts, including in rural areas, 
just like mine.
    I am thrilled this grant will benefit our State, and 
ultimate our students. As I visited with the charter advocates, 
it has been increasingly clear how tedious and long the 
administrative process is for starting our new charters. To 
address these concerns, last November I introduced H.R. 6418, 
the Empowered Charter Schools Educators to Lead Act.
    The bipartisan bill, which authorizes states who receive 
grants through the CSP, to use a portion of their funding to 
support the application process and development of new charter 
schools. These planning awards will help support experienced 
educators with at least 5 years of school-based experience to 
the charter school application process, and increase technical 
assistance opportunities for them, including locating and 
accessing a facility for their new school.
    It is my hope the Committee can consider my bill, so it can 
ensure high-quality perspective charter school applicants have 
the tools and assistance they need to successfully complete the 
process. My question is to you, Mr. Campbell. Can you share 
your experience with this Committee, including any red tape 
that you have encountered when opening new schools for Baton 
Rouge?
    Then second, how could access to a planning grant and 
increased technical assistance, ease the way for additional 
charter schools to open in Louisiana and eventually across the 
country?
    Mr. Campbell. Yes, ma'am. Thank you and so pleased to, you 
know, kind of have you here, and good to see you today. For 
your piece of legislation, I think it is incredibly helpful. 
Starting a charter school is hard, as it should be, right? I 
was the authorizer for the State of Louisiana.
    I am going to tell you right now to get over our bar to be 
able to start a school is incredibly hard. The reason it is 
hard is because serving kids is hard. Like this is not an easy 
endeavor. The hurdles that you have to overcome in order to be 
able to start a school are significant.
    With the CSP grant, we are able to solve part of the 
challenge. We are able to get the money between the time their 
applications are approved, and the time their school opens, 
hire teachers by curriculum, furniture, all those sorts of 
things, and that is a wonderful use of the program.
    The reality, however, is that I think stronger schools are 
made in the planning process. If we are able to get some money 
to educators sooner, to help strengthen their applications and 
their planning, it will be remarkable. For example, if you 
decided that you wanted to start a school for girls in STEM 
education, you might want to go visit two or three of those 
schools and take some people with you from around the country 
to see them, which ones are succeeding. Why are they 
successful? What is working really well?
    These funds would allow you to be able to do stuff like 
that. The budget, the finance piece, you know, there has been a 
lot of talk about charters struggling with finance, and I think 
that is a real thing. Being able to get real support of people 
to help you put together a budget that is conservative, 
realistic, that allows your school to get started to be 
successful, would be tremendously helpful.
    That is not a skill that everybody has. Things we can do to 
help strengthen planning, to help strengthen the applications I 
think will lead to stronger schools, and it is one piece that 
has been missing, and I am really encouraged about the 
possibility of being able to make that happen.
    Ms. Letlow. Thank you so much. Thank you for all that you 
are doing for Louisiana. You are changing the landscape of our 
State, and eventually the country. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Representative Letlow. 
Let us go to the Commonwealth of Virginia, where the Ranking 
Member of the Education and Workforce is standing by. 
Representative Bobby Scott, you are recognized. Good morning.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you, and good morning. We have heard a lot 
about questions about what happens when a school is failing. I 
just want to remind people that we updated the law in the Every 
Student Succeeds Act, to require that the lowest performing 
schools receive additional supports as a solution of addressing 
failing schools.
    Dr. Vasquez Heilig, can you say a word about what sense it 
makes as a solution to a failing school to let a few students 
slip out the back door?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Thank you so much. I would like to 
answer your question, and also correct the record on two 
places. The Congressman dropped and said I had called for a 
ban, but that was related to California's ban on for-profit 
schools. I just did a quick Google on that. Yes, I do believe 
that we should not be--we should not have for-profit-charter 
schools, so I want to make that clarification.
    I think the second thing about the New Orleans 
conversation, we looked at the ACT, SAT data, the NAEP data, 
and Louisiana RSD has been last and nearly last for quite some 
time. I do not believe that deserved accolades. If there is new 
data that I have not seen since I published that brief, I am 
very open to seeing those New Orleans data.
    Then finally, I think it is very important that we serve 
all students. All students that come to our door. That is what 
is great about public schools. Now, I understand the concerns 
about failing schools, and the----
    Mr. Scott. Well, if you have a failing school, saying 
letting a few people slip out the back door, those have figured 
out what is going on, leaving everybody else in the failing 
school. That does not sound like much of a solution at all.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. No.
    Mr. Scott. In fact, everybody, if you have a failing 
school, all of them would choose to leave. Then what happens?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. Not every parent has the option to 
take their kid all the way across a city or a neighborhood to a 
charter school that does not provide transportation. There are 
a lot of limitations to what parents are able to do. It is in 
our best interest to have in the neighborhood a strong public 
school.
    Mr. Scott. The solution would be to improve the school, not 
let a few people slip out the back door?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes.
    Mr. Scott. Let me ask you another question. I have limited 
time.
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes.
    Mr. Scott. You mentioned on school choice that it is not 
the student, but the school that is choosing, and said eligible 
for lottery. What did you mean by that?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. I mean I have been to kid's 
schools where they outline who is eligible for their lottery. 
Now I am not saying that all public schools cream and crop 
students, and so in the research literature you have Kevin 
Welner's work, there is a variety of ways that students are 
creamed and cropped. I will not go deeply into that.
    There is well established research on how charter schools 
can change their populations, which makes the analyses that 
CREDO do very difficult because it biases their selective 
sample.
    Mr. Scott. Even with all that bias, some charters are 
obviously better than others. On average, are charters better 
or worse than public schools?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. I do not think that conversation could 
be limited to just test scores, because most of the research 
that CREDO does, they take very small standard deviations and 
hundredths of standard deviation and create these days of 
learning. We also need to look at teacher quality, and teacher 
turnover, and discipline, and suspension rates.
    We cannot just look at----
    Mr. Scott. What is the effect of teacher quality, pay, 
inexperience, and turnover of teachers in charter schools?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Yes. We have looked at the success of 
teachers in terms of teacher quality. When you have a stronger 
teacher, it means better student achievement. There has been 
folks that have looked at well, is it okay if we have great 
teachers come in and they leave very quickly?
    There is very little research that establishes that is a 
good idea.
    Mr. Scott. Well, do charter schools have better pay, 
turnover and experience with teachers, or worse than public 
schools?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. They have worse turnover, worse teacher 
quality, in some cases better pay.
    Mr. Scott. Can you say a brief word about the disciplinary 
policies? If a kid gets expelled from a charter school, where 
do they go?
    Mr. Vasquez Heilig. Sure. Well, they are going to have to 
go back to their neighborhood public school. Charters in many 
states can reject students because of prior disciplinary 
issues.
    Mr. Scott. Then, Dr. Campbell, the city of Baton Rouge got 
significant funding under the American Rescue Plan Act. Do you 
know what the public schools did with that money that they were 
able to do because of that money to address learning loss?
    Mr. Campbell. Sir, first of all, it is Mr. Campbell, do not 
confuse me with the good folks down here. Yes. Yes. I think 
much of that funding went into real high-quality interventions 
for kids. We rapidly expanded, or greatly expanded high dosage 
tutoring for students, which I think is very powerful.
    We increased the number of math and literacy coaches in our 
schools. We were able to use some of that funding to expand 
early childhood education. I do think that in the State of 
Louisiana, city of Baton Rouge, rescue funds have been used by 
things that have made a difference.
    Mr. Scott. Well, did it make a difference?
    Mr. Campbell. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you.
    Chairman Bean. Ranking Member Scott, thank you very much. 
We are nearing the end of our journey, but before we adjourn, 
let us yield to the Ranking Member Bonamici for her final 
thoughts.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 
to our witnesses. It has been an important discussion today. 
Every student deserves a high-quality education that will 
prepare them for success. As we have heard, not all charter 
schools provide students with a quality education.
    When we consider all students, nor do they deliver the same 
educational outcomes that our traditional public schools could. 
Certainly, they are not a panacea for the challenges facing 
students today. As we heard, poorly regulated charter schools 
often have poor academic outcomes, and leaves students with no 
recourse when their rights are violated.
    I want to followup on Ranking Member Scott's comments about 
the conversation, the questions regarding so-called failing 
schools. As we know, under No Child Left Behind, a failing 
school was used--a term used to describe schools where the 
students have lower test scores.
    As those of us who were here in 2015 and worked on the 
Every Student Succeeds Act, as Ranking Member Scott clarified, 
we asked those questions. What does that mean to have low test 
scores? Maybe we need to ask a question, what does that school 
need? Why are the students not getting higher test scores?
    In fact, we changed that so that no longer are test scores 
used as punitive measures to label schools as failing. We put 
in the Every Student Succeeds Act that those schools should 
probably have more resources, right? Why are the students 
failing?
    Do they need smaller classes? Is there lead in the water? 
Are they hungry? All those questions. Where do we put the 
resources to help every student? I wanted to point that out 
because the term failing schools is really one where we have to 
question. A school is a building. What is happening with the 
students inside of it?
    I also want to take strong exception to the suggestion that 
this is about money. I find that personally offensive as a 
Member of Congress, as someone who cares deeply about every 
student, to suggest that I might have questions about charter 
schools because of money.
    We care, not only about the students whose parents say wow, 
I need to look at a charter school option for my child. We care 
also about the students whose parents are maybe a single parent 
household. Maybe they are stressed. Maybe they do not know 
about other options. Maybe they do not know how to get 
involved.
    To say that we only care, and that we want to provide a 
good education to those who want to leave the traditional 
public schools, I find to be inappropriate, and I just want to 
get that on the record that we should be here. We care about 
every student and want every student to have a good education.
    Calling for unchecked expanded access to charter schools 
that lack meaningful accountability, while continuing to 
underfund our already overwhelmed traditional public education 
system is not in the best interest of students. It is not in 
the best interests of parents, and it is certainly not in the 
best interest for the future and for our economy.
    I know on my side of the aisle, I will continue to fight 
for a strong quality public education system that protects and 
supports every child, not just those with involved parents who 
are looking for an alternative. We do not, as Ranking Member 
Scott said, we do not want to just leave everybody else behind.
    We would need to say what can we do to give them a great 
education, so with that Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and thank 
you. I look forward to continuing the conversation.
    Chairman Bean. Thank you very much, Ranking Member 
Bonamici. Here are my four takeaways. One, charter schools have 
high levels of academic achievement, and as we have heard 
during this hearing charter students, on average, learn more 
reading and math than their peers in traditional public 
schools.
    The fact is it is especially important when we know parents 
across the country are looking for better academic options. No. 
2, charter schools are open to innovation, as Robert pointed 
out. Innovation is there, we have heard testimony that charter 
school autonomy can enable teachers to pioneer fresh teaching 
methods, encourage schools to develop better personnel 
practices and equip schools to innovate in curriculum.
    All of this can happen because charter schools are not 
burdened by the regulations and contracts that restrict 
traditional public schools. Three, charter schools can provide 
a lifeline, as Mr. Campbell pointed out, to the most 
disadvantaged students.
    While there are some traditional public schools that 
provide a good education, we know that many students sometimes 
can be trapped when it is not the best option for them. We 
should keep trying to improve public schools, but we are going 
to try to improve charter schools too.
    We realize that charters can provide a vital lifeline to 
students where there are no other good options. Everyone 
benefits when families have high-quality educational 
opportunities to choose from. Four, I have got three kids. They 
all learn differently. Every kid is different.
    To give them just one choice I think is not the best way to 
go. Everybody learns different, and maybe it is a charter 
school, maybe it is the public school, maybe it is a Magnet 
school. Maybe home schooling. I do not know, but everybody is 
different. We recognize that, and I think that is what we 
recognized today.
    Finally, to our witnesses, let me tell you what I did. You 
saw me, I promised a very innovative, invigorating, robust 
discussion. I did set the bar high for you but let me tell you 
what you did. You exceeded expectations. Thank you so much for 
participating.
    This, as Ranking Member Bonamici has said, we will continue 
this conversation as we embark on a journey to make American 
schools the best they possibly can be. With that, if there is 
no further----
    Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Bean. Yes. Ranking Member Scott, you are 
recognized.
    Mr. Scott. The notice of consent requests that I would like 
to enter into the record, a letter from the Network for Public 
Education about charter schools and a report by the National 
Council on Disability entitled ``Choice and Vouchers--
Implications for Students with Disabilities.''
    Chairman Bean. Without objection, so ordered, and thank you 
so much. There being no further business to come before the 
Committee, we stand adjourned.
    [Whereupon at 12:01 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
    
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