Date: 2013-07-19
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. this amendment is not about a good education. This is an amendment suggesting an approach that in fact the amendment doesnt enable to happen. and that is the idea that a student can choose the school under the guise of portability. when in fact it doesnt set up any mechanisms for the students to do that. The suggestion here somehow is that. in fact. the students will make this choice or the parents will make this choice. Weve had the right under No Child Left Behind for students to make the choice to elect to go to any schools in the district in which they sought to do that. Of course. what we found out. in many instances. its less than 2 to 3 percent of the parents who make that decision. There are many reasons why they dont do that. In fact. its a decision that it doesnt work for them because of lack of transportation in poor neighbors. lack of issues of personal safety of the students. The difference in my district. in some parts of my district of going to the school thats next to your home or walking the six or eight or 10 blocks to where the next school is. its a matter of personal safety for those children. We have children. unfortunately. who are harmed every day on our streets. in some cases killed on those streets. So for parents. this isnt just a choice. that its a better school. Also under the Cantor amendment. you would be requiring school districts to engage in an entirely complex accounting system. and I dont know why wed burden them with that. We currently have in many. many districts open enrollment. And as I say. parents can choose that if they want. but in many cases they cant because of barriers to that enrollment. So this is a suggestion somehow that you can just pick up and move your child. What we see in survey after survey after survey is what parents want. and they want their neighborhood school. the school next to them. they want that school to be functioning at a high level so that their child. their children. can get an education at that school. I know that maybe the author of this amendment isnt familiar with these parents. that these parents are struggling between their jobs. their work. holding their families together. Very often its individual working women supporting these families. This is a difficult task. And the idea that the burden wont be on the district to improve that local school. but well just leave it be under the guise that parents can opt to send their children somewhere else when. in fact. thats not a real option for them. This amendment doesnt address the concern about open enrollment. it doesnt address the systems that the States have set up. and it clearly doesnt address the needs of the parents. And it fails to recognize that in many school districts. theres only one school. theres only one middle school. theres only two elementary schools. Thats not the issue here. This isnt like a panoply of wide choices that are made available. Thats why many of us have encouraged charter schools inside these districts so parents will have that choice that is within reach of them. With that. I reserve the balance of my time.