Date: 1997-10-23
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

We want the parents. the customers. to define the quality. There are national tests. we mentioned before. The Clinton administration wants the government to establish a national test that will define quality. But I would submit that there are indicators upon indicators that tell you whether your local school district is succeeding or failing. If you look at things like the graduation rate. the dropout rate. if you look at things like the placement rate of students who graduate and go on to become gainfully employed or pursue higher education or serve in our armed services. whatever the case is. you have a whole battery of independent national tests. You have State tests that compare district to district and so on. All of those independent indicators are the kinds of places that parents look to define quality. I want to give one specific example in my district. I raise this example because those who oppose parental choice in education. treating parents like customers. frequently say that if you really let parents choose which school to send their children to. that the public schools will somehow fail to meet the test and stay in the arena. I refute that idea and offer the following example. A very good friend of mine. Anita Greeb in Fort Collins. Colorado recently wrote a letter to the editor in the local Fort Collins newspaper. What she discussed was her choice to move her child to 3 different education settings in my school district in my community. She was dissatisfied with school A. the first school. She moved her child to a charter school. a charter school that I helped create. She decided she was not satisfied with the quality of education in the classroom that her child was a part of and she moved her child to a third school. school C. a traditional public school setting with the teacher devoted to meeting the demands of that particular parent. My point again being this: School choice does a couple of things. It allows a parent to play a meaningful role in picking the right place for their child. That parent who cares about her child in this case. more than anybody else. She chose a traditional K12 public school setting. the very kind of setting that many people believe will go away if we allow school choice. The second thing. though. that it does is it resulted in a lengthy letter to the local newspaper where she named names. she named the specific schools. she gave the specific reasons why she was dissatisfied with the first two options and the specific reasons why she gravitated toward the third. When we have parents in communities being vocal about defining quality in their neighborhoods. we have won the battle. That is the goal of public school choice. parental choice. allowing parents to define the terms of quality on their terms in a persuasive. meaningful way rather than turning that authority over here to Bill Clinton and the U.S. Department of Education. That is the core element of this debate on national testing. whether we allow Anita Greeb out in Fort COLLINS. Colorado to define quality for her and her child or whether we take that *authority from her. confiscate that authority from her and give it to the Clinton White House and to the U.S. Department of Education so far removed from the home and the child and the school district that Anita cares so much about out in our community.