Transcripts For CSPAN3 Charter Schools In The Developing Countries 20170720

Thank you all for coming today. Im Education Research fellow at the American Enterprise institute. Thank everyone who is joining us here today, also, those who are joining on livestream and for our friends watching on cspan. Our event today, Charter Schools in the developing world with a keynote from the Liberian Education minister. George k. Werner. We have a Simple Program after a few introductory remarks were going to have a brief video, picture is worth a thousand words so well give you a couple minutes of those. The root of todays conversation about schools in liberian then well turn it over to mr. Werner for his keynote address. Following that a fantastic panel today with seth andrew from democracy builders, amy black from results from development and from the International Finance corporation. Ill introduce them in detail when the panel joins me here. Well have about 45 minutes of q a time with some opportunity for the audience to join, as well. For those following on social media, we have a hashtag for our event. You can comment and, also, send questions which i will check on during the q a time. The event, again, is being livestreamed and the full video will be posted online after we conclude todays event. Of course, were here today to hear from minister werner about liberias bold approach for school reform. But first, want to give a little bit of context for those who dont already have it, liberia is a west african nation founded by freed slaves from the United States primarily in the 1800s over the past decade it has seen some no small tumult, coup detats and sort of a cycle of violence and unrest kun mi culminating more than 1. 3 liberians displaced. The country stabilized in 2003 to some degree and further in 2006 with the election of the president. Former World Bank Economist and eventual Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Under the president liberia stabilized and in 2014, the ebo Ebola Outbreak hit killing thousands there. And, of course, difficult emergency and destabilizing event for the country, which has come out trying to build Economic Growth and Democratic Institutions since then combatting poverty and strengthening an Education System that was shuddered for the better part of a year. On many Educational Measures they lag their african peer countries with low attendance and completion, low literacy and illustrated statistics in 2013, nearly 25,000 students took the university of liberia Entrance Exam and no one passed. This led the president to call the Education System a mess, generally and she charged Education Minister George Werner, here today with us, to chart a new course for Liberian Education. Hes taken up the challenge. In 2016 announced a bold plan, the Partnership Schools for Liberia Program in which Independent School operators would run 93 School Partially funded by the government. The program as most ambitious reforms do has drawn praise and criticism alike. Supporters cite the need for innovative change in a Failing School system. In 201617 school year 28,000 Liberian School children attended 93psl schools run by eight liberian and international provides. These educational reforms come at a time of Major Political change. In october, liberia will elect a new legislature and president. In the first democratic transfer of power since 1944. This will be a test of liberias young Democratic Institutions and with a new administration on the horizon and bold reforms under way, liberia and its School Reforms face both great change and great opportunity. A picture is as good as a thousand words so before we bring up minister warner to the podium, we have a brief video to give you a sense of the schools in liberia and the context for the psl reform. The psl reform. [ background music ] [ background music ] [ background music ] [ background music ] [ background music ] [ sound of children ] all right. I hope that short video gives you some view of Liberian Schools. Now id like to invite Education Minister George Werner to come up for his keynote previously talked at the High School College level, director general of hile liberian 2012 a 2013 join me in welcoming minister werner. [ applause ] thank you for the kind introduction and thank you to aei for welcoming us here. Im here today to discuss liberias experience with Publicprivate Partnerships in education. First, let me say that im honored to be here on behalf of the liberian government and our preside president , Ellen Johnson surleaf. As most of you know she became the first democratically elected female president in africa in 2005. That election was, also, another first for liberia. It was the first president ial election since the brutal rule of Charles Siller and devastated conflict that crippled our country and took 200,000 lives. President surleaf will leave january next year, having served two terms. Her departure from office respecting constitutional term limits marks another important milestone that should not be overlooked. It will be the first peaceful transfer of power in my country since 1944. And will consolidate our postwar democracy. As the president ial campaigns got a taste in advance of the elections in just a few months time, i am struck by just have far we have come. When you pick up a newspaper or turn on the radio in liberia, you will see and hear evidence of spirited political debate. A vibrant press and an engaged civil society. This is an achievement we should not take for granted. Though, i must say, occasionally, i remind myself that when i am one of the last one in the line of fire of criticism. Beyond our democratic achievements over the past decade, liberia has emerged as a postconflict success story. Innovation in Public Private partnerships have been introduced and are creating new platforms for collaboration in health care, human and Institutional Capacity building, philanthropy, infrastructure and education. We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States for serving as a partner along the journey. Through both democratic and republican administrations, through war and the return of peace, most recently, through the fight against ebola, the United States has been an essential partner. I want to thank the American People for your steadfast support. I want to thank all who contributed to ending ebola in my country. And i know i speak on behalf of not only the liberian government but, also, the liberian people, when i say that we look forward to continuing our Partnership Long into the future. When you look at the demo graphic trends not just in liberia but across the continent of africa, it becomes clear why International Partnership and collaboration are more important than ever before. Today, there are 420 million africans between the ages of 15 and 35. That number is expected to nearly double to over 830 million by 2050. This youth can either be a demographic [ inaudible ] with the potential of economy or it can be a ticking timebomb. Which depends on one thing education. 10 to 12 million African Youth currently enter the workforce every year. Many without the liberty or [ inaudible ] kill the need to succeed to find meaningful employment. Our Education System are failing to prepare our children for the jobs of yesterday, let alone the jobs of tomorrow. Too many of our young people sit with a hopeless future at home are fleeing the continent and are risking their lives to find opportunities abroad. At the same time, countries across the continent feel increased demand and pressure not only on our Education System but, also, health care and social services. Budgets are stretched to the breaking point. In this context, African Leaders need to think outside the box and find innovative solutions. In liberia, this is exactly what we have done. We are educating the first generation of liberian children who have not known war or conflict. They are too young to have experienced the days when children, rather than going to school, were recruitedchool, we soldiers in the bloody conflict that tore our country apart. It is our responsibility to ensure that they have opportunities to succeed. That responsibility was front and center, in my mind, when i was appointed Education Minister by president surleaf in june of 2015. And its still what drives me every day. When i spoke at the ministry of education, i already understood some of the challenges that i would face. I knew that our Education System was failing to educate. That 35 of our young women and 21 of our young men could not read a single sentence. I knew about the gender gap and that only 39 of women across liberia completed primary school. And i knew about the inequality in Education Access in our rural areas with only 26 of women and 58 of men were illiterate. I have read all the studies and knew all the stats. And, as a former teacher myself, i had seen it first hand. But, when i began traveling across the country visiting schools, speaking to teachers, parents, and children, it became clearer that both reform was your gently needed. Maintaining the status quo was not simply an option. We absolutely could not risk failing this or any future generations of liberian children. So, we embraced the opportunity to implement bold reform and truly transform our Education System. We launched a threeyear plan that includes increasing professionalization of teachers and principals across the country and conducting rig or ross monetary and evaluation to ensure we stay on track to reach our goals. We have taken an aggressive approach to identify and remove those workers from the teacher payroll. To date, we have removed nearly 2,000 workers which have led to 2. 5 million u. S. Dollars and saving that can be reinvested in education. We also launched an innovative Publicprivate Partnership that is testing new models for improving liberian Public Schools. That program, Partnership Schools for liberia, or psl for short, is what im here to discuss today. As i mentioned earlier, psl has an important distinction from Charter Schools from the Charter School model that you have here in the United States. All the schools in the program remain within the Public School system and employ teachers on the government payroll. They also do not admit students selectively, no based on socioeconomic status or on academic performance. Through the psl program, we partner with eight education providers, some local, some international, some notprofit, some forprofit. Each with a different model but all with proven experience in delivering quality education and improve i improving literacy and outcomes. Those eight providers within the program are Bridge International academy, which im sure we will speak more of through the discussion. I have seen the operations in kenya first hand and in uganda and was impressed by the learning outcomes they were able to achieve and i invited them to liberia to partner with the government of liberia to do same. A nonprofit already running an academy in monrovia, the capital of liberia, provided both education and Services Like health care, psychosocial report and a feeding program. Street child, another nonprofit provider which also operates in sierra leone and nigeria and has the focus not only on providing education but, also, training and supporting communities to manage and hold their students to account. Rising academy, which, also operates a network of schools in sierra leone and has a wholechild approach to education. An ngo founded in bangladesh that has experience working across africa. Which runs a network of schools in nearby ghana. Last but not least the Liberian Youth Network and both local and liberian providers. In the first year of psl, which just concluded, operated as you heard earlier 93 schools in 13 counties across liberia providing free quality education to around 27,000 children. Following the first year, we have seen some encouraging initial results. According to the data weve seen both increased enrollments and impact on teacher behavior, including absenteeism and teacher rates. They are as high as 98 in the case of one provider. Teachers are also 9 less likely to be outside the classroom at psl schools. These may seem like small things that should be taken for granted but they are no minor achievements in the context such as liberia. To date, the program has also delivered much needed resources, including desks, chairs, infrastructure, learning material. A teacher for every classroom and expansive teacher training opportunities. They have also generated a new appreciation for a longer school day, all without charging any fees. Just this week, four of the eight providers in our psl Program Released the midline report, assessing their efforts during the first year of the program and highlighting key successes. It is deeply encouraging to see not only their commitment to measurement evaluation but also their positive impact on crucial areas including literacy and numeracy, teacher training, engagement of parents, communities and teachers learning. Rigorous independence, measurement and evaluation has been built into the program from an early age. We are currently waiting results of an independent assessment, being carried out by the center for Global Development in partnership with innovations for community action. While we wait for those results we will move into yet two, with the modest increase in the schools. From 93 to 200, about 7 of liberias Public Schools. In the coming year, we will prioritize the regions such as the southeast of liberia, which have socioeconomic conditions that make it particularly acute. Phl has the resources to make quality education and ultimately make it accessible to all liberian students in a way that it has never been before, we will not move forward with any expansion until we have received the completed independent assessment and can justify the impact of psl on the students and the school system. As we have said what the future of psl will look like, what remains clear is the above action is needed if we are going to properly education and prepare our children for the future. A study conducted by the brookings institution, where i was before i came here estimates that there is a hundredyear group between the developing world and the developed world when it comes to academic achievement. 100 years, if were going to leap frog that divide, innovation is a necessity. If the results are as compelling as we think they will be, psl will serve as a model of high quality. Low cost education that can be skilled not only in liberia or even in africa, and other countries around the world that are recovering from conflict and crisis. We look forward to harnessing opportunities like today, to share our story with colleagues and partners across the globe. I look forward to hearing your questions about our experience and forward to a lively and productive discussion. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, minister warner, and let me also thank the panel you see before us who made time to join us for this conversation. Next to minister warner is a Senior Education specialists at the International Finance sector, at the world bank where he analyzes investments and private corporations. Before joining us he was a specialist at the bank working with governments in higher education, science, technology and innovation in the latin american and caribbean region. Before joining the world bank in 2006, he was president with the deitsche bank. And amy black, the executive Vice President at Global Education for results for development previously. Ms. Black served as the Vice President of Growth Strategy and development for teach for all, which is a Global Network of more than 40 National Partner organizations that worked and proved Educational Opportunities for youth. Amy was the executive director of the washington, d. C. Region for teach for america. And before that she oversaw communications for the president s emergency plan for aids relief and spent two years as a president ial management fellow rotating through the state department including stints in south africa. Thank you, amy, for joining us. Last but not least, seth andrew, if you know seth, that is seth in a blue hat down there again. If you dont know him, seth is the founder of democracy builders and usually wears a yellow hat. Currently he is working with bridge academy, working with Charter Schools in liberia, uganda, and he served as an executive officer in the president s office and led the education and Civic Technology portfolios, and later served with secretary of education, arne duncan, and worked with Charter Schools from harlem here in washington, d. C. Thank you, panel, for joining us. Ill give each of ayou a few minutes to give reaction to mr. Warners keynote and thoughts on the pls program. Seth, lets start with you. Sure, well, thank you everybody for joining us today. This is something that i have been so passionate about for the past four months. And i did not know how passionate i could be about something for four months until i met minister warner. We met at the end of january, early february, and he had this conversation with me where he was asking questions about the u. S. Charter second osecon s and i said you are the minister of education in liberia and you understand this deeply, regarding the research. He understands me and i want to thank you for the opportunity to be in this space, to learn how to operate schools. In the United States we have been thinking about this for a slow and steady curve, in the u. S. , about 23 million children attend public Charter Schools, attended by open enrollment, but managed independently, by organizations that are not necessarily the government itself. So when minister warner was telling me about his vision for psl and what they started to build i immediately bought in. Because they talked about leveraging some of the best practices we use in the u. S. And some of liberias method, so having those two elements inspired me to dig into this work and realize we can rethink what Public Education is. So for me it was the urgency of the liberia case but really thinking about africa as a whole to inspire me to dig in. Because we have 8 million kids on this continent, waiting to be educated. Many are not in school at all, 330 million kids are in school but learning nothing, including many in liberia, having no outcomes whatsoever. So if we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results that is our definition of insanity, but in the case of liberia where theyre 100 years behind we cant just keep doing that. So the key thing i want to come back to is leap frogging. If liberia just takes an incremental approach and increases their budget by 5 or trains their teachers a little bit better, or trains the second grade curriculum a little bit, theyre not going to change what is possible for liberia kids, more than a million children. So for me the exciting thing is not changing things that are incremental, but bigger and bolder. We can look at whether its a charter or Partnership School or the definition, but the big idea is rethinking what the definition of Public Schools is and who manages the Public Schools. Is it a government or Partner Organization that may have different expertise that gives people the choice of the school they attend and the type of education they receive. For me, im excited about this work and look forward to digging in. Amy . Im excited to be here, the relatively new leader of the Education Team at the results for development, we focus on healthy and educated people and try to do that in the most systemic way in a partnership that we can do. And the Resources Available and trying to get it into the hands of people on the ground so that they can use it. We really position ourselves behind and beside local stakeholder to get that Global Information as much as possible. In that role we work very hard with leaders across all parts of a society. So particularly Public Sector leaders, which as we know are responsible for the vast majority of marginalized people in the world, and really value our relationships with pickup sectors. We also steward a 750 organization that works with innovations across the world, and ed tech, and Girls Education and Early Childhood that we work with them to help them answer research questions, get with them out in the broader landscape. What im really excited about as it pertains to this conversation, our work in the last two years, where we are working with private sector operators and particularly our work that we call adaptive learning. And so in ghana and sierra leone, we spent a lot of time with the team that uses Traditional Research methods, but close to the ground. The grass roots operators gets to the level, or a group of schools and says what are the Biggest Challenges you face next year or next month, what is your theory about what it takes to overcome those. And lets test and be much more successful by this time next year. And we think that that kind of research combined with of course the more rigorous longer term and more costly research that is absolutely needed is also a key part of seeing efforts like this be more and more successful. So were excited to have done that, with in part with the foundation and in ghana, where we really looked at what is what are the barriers of financing for operators like this. And looking at specific questions about what it is going to take to get our school kids more literate in the next few months, in this work we offer principles that we believe are important. It is important to have a shared set of goals across sectors that is everybody is oriented towards outcomes, it becomes more about what were doing there together. We think public with private, rather than public versus private is a good way of framing things. Private operators are across the world, a lot of questions we support our Public Sector partners to think about is how to leverage that in the most productive way. We believe government is in a stewardship role, that at the end of the day the government is responsible for outcomes especially for low income kids. That has to be taken into account when we consider the dynamics that are at play. There is a need for data at all levels of the system, you heard the minister talk about the importance of that here. Were striving to get the data at the grass roots level. And of course which you heard the minister talk about. Context matters so much. There is a unique history here and a unique history in every country. History matters. And i think time matters. I think a lot of times conversations only assume a year or two year horizon when we know these challenges need to take that horizon into account, but also five years, ten, 20 years and how do different players behave and respond when the context shifts as well. So these were excited to think about multiple players and development and im very excited to be a part of the conversation. Thank you, and i represent the ifc, the private sector arm of the world bank, and were very excited to be here, and thanks to minister warner for this very interesting presentation. We try to look for models of ifc that can be scaleable and that can be replicated in multiple countries around the world. And we try to learn from experiences and what has worked in one part of the world and take it to another part of the world, with our main focus on developing countries. And obviously, this is mainly in the context of the learning crisis that we are seeing, in particular, in many countries in south africa. There has been significant progress achieved over the past ten years or so in insuring that children are actually in school, and enrolled. Because as we saw in the statistics in liberia, the transition in secondary education remains a big issue for many south african countries. So in the context of the learning crisis, its really about what children learn. I think i heard mr. Warner talk about something that is very, very important. Starting with the basics, are the teachers actually in school, are they actually delivering the lessons that the children need . I mean, there are some studies by the world bank where we highlight there are significant times that are not the instruction of time in many countries in the region. And that is definitely a big issue. Well see some of the models that we talk about like Bridge International, and twice addressing the issue of accountability and making sure that at least the teacher is sitting in front of the students and delivering a lesson, for 50, 55 minutes if were talking about an hour lesson. Obviously in the context of this learning crisis it is important to have solutions and to really i mean, do what minister warner talked about both reforms. I mean, aiming to do things that maybe challenge a little bit. Obviously, we cannot but agree with the evidence that was approached which was mentioned and that is a very important point i think that was raised. I mean, in order for these experiences to be replicated and for other governments to work along these lines we really need to create the evidence. Im sure well come back to this in the conversation. But the evidence really about what works in education, i mean, were still delivering it and building it and the more we can go in this direction with impact studies that we really look into, into what works and what really brings the Student Outcomes and learning outs to the table, i think the better we will be. And im sure well talk a little bit about that. Everything that was presented is exciting and im happy to go deeper into some of these issues. For the private sector and education, its very important. That is one of the reasons why we supported Bridge International. Because i mean, we saw potential for innovation and for doing things differently in the education space. And obviously in that context were happy to see the bridge model can be applied in a Public Education context. And that is also part of our interests in this dialogue. Well, thank you, everyone. I wanted to start off with the Charter Schools conversation, in large part because its in the title of our event here today. Also part of our hash tag, which is hash tag developing world charters. Its a little problematic. The word charter is accessible to an american audience and helps the american audience what were talking about. But were not really talking about charters. Were talking about Partnership Schools. So my question is just to get this sort of fleshed out at the start what are some of the key and fundamental differences for an american audience to understand, between the Partnership Schools and american Charter Schools. And what might be the best language to talk about these Partnership Schools . And anyone can just jump on in and give their take. I know the minister has strong feelings about this. So i come from the american Charter School sector so ill just give you a couple of reasons i think this is happening, what is happening by our definition, theyre public buildings, publicly funded, open access and enrollment. No fees for students, whatsoever. The state standards have to be met. Theyre accountable for their results, in this case, to mr. Warner. That is what defines the Charter School here in the u. S. And the difference is a sub class of Charter Schools, one is in liberia, Partnership Schools are actually public workers. They are on the public payroll. Not the nongovernmental payrolls. Theyre nongovernment by default. That changes the dynamic, there are places in the United States where the Charter School teachers are members of the union as well. There are places where the districts are the authorizer, i think the charter is the apt term for this. I understand amys point, this is sort of private versus public, this is an important one chb. It really is an important one. What the operators in liberia are doing is partnering with the government to deliver better results. In the case of liberia, there is an mou between the operator and government. That is a function between the charter, the authorizing document that stipulates what the operators will provide and how they provide it and what theyre expected to deliver. At the ends of the day they are charters. And at the spectrum of charters, between those and the Public Employees to those that are much further in the other spectrum where they are the equivalent of closer to voucher, where the government is basically just doing a transfer of funds to attend the private school or another type of school. And so there is a whole spectrum that are met here. And to me the definition of charter are the public beingableabbeingabl accountable. I will say about bridge, the bulk of their schools, nearly 500 around the world. These are zero fee schools. There is none of these traditional Public Schools are not free in much of the developing world and yet mr. Warner discusses schools that are actually free. Our notion that free equals public is not the right notion for africa where that is not actually generally truly but in the psl program, Charter Schools are actually free for students and parents. I think charter is the right term, although the paradigm shifts a little bit. Thank you. Let me just Say Something that just to add to what is said. With the exception of maybe singapore and vietnam, i dont know any country that educates poor children with affection. Not the United States, not the uk. If the u. S. Would deliver perfect Public Schools you would have no need for Charter Schools. If the uk government could do similarly, there would be no need for the academies in the uk. What that tells me is that governments are failing to educate poor children. And there is a need for partnership with the private sector. We are not educating our children just for the Public Sector only. Just them getting into the Public Sector, and depending on which president is in power you can have that work force reduced. So we are educating majority of our kids for the private sector. For the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. All of the more reason why the private sector needs to be called to get involved in how we educate our children. So this is why in liberia we chose the word partnership. There are things government does very well. Policy platforms. Regulations. Education at the public good. Those things government can do well. But daytoday management assessments, outcomes, systems of accountability. Government doesnt do as well as the private sector does. So we partner with private providers. To strengthen government where it is weakest, if you like. That is what describes the partnership. And anyone can answer, and we can hear briefly about bridge. We have eight different providers. What are some specific things . Some specific aspects of the models that they bring that the Public Schools would not be able to develop on their own, where is the secret sauce or the promise they bring that can be achieved through the psl program . S seth you want to describe bridge . Less about bridge and more about the psl program, one of them is curriculum. It seems like a small thing and it should be a fundamentalism of school, what we teach. But when you walk in, you dont find curriculum, on the chalk board you see 2015, because they havent had chalk or anybody write on the chalk board since 2015. So you have the stark understanding that learning is just not happening in a lot of these places. So the operators mr. Warner brought in are bringing in curriculum. More has a specific curriculum, bridge is a rising curriculum, each operator brings the curriculum that has very concrete goals and is aligned to the Liberian National standards. So in the case of bridge, where most of the schools in kenya had a curriculum to align the curriculum we designed for other parts of africa specifically to the liberia context. So curriculum is one of the biggest elements. Secondly, i think its important to think about, the government is not usually thought of as the leader in technology. So i just left the Obama Administration where we really spent a lot of time, the chief Technology Officer and others thinking about technology and government. And i can still tell you we were way behind where the government was in technology. Most of us use private sector in our daily lives, so what bridge has done is take the curriculum from the best practices in the developed world in the american Charter Schools and deliver it through a very low tech solution, a really cheap e reader, a sort of black update white tablet that costs about 50 to manufacture. In china you get the content that is the same kids may get in washington, d. C. Or cambridge or boston, and they get it in the rural liberia classroom. That is the thing that the government of liberia has not figured out to do yet. The private sector has figured out to do. They have been more aggressive in adopting technology in their curriculum and practice which i think is one of the reasons that this has potential not just to be an incremental change but really a leap frogging change. I think another important element, there are incentives to measure. Once you bring the private sector in, quickly there are questions as to whether this is better than what we had before. And it brings incentives to measure the things like the pilot like the one currently under way or eventually even the full fledged impact developments. It may seem very obvious but it does bring quickly the measurement part of it. And something that really helps you know, bring the discussion to a new level because there is evidence that that is being created. And that is really what is happening or starting to happen in the liberian case. You bring up evidence, and the first question, across the developmenti i developing world, what evidence have we seen for partnership in terms of the low income students and also in terms of the psl, what specifically mr. Warner have you done that is rigorous and can provide evidence to other countries and to liberia . Yeah, i can talk about the studies that have taken place, first of all, there are different types of ppps. Typically, there are those who operate and finance and it could be public or private. And depending on this, obviously, there are different combinations that can take place. I mean, in most cases, one of the i mean the ppp that people talk about is vouchers. And vouchers have been tested in different contexts. Were quite familiar with the world bank, experiencing chile, for instance, where there was a Voucher Program that was implemented and obviously, multi efforts to assess the efficacy of the Voucher Program. The evidence was not conclusive to be really clear. And typically it comes down to the question, are we measuring things on an equal basis . Are we really taking into account the unobservable barriers that can affect the Students Learning outcomes. That was obviously part of the discussion that we had in chile. I think in the case of Charter Schools, im sure its said and amy will have specific evidence about the u. S. , i think that is more robust and more conclusive at least in some of the cases there is very clear evidence that this has worked. In the context of developing countries we have examples like columbia, with the exception of the schools, which are relevant with interesting findings, in support of potential good performance by private schools. But the question is, i mean, its really the fact that private schools are performing well compared to other Public Schools, sufficient evidence that ppps will work. I mean, there is other elements in the discussion as well. I mean, one of them has to do with are we talking about the same things . Particularly in the south african context, ive had conversations with ministers of education, and the question is, i mean, are we really talking about Public Finance kicking in, into the ppp model . In some cases we are, and in some cases we may not be looking at the same type of models, really sending up the definition that were talking about, its quite important. There is the second element of whether i mean, the moment you have Public Finance kicking in, in you know working together with the private sector, whether youre really able to build that system that we work from you know, our government monitoring an evaluation, perspective operational perspective, so on and so forth, which is what mr. Warner is currently dealing with. So obviously in the context of developmenting count in developing countries, we need to create this evidence. We dont have that much experience, the ones we have in the case of vouchers sometimes bring inconclusive answers. But there is eagerness and willingness to go down that route by the willingness of countries, and by laws, measuring those laws is really what i think will help a little bit of knowledge about this space. So what in liberia immediately thought of in dates with the support of the International Community was and now led by the center for development, is that we needed a rigorous evaluation of the program to generate the evidence to inform policy in terms of whether or not what the gaps will be in terms of what were looking at. We commissioned a trial. The base line is completed. By august we should have the middle line, i think somewhere toward the end of august, the midline report should be made available to inform the world about many of the things we are looking for in terms of evidence. I must admit that our ct was commissioned for three years. So we still have a ways to go yet to know whether or not this program is giving us what we want to do. Let me remind you that its only in the second year that we are trying to reach the remotest part of liberia. We also have to examine whether or not psl works in those contexts, where you have too many river his ths that childre to canoe up a river, walk across sticks to get to schools. And what the implications are for a country with seven months of heavy rainfall, during which time children dont have access at all to some of the schools infrastructure. I dont have much to add except to say it is true. We just need more evidence and more time. And we need resources to go into evaluation. And there is a lot of discussion in the Global Community about that. So i do think that that is on its way. Ill reiterate that i think we are excited and the results for development is by no means the only organization doing this type of work. But in the meantime, there are kids that are in school every day, and those practitioners need to know roughly where they are. Were excited about the less rigorous but more immediate research that can be done to create trajectories where operators know theyre on the right path. And there is a bottoms up and a too many do top down approach to it. Where it will be important to see in the coming months and years if these sorts of engagements are getting the results. But there is an opportunity to do both. To do the summit of assessments, to look back and see what we think is happening, but to simultaneously be preparing operators for hopefully a positive outcome by making sure they have the tools and resources in house, like at the level of a school to be thinking the way that researchers think and to be answer cing their own questions. There is a growing need for that as well. I think both of these pieces can come together to hopefully get results and not just in private settings but also in public settings. This is the kind of work that we as educators need to be doing, everywhere else, here and liberia. There is another body of work that is also coming forth that can compliment these larger studies as well. So i have two somewhat contradictory thoughts, that i admit are contradictory but i think are important in both of these contexts. First, we started to already see results and i think to your point the difference is fo formative, but research, that is not a full rct. But its Good Research we need to identify how to get a teacher to have better practice tomorrow, and that is important. Mr. Warner mentioned that four released their results, bridge had four times as many in the treatment schools than in the control through reading bench marks, that was just after four months of instructions. You are seeing outcomes on the short term, for a bridge in kenya, where you have a much bigger set in terms of data, youre seeing how we operate across the whole country, the outcomes on the end of school exam, the eighth grade exam for Elementary School. The students at bridge are outperforming the counties, even though theyre dramatically poorer. The contradictory part i want to say is that at some stage we have to actually say to ourselves we cannot wait for evidence to make a change. We cannot stop in a place like liberia where you have a million kids, hundreds of thousands getting zero education every day and say lets wait for the results every couple of years and then maybe well figure it out. Were talking about kids opting out of school completely. And then wait, is a mistake. Im thrilled we have the rct, so i think the instinct to say we need good rigorous evidence is right. That doesnt mean we should stop moving. My boss used to say, our highest standard for evidence is investing in education fund. But we gave in billions of dollars away for the funds that were not about innovation, but in innovation we should expect for evidence, because it should be innovative, the thing we havent tried before. The thing that is bold and new and different, and although we should be informed by practices and countries and context it does not we should be paralyzed by waiting for results to say these kids need to have a great kindergarten next year or tomorrow. So schools certainly can benefit from innovation and funding. For a western audience, i just want to talk for a moment about the cost differential. In american schools we spend about 12 grand a year per kid. In liberia Public Schools they spend 50 per pupil per year. Which is a 240 multiple. Right . 240 times less. So first of all, how do you do that . I just cant even get my head around it. I have a couple of other questions that maybe we can follow up on that about how can western companies certainly for profit, or not for profit just survive in such a low cost environment environment. So let me start so that others will follow. Its let me give you the context for liberia. Last year our education budget was around 41 million. U. S. Dollars. Of that 41 million, 35 million for payroll. So you see where im going with that, right . So much of the 50 that are not spoke about is dedicated the payroll. You actually have nothing for what in essence contributes to quality, teacher training, textbook, all of these things. So that is the backdrop to the 50. So when we initiated psl, we subblended funding. We went to private philanthropist foundations. And we said look, what if you were to give an extra 50 to these operators, making it 100, right . But the 50 you give them will be for innovation to meet what we set out together that we wanted to achieve. Here, too, because we are consolidating to areas that are more difficult than year one, were saying 60. But you still see that that is not expansive enough to cover the costs. What this tells me is all the noise about for profit, i dont know who is making profit in this environment. So i just wanted to lay that context for you to get a sense of the struggle we are in with the operators to make sure that children have access to equal quality education. I can say for bridge theyre not making a profit in liberia, which is the reality of making this context, because partially the bridge is not big enough. Educating about 9,000 students, part of the reason the scale is so exciting to me, my Charter School network in the u. S. , about 13 years to get to that number of students. And bridge and mr. Warner have gotten to serve nearly 30,000 students in year one, the cost needs to be bigger, for bring, one of those cost functions is developing, designing the curriculum and the hardware and software, once that is still the marginal cost, that is almost zero. There is a model to get to break even here in a place like liberia, but that will require hundreds of thousands of students educated in this method. You really have to get to a big scale that is closer to 40 or 50. I think it is possible, but its still a long way off. Right now, bridge and psl are relying on philanthropy, you can educate a student for an entire year to get a much better education than they got before. Just another contextual thing that is helpful, these are the same teachers there last year for the most part. They have been restraining anre additional costs are for materials, training and added context, so if you think about 50 a student a year that is about 2,000 for a classroom of 40 kids for a classroom per year. Lets call it 1500 a year, leaving only 500 total per classroom for materials, textbooks, technology and everything else. That sounds like a small number in a western context, but as i told you the tablet the teacher gets is 50. This is doable. I want people to understand this is absolutely possible. We are starting to get there in liberia. But it requires a lot more students to be in systems like this rather than it being a very intensive commitment of research. Before you get to that scale point where it is actually sustainable. I think that is a very interesting feature of the bridge model, it was designed from inception to really operate up the scale. And i think obviously that scale is required for the model to work. But definitely, every single element of that from the top led to the way you know, that the material textbooks, et cetera, are behind. I mean, its thought off with the view of bringing costs down to really the minimum. I think that is what made the model quite attractive to us when we looked into it. Let me give you another example. I think its helpful. In the u. S. Context, we think about technology and the way its transforming american schools. So in liberia, they dont have the resources for the structure, for example, for science labs, the schools are bare bones. Most of them dont have power. But the tools in the developed world, tools that cost on the order of 50, you can now see the Virtual Reality science lab. So in the developed world we can imagine 50 for a student to do a science lab in Virtual Reality. But in the developed world we cant because that math doesnt add up but you can get a cardboard version. As they take the quality down a little bit but the context delivered to my students in washington, d. C. Will be the same context delivered to kids in liberia with a three dollar piece of cardboard and the phone the teacher gets to download the lesson plans, so its smart to think how we spend the money, not just saying 50 per school, how is that even possible, per student, and not just doing it the same way weve done and expect different results, it will hopefully get us different results. We are talking about psl schools, Public Schools paid for in the developing world, but in the low cost schools theyre a big thing, in america, we think as Public Schools, a dominating thing, can you give me a sense of how big low cost private schools cover the market in a developing country . So by one estimate in africa, less than 50 of students are attending government schools already. And where are those students . Theyre either a good chunk out of school as we talked about, but also in the low fee affordable private schools, when we think of private school in the u. S. In the Development Dev its a very different context. The idea of spending seven dollars a month and Getting Better education, in kenya, happening across the bridge, it may be saying families who may be living on two dollars a day. Were not talking about wealthy families, were talking about families on two dollars a day and spending about 10 of their money on their childs education that is a choice were making and one that we should admire and one we should talk about as the inspiration for the families that they havent had. One frustrating thing in the debate is when critics of affordable private schools or psl, are basically saying those families dont know what theyre doing. And im arguing the families know better than any of us certainly in this room, and certainly in washington, d. C. , or monrovia, or nairobi, what is best for their family and theyre choosing across africa, almost 50 , to not go to the governmentrun schools, but to these schools and i think we should be more respectful and thoughtful about what that is really saying about the choices they have as families. I think low cost private schools are a reality in many developing countries. That is really the case in south africa but other parts of the world as well. In the case of kenya, and seth you may have the latest statistics. But i think we read sometime ago we were talking about 100,000 to a Million Students enrolled in low cost private schools across the country and about half of that only in nairobi. So its really a big thing. And its a reality. I mean, why do parents decide to send children to low cost private schools . We talked a little bit about the hidden costs, and in some cases we find out about the Public Education and environments. Maybe the proximity issues and the ability to vote with their feet in terms of decisions and may be lack of capacity in some schools as well. This is a reality. It cannot go unnoticed, i think there is a need for government to realize you have to regulate the problem in a different way than how you regulate the traditional mainstream educational sector. Otherwise it will be very difficult for some of these schools just to operate. And again, there is many, many children that are already enrolled in these schools. And just to bring more nuance to the context, most of these are not in chain schools. Most of them are not run by the government operators, but mom and pop, i think there are different policy implications for the thousands of Community Schools that are literally run by a Single Family for any number of reasons. So i think as governments wrestle with the complexity of what they are responsible for stewarding in their National Context a lot of this conversation is about about operators, either local or international that are coming in. But in this case, in Real Partnership with the government many governments are facing as we as many of us know, thousands of individual operators and not with a lot of visibility into what is actually happening there, even though theyre ultimately responsible for the education of those kids. So i think there are lots of different angles, it is why getting precise about the definition of what kinds of operators youre talking about can have different implications for the policy outcomes that the government may choose. So minister warner, in a moment ill turn it over to the audience for some questions. But my question is with the elections coming up, what are your concerns for sustainability of the program . And what is your hope for the program in 2025 . So let me tell you what were excited about. The excitement is about ending a twoyear term, and the term limits. Were excited that for the First Time Since 1944, the president will hand over to another president in liberia. So these are the things that excite us in liberia as we begin the political season that ends from the tenth of october when we all go to the polls to choose our next president. But the transition of which you spoke is something that we are looking at carefully as a government for all of these reasons, provided, we dont want a reverser on the gains we have made together with the support of the u. S. Governments and u. S. Taxpayer money. So in education, we are very carefully designing transitional process that will allow the next education secretary to take the reforms we have put together and carry them forward. So with the support, we have developed a specific plan in terms of priority of what we want to reform. And out of that we have drawn a threeyear plan simply saying to ourselves, by 2021 we want to see a trained qualified well paid teacher in every classroom and every Public School. But to do that we need a team to build, to make sure these reforms are implemented now and in the next government. So were putting in place what well call an education delivery unit. And it will be a team of experts, civil servants. Dedicated to helping the next administration shepherd the reforms forward. And it will be contracted for two years. The money we are raising is to grant or to borrowing, we are planning in terms of resultbased achievement. So you get the money up front to work on the priorities listed in the Education Sector plan. But to access the balance of the money you must meet some targets. So these strategies were putting in place to make sure these reforms dont die with the next administration and that they are carried forward. But most importantly, we learned from ebola to really deal with a crisis you need to invest in the community, right . So these schools, one of the things we havent spoken about, we encourage the operators to go in the communities and engage with the communities, have a conversation with the Community Leadership and make sure that they are involved in the daytoday administration of the school. As a result of that, some of the schools are oversubscribed. Right . Because the parents see dividing. My sense is that if the parents of the Community Value these schools they will live beyond the next administration and that is what were working on. Well, well move to some question and answer from the audience. We have a couple of rules for question and answers. First of all, when one of the gentleman comes around with the microphone please give your name and affiliation, and number two please ask a question. If you go through with a statement well move on to someone else who does have a question. Thank you, minister warner and to the rest of the panel. What is your name . My question is, weve seen governments in countries in south africa, implement the primary incident on education that is supposed to be free. That is supposed to increase the student enrollment, maybe four or five times. However, the ppp in education is resisted by certain countries. Is there a particular reason why the low cost pirarivate scho and how has liberia circumvented that . And what has the government initiated . Thank you. So look, good question, first of all, as best as i understand it you know this very well. I give you statistics, there is growing demand on health and education. There are constraints in terms of the fiscal space of government to meet this demand. So we have to think outside of the box to leverage other sourcinsourc sources of funding to be able to meet that increase in demand. But more to the point in terms of why the resistance. I look back in terms of lessons and things i would do differently. I would strengthen communications. You cant take it for granted that the field for Education Sector reforms is still very conservative in the sense that its stubborn to change, even though people want to see change we disagree on what type of change is needed. So our language for change is more progressive than the actual change itself. So people need to know that in the beginning we didnt prioritize communication as we should have done. So the character got mischaracterized, and the Partnership Model was not pushed. How we circumvent it, the push back, i think we have to work on negotiations. We try very hard to convince the beneficiaries, and that was one second thing was, i told you earlier that we went around the country. I toured all the counties four times. And i saw the reality. That was my passion and motivation and nothing was going to stop me. That is how i circumvented it. Thank you. My name is simon ateval. Minister, i want to know if your partnership also includes you can offer the best painter to paint your school, these children are hungry, they leave school, and theyre trying to provide a meal for every student. Secondly, you talked about your budget last year for 41 million. How much was that in terms of percentage of the liberian government . Thank you. So the liberian government budget, in the last three or four or five years, has pretty much been around 500 million. The national budget. 500 million. So of that, 12 is given to the consistently to the Education Sector. And that includes not just secondary schools, but the public institutions. Of the 12 , 6 is dedicated to Early Childhood primary and secondary education. So 6 of the budget goes to the benchmark is, what, 25, 25 . By the time our economy was growing at around 7 annually we thought we could reach that then came the commodity crash on the international market, liberias main export in iron ore and rubber and the prices dropped and after that came ebola and we lost our investors. At a time it was predicted liberia would be at 0 percent. Were on our way back now, so that explains the percentage of that. On feeding, you touched upon an issue that concerns all of us including the funder of the psl program. Before the program was initiated, we had around three hours. Because of the surge in enrollment after ebola, many of the Public Schools became overwhelmed and instituted two threeshift schools, right, to accommodate the increase in enrollment. So, a School Session would last for around three hours a day. And then another session would come in. To counteract that, we asked the providers to have an extended instructional time supported by research, six to seven hours per day. What we didnt factor in was School Feeding, the world program, merit meals, have been very supportive of government efforts of Homegrown School feeding, which we do so the farmers can do more and we can feed our own people. What were finding from year one, as a result of the extended instructional time, were finding that some children are hungry. And so, in the schools, we are building into the program an amount, i think its around one point something million for School Feeding to be able to cover for this. Ive had the opportunity to talk to some of my counterparts across the region to ask how they deal with the problem of School Feeding. And essentially, going to parents and saying, look, if your child were at home, what would he or she be eating . If you have that, bring it to school and the government can add to it to make sure that a child has food for instructional time. So, thats a drawback that were hoping to fix in year two. Question right here, front row. Thank you. My name is anet and i have to get some background because im here in my own capacity but i live i was born in liberia and i lived and worked there from 2010 to 2013 at the ministry of justice setting up the first child justice program. And so, i come with that context in mind. And a couple of questions, concerns. Well have to make it one question because were running out of time. Given the issue of accessibility in liberia, i heard mention of the fact that for such a program to work, there is a need for government involvement. But, most of the Government Programs are funded by outside sources. The government has not shown a commitment to children in its budget, based on what weve heard here today. So, im wondering how do you all envision such a program being scaled in liberia to where all children do have access, even leaving aside there is a lot of controversy in liberia if this should be the way to go, how do you give access to all children . Youre only reaching 7 now. How are you going to get to 100 . Because now, were leaving one problem and were creating inequality because were not accessing everyone. Like you said, the roads, you cant get to most of the country so im really interested in how were going to create a balanced system that reaches all children. So, the problem of scale. So, anette, thank you, and good to see you again. The government has a commitment to children. It is not what it should be, but the government is investing in the children of liberia. As you well know. The question youve asked about scale is something that really i think about every night. Um, if you want the radical George Werner, i dream of a future being five to ten years when kids leaving Elementary School can read and write critically well, alongside their interNational Partners. To do that, i believe that the best way to go is to leverage the best of private providers to help the government achieve this. Left to itself, the government doesnt have the capacity, like other governments, to achieve that. At the same time, you need to consider which is what has happened to me, all the feedback from the International Community, from the domestic audience, in terms of this idea is new. You want to be cautious in terms of how you approach scale. So, thats where we are, cautiously approaching scale. Which is what seth said earlier. We are awaiting the evidence, the informed decision making. But, we realize that, uh, as once said, children in liberia dont have the luxury of time to wait. The urgency is now. If we do not do anything radical to change [ inaudible ] we will in the american way of putting it leave too many children behind. So, you make a valid point of scale, something weve considered. Id like to thank mr. Werner. Im afraid we are out of time. Thank, also, the panelists. Please feel free to have the discussion go on online. For those of you watching at home, for those of you here, we have a reception following immediately in the hall. Join me in thanking our guest. [ applause ] [ applause ] our live coverage of the commissioning of the u z gerald r. Ford saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. The supercarrier named after our 38th president , the navys newest nuclearpowered hightech aircraft carrier. President trump will attend at the naval base in Northern Virginia and deliver remarks to the more than 14,000 expected to attend. Saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan and cspan. Org. Listen live on the free cspan radio app. Sunday night on after words a report how smear tactics are used to influence public opinion, in her book shes interviewed by Washington Post media critic eric whimpple. You handle the Washington Post, who you feel has not properly reported on this incident as opposed to saying, hey, donald trump, where are you smearing john mccain. Number one, no offense to you, it was the Washington Post i wrote about. No, no. But, number two, im not here to cheer on our defend john mccain or donald trump. I do think the media behavior and people mistake when i criticize it at times for criticizing donald trump doesnt mean im supporting him or cheering him on, those are separate things but it is read often you must be supporting him or must not like x or y because you said this. It has nothing to do with that but what i see as fair or accurate Media Coverage about the candidate and i have spoken out about that sunday at 9 00 eastern on cspan2s book tv. Cspan where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Tonight on cspan3, a senator environment and public works subcommittee hearing looks at the countrys Water Infrastructure then the House Appropriations committee marks up the 2018 Homeland Security spending bill. Later well hear from some of the new members of the 115th congress. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up friday morning, from the Heritage Foundation and from the center of American Progress discuss the 2018 federal budget. And of the Migration Policy Institution talks about the increase of lowskilled worker visas