An area such as School Choice. This is an hour mosted by the American Writer of thirn. This is an hour. All right, i think we are going to get started. I think we are giving people a little extra time because it is a maze to get here. We are missing aft, the president wihine berger. She will be joining us as soon as she get here. U are at the changing politics of f 12. Thank you for being here. Dpwa has a great record of whats going on. I am going to leave the bio to you guys. You can look in the program and see the extended bios but i will run down the line here. We have lyndsey burke, the education drepgter for the heritage foundation. Jefferys is the president of de conde democrats for a lifl rights reform. Marty is west. Aels always previously an negotiation policy adviser to senator lamar alexander, the republican of tennessee. A quick housekeeping note, this is one of the first candle at ewa. Everything is on the record so it is a fair game. It is a little warning. This is live stream. 1993 want to provide a lot of time for your questions. Well forgo opening remarks and sort of dive right into this. I wanted to take a minute to set the scene that we are currently in. So i will just ask, six months ago how many of you thought thoul be in this poll serious condition are today. No one, really . Okay. We kind of missed the ball on this. I dont think many of us expected to have President Trump or maybe we did not expected of a republican would be in the white house or maybe not this republican. Hes certainly doing things lift dui as he has pledge to do. He with transitioning from care, prioritytize technician and break from the echo and super enchargement. And expanding office for sifrl rights. Putting for uk 12 and so on and so forth. We have an administration far seening the agenda. It focuses a lot on rolling back on the roles of the federal government. Thosed to slash 9 billion from federal Education Program and e dim nate dozens like teachers impression. Well get to all of that. We have an exatio exation secretary whose confirmation raises questions she has really gone through the ringer in terms of the los angeles e few months. Having been given commencement age and similar ly and her main focus is cold choose and creating if school futures. This is all happening against the backdrop of staults intima e intimates the law was trafted with this in diets, republican is controlling both chain of kang the white house or it is unclear of any major education is going to be moved given the inter party fighting. Where does it all leave us . A lot to cover. Should we expect any movement on education legislation, whats to become the office of civil rights. Most importantly what should we Pay Attention to as we go back home. I am going to drive right into it. Well save at least 20 minutes at the end for all of you guys. I want to start right off zr talk about cool choice. Setting top of everyones having questions today. Some people in this room i feel like might be interested or not expecting that you dont really want the Trump Administration going there. If you can talk a little bit about that where you come from there and ive us a little idea of what states are you interested in and things that are coming and what you are i think we got a great panel. School choice front. You twaelotally mail it. Heritage have been a huge proe proportianes of School Choice. Saving is thes k is where the education eyes movement is going right now. We see of the all of apoach aproesh. Having said all of that, and, prefacing kr this the fact that i spend my waking hours thinking of how to expand school chipoin i think thats really key is whether or not it is a new program. And i think thats that he with a fair amounts or disked by engaging in a new large scale federal program. Stays are joining it on their own already. We are seeing state after state and year after year adopting new legislations. We are seeing more and more at School Choice. Then there is the practical matter that we are all aware of that 890 of education tunding is state and local who was tractly speaking. Thats where the dollar ares. I if we stop lishing, it is hard to reckon sill the creation of a new program reloosing the interperspective that i hold from the extensive respect, really advancing those two dense of tandem. So starting a new national program, it is a pretty problematic in that regard. I think it continues to solid fie. I think well get into this later, you know, the word on the street is it is federal tax credits that maybe aroached thats under korgconsideration. I think every opportunity to make a decision of what the government looks like, the federal government will likely relagulat reruulated. So i think he know maybe the sue is not worth the hike on the federal stool choice. Marty, i want to ask you about the viable at the of this. In hear President Trump trekking 20 billion. Be saw in the budget or School Districts lebron james lo allow the students to the school of their choice and also a 250 million priority stool ucher which is we ne how it will be structure, as lynnny mention, terrible poi tax credit down the road. How does this work in congress and what should we be watching for or is it a reality . Republicans now control both the house and the senate. That led a lot of people to expect that it would be politically very easy to push the agaenda from washington. 74 you did not mention. They have been very effective. There is not overwhelming republican support for anyway wr for more effort. That is why you have bean in the past, the house being reluctant to britain up for a vote, proposals allowing titling one dar to follow school of their choice. There is not a and an administration is trying to take advantage of the control of the government of cold within sesa, is existed that would be in the law applying up to lie and looking at funding system and allowing the children going to the Public School that i they atoemt. To tum ps perep tain you even that is not necessary as school ice choice program. It is really a fees to try to md denverize a addictive way with federal 8 foreman. But, well it does not go nuch bond that. I just really think that there is an uphill batter facing a lot of these proposals. And sour far we heard a lot about empowering state to take this decision on their own and not getting the government to do it for them. For this administration you are going to see more and more and the the nuks of the back grop which twitchs some of the power back to states and locals. To talk about what ef seen in testimonies, the local School District levels as some of the shifts back to their realm. We are on the hill of this Epic Campaign spending at the la cool boards and run offs. What should we be thinking about as somebody of that turns over, you know, their responsibility verses the federal government. Yes, very, very happy to be here. The report should focus on real core issues and Public Schools. I see choice is relevant and significant but it deals with a small number of kids in terms of overall scheme of things. I would push people particularly as states are implementedation plant of standards and accountables of, what are the standards are those ensuring the isd k and College Career ready when they graduate high school. This those relying at our market changing at a rooight ra. How are school holding vitamin teachers making sure those kids are being againsted around actual we have a histo histo histo history where people like me, we got a history where kids again ari ha generally have not met those standards. What are states going to do to hold School Districts accountable whether all chiern h learn. What sort of innovation our state is going to choose, right . Not meeting those benchmark or individual population of kids or meeting those benchmark, what are state going to do. Are you going to put a you need to make something tangible to see those people are s is how do state making sure thag we have a sufficient high number. Educators can get the ground running from day one. How are states going about ensuring that they have a supply and teachers and school leaders. Higher ed, what are states doing to make sure that universities th in their state are offering i am talking about teacher teachers they rather admit an upper income kid. I am talking about the same profile because that upper kids are going to pass it. Our colleges and universities opening to all and making sure this graduate to. At the ewednesday of the day, w have 40,000 kids. We have eefr 50 million in traditional Public Schools. Detroit conversations is as a rule important. And yall also built in mechani mechanism to ensure you have to discriminate against the population of kids. In this case, that combination is a cool, bread and butter work. Snoost it is important not to loot track in that. Both kids have the extent of their teacher. Theyll interak in sblik serv t servant. We have day to say and nuts and bullets that we cannot afford to lose track. How much more important for us to cover local school boar e election or the meryls election. Trying to rewrite no child left behind and nef not done that of the tilted world sheriffisheriff shi shifting back. What pointers can you give us for candidates that you may see coming up, things like that. I will totally not answer that question. If i am a reporter, what if i am you know, what she said is right. Yes, that includes vouchers and tuition tax credits and Scholarship Programs. 400,000 kids a day. We have seen several states adopted effectively universal options. Nevada, their program is currently going through a little battle right now and working out opinio. 400,000 double the number. Eligibility will be 473,000 for an esa. Arrest just took their education account atamt. Thats the trend that we are seeing. State adopts education account and families loved them and states move to make them more universally available. Yes, you can focus on and it is posit is important to focus all of that neighborhood stuff, we are jenrry getting into a Tipping Point. Particularly if nava ta donts to mush us out. I really think that well be at a Tipping Point where the focus is going to be on kids exercising private school boyce. Not to sound there are thing that is the federal government can and should not do on school bus. I have the first thing they should do is look at the 1. 3 billion dars impacted program and instead of just sending that to district and instead giving it to children of military families. Leave it to them in a nut case in saving accounts. We are talking about 800,000 kids who would be em jibl to take out school hois. They decimately need a choice for children. There are things that the federal government can do that are appropriate and respecting federalism and we do a lot of goods for a lot of kids. So i will just sort o of embrace the premise of your question. Should we focus on the local evolve . Absolutely, thats where the all the education is ochlt thats certainly the case regardless who enter office. As i ask ooereven more, what should we be looking at. She highlighted that states are in the process of laying out their plans for implementing of the accountability. I would say there is only so much that we can learn from the plan stage and when it comes to how those are implement and particular of whats done and skrool are identified as under performance. The government says nothing, you need to take evidence to improve, really, the poour is in the states and hands and districts to make that decision. We have doesens of state in the process, it will be interesting to see what decisions they make Going Forward or whether to develop alternatives or taking on teach year teen your policy in the likes. The relevant battle are over funding are always the state level. We get worked out about and proposing 9 billion and that means even a substantial cut to federal aid does not make all that much of a difference in the grand skeep of things. Thats where the action is when it comes to funding as well. So it is sbe interesting to see of the extent stitch and local raises so there is clearly an effort to do that in la and recently ort of attack in e formest Charter Schools to debt si devoss and trumpist. Montana does not team to me that effort has gain a lot of so lets talk a little bit about the people who are still in congress who still have the Decision Making authority over education issues ochlt i. I am thinking of congresswoman virginia fox and lamar alexander. I would have said a few months ago of senator pat think purr ray. There is been a little bit of a fracture in the bipartisan ship that usually comes akrng with negotiation issues. Who do you guys see themm standing on the pipeline. I am viing there is some career tech ed. That what isra realistic for uso take . I would have said there is preis sa. If tupt was implemented. I was surprised when i made et all the way through and got signed into law, anything can happen. It will be interesting to see if swg like federal tax credits new National Federal tax credit were to move forward. Are there folks who dont play in the ed space who we are not within the f space, we are not considering, right . There is a push on the administrati administration, the tax codes to lower rates. Does that run into a heesch for federal tax fellowship. I they that only to say there is interesting dynamics operating outside of the education space when it comes to federal tax credits and Scholarship Programs. At this point it is anybodys game and we could see some movement in that intersection and the calendar is trunk caided for congress. Well see a lot of that action. Do you think there is any alliance for senator alexander and republicans with the agenda of secretary deboss and trump add administration. I was handicapped and made a point that the pelast time they check was in congress. That suggests to me that shes signaling that he was not supportive of everything they were trying to do. My sense is that senator theyll set authorization levels for programs that they want to see roughly followed because that was part of the compromised. And made to men skbrgenerated support legislation. Even set aside, there is strong education and con taugs and all formula one. I think just the fact that we just did this deal means that there is not much appetite moving forward. I mentioned perkins of a separate piece of legislation. I dont see a set of ideas in that space of that really people are kpexcited about when it com to the federal role point. You are likely to see with some bipartisan ship. I think there is a set of ideas that related to simplifying Financial Aid. Financing some form of accountability for schools and their cold fronts successes and repaying fell loans. But, beyond that. I dont see much and again to go back to the original question, i don see an yesterday em ga can i jump in . Sorry. If our friends in congress are serious of limiting federal which is what they sold eesa on. If it actually did that, i think we would have seen some reductions in spending but we did not see that at all. Aschcroft spent roughly 24 billion so the ceo is paying the same. The budget of duting 9 pnlt 2 billion. I the as we prosecutored that, it was a largest single year of production. I think it is getting serious at least the First Step Towards trimming and i coventry trimming programs is a necessary condition for state wrol. Sould some of these cuts come to light. How could we looking to for wait how that is impacting teachers and tunts and schools. What do you think some of the first thing that repercussions and some of it coming to light. I think the report should follow the money. That got everything from futurer trip and college aid for young people and you know thats before you get to, you know some of the other cut in this sunl bu budget of Healthcare Access and food and security. I was going to have al clear impact on young people. It is going to have a clear impact on families and communities and on the capacity of young people being educated. It is problematic that the labor market is under going very rapid disruptions. We are, ywe have the administration thats smart to in invest in education and in terms of our young ability to access college. It is smart to disinvest. Follow le the impact, it will have a clear impact on kids z family and communities. While we have these roles of government. I would encourage reporters to follow the facts. These policy choices are being made both the washington and as well as state capitols . State coal dispans. I am from northerner si. I grew up in a enoughs kmupt. We are dependent on these programs. I spent most of my childhood in the byes and gils club because people were dealing with crack. When i went to college, i dit know all that. I went to the Financial Aid process and somebody going to name pal is going to help you. I want the Law Enforcement and i have perkinss. My family dants on in this case asset when i was sick and len i was a young person. If we could use some private Public Partnership is a way to get better. This has a specific tan judicijibl tan reporters do their best telling these stories and unfortunately, part of what concerns me is these abstract conversations could lose site of the tangible impact that it has on real people. I agree. Follow the impact. If we look at impacts we know from random assignment of kids participa participating, that it has not had an impact. We have not seen the impact that Program Participant we would see based on the environment evidence out there. We can go on and on of the program. Andy wrote about the big oz kw oz these programs are not working for kids. These programs are closer to the people they affect and being operated by people here in washington who never met those kids. I can point to all types of programs. I mean are these programs . Of course, not. Are there efficiency of many of these infest vmt . Su we can point to comparable programs and if you really are committed to it, what you dont do is cut it entirely and eliminate. You figure out a way to make invest. And making investments generate results. The idea that we are going to cut and eliminate thats going to create better outcome comes. I just think illogical and does not make any sense. Move frg ting from money to something abstract. I want to get to you quickly then well open up for questions. What do you guys see for the future . There is some effort on the tum strum Trump Administrations and some of the obama trump signed an executive order passing the to examining places of over reaching. Monitoring some of the issues that we see popping up on stage, this could go to anyone and what should something of a political football in a sense that [ inaudible ] depending on which parties is in control and there is certainly not going to be an exception to that pattern right now. The Obama Administration under the Obama Administration, the office of civil rights took a stepped up approach enforcing sif civil rights protection. Practice in issuing guidance essentially in the form of colleague letters, putting in the district of two areas in particular of resources and discipline rates. If it were shown of disp disproportionally, the district would be at risk at fis at beind at fault, civil rights fault. The thing to look at is whether the Trump Administration rescinds that guidance. Is it something they can do over night without a note of process at all. Those argued that they should do that worry that in particular, the policies around discipline have caused districts to be overly cautious and how they handle behavior problems that this has untended consequences of all students including those serving our High Achievers involving in disciplinary issues. Thats an ongoing debate. It is interesting that they have not taken the steps of doing that and given of something that they can do over night. It will be interesting to see how that unfolds. Now reporters look at the letters in terms of the guidance that, that has the enforcement action. We have seen guidance in terms of when which lgbtq children are being treated of the bathroom access. For detroit program, they should be choirrequired to treat child equally. When you have an administration committed to civil rights, across the whole gamete of several rights protection and certain population of kids or treated differently based on race or gender or Decision Making and so it is really what actions are being taken. We have seen Jeff Sessions that this administration is less committed to civil rights. This it is never been good of people of color or low income people or immigrant when the government steps back from civil rights. I mean most of the federal laws that the department of ed is here to enforce is Civil Rights Era laws because we have states and localities that were given short shifts to add risks children. When those children are immigrants or people of color, it was surprising. And having a behavior disability or where we are likely to be suspected or the pipeline is rooted in discriminatory s disciplina disciplinary practices. We saw all state accountable that did not do much at all and generations after generations and in under performance in schools. What actions are being taken because many did not have the right of action. You need the feds and the ocr, the whole point of orc is enforcing the civil rights protection of these young people. We do see this administration often time they put people in charch charge of partners they dont believe in. If the people dont believe in it, theyre not going to enforce the norms that motivates these department is in the first plac. They made it very clear. Facts are facts. Jeff sessions said in last week there is going to be a significant roll back in terms of civil rights protection. He already said it is going to affect kids and families. And so again, i want to encourage reporters to follow the impact of this and tell these stories. There is going to be real people you can name and families that you can name and you can talk about how theyre hit by this because talk about how theyre hit by this. Thats my concern, that in many of these conversations we lose sight of the regular people who are struggling already and of all backgrounds, of all colors, of all ethnic groups who are deathly afraid of whats going to happen to their kids and their stories just arent being heard. The floor is yours. There are two microphones here. Tell us who you write for, where youre from, so we can give good, educated answers for you. And please ask a question. [ inaudible ] you did mention the Voucher Program in chicago and the immediate effects. And weve seen studies in three states. Does that affect your thinking . Thanks. Great question. We did just see a new, as you mentioned, random assignment evaluation of the d. C. Opportunity Scholarship Program which, for those who arent aware, is a Voucher Program in the district, roughly 1100 kids or so are in the program today. Its been around since 2003. That program did find after one year of being in the program that kids had did worse, i think it was, on reading achievement than math achievement. Math achievement wasnt significant. One thing, a couple cautions about that. Not dismissing it. It is after one year. We have much more evidence that those kids who persist through the program have Graduation Rates that are 21 percentage be points higher than the control groochlt i think that says something. If you look at the control group in that study, 52 of the kids in the control group ended up finding their way to private schools anyway. So there was pretty significant contamination in the control group. We have overall competitive effects. Weve seen d. C. Public schools improving over time, which may capture some of the improvement. Just a few caveats. Not dismissing it. On the broader question about the impacts, we now have 11 Gold Standard random assignment evaluations of School Choice programs, vouchers and tax credits that finds statistically significant improvements on academic achievement. As a result of participating in a School Choice program. We know that because of the study design, three programs that we have find no effects, as you mentioned three negative effects. The one you just mentioned dcosp and then the other two theyre relatively new. Theyre about a year old and both out of louisiana. We could do an entire panel on louisiana. Actually ill interrupt you to say tomorrow theres an awesome School Choice panel. So this will be like the meat of it too. The last thing ill say. Many of us have argued those two evaluations that found negative impacts out of louisiana, louisiana runs a uniquely prescriptive regulatory environment. Schools that accept a kid on a voucher have to take the state test, not just any old test, but the state test. We know only a third of private schools participate. Those third were experiencing some significant attrition before they entered the program, which suggests that maybe they were, you know, struggling schools prior to program entry, which could explain the negative effects that we found. So not to talk them away, but some caveats on the three negatives. Did you have ill be brief, a couple points on the d. C. Evaluation. I am actually not worried about the fact that some of the control group kids ended up in private schools because the evaluation can take that into account. But most of the control group ended up in Charter Schools. And that actually is the comparison thats being made. Another interesting thing is that they asked the schools how much time they spend on various subjects. Lindsay mentioned there were negative effects on reading achievement. If you look at how much times the school spent on reading it was far higher in the control group in charter than private schools. And so the question then becomes what are the private schools using that other time for . Is it to offer additional coverage of other subjects that go untested in the evaluation . So i think we need to be very cautious about rushing to conclusions based on evaluations of choice programs very early on after one year. And we need to look at the bigger picture. All right. Trish, do you want to sorry. Trisha crane from Alabama Media group. I have a question about special education. Special education like it or not is a federal program. Thats just the way it is. What do you say the role, you know, weve batted around more funding for special education, federal government has never stepped up and funded the full 40 . Its very expensive. I know in alabama theyve looked at esas as a way to sort of avoid this idea that they have to provide special education. All of these School Choice initiatives seem to avoid the issue of providing special education. What im interested in your take on special education as a federal sort of function. Thanks. I think thats critical. I mean, i think again ida is a Civil Rights Era laws designed to make sure all kids receive a Public Education. And, you know, even in the Public Charter School sector, theres been some struggle to make sure that that right is vindicated. But theres been a lot of progress where many public Charter Schools have done a very strong job. Some have not. Just as in the district. I was involved in a lawsuit for north Public Schools for ten years where i have a special monitor who had to monitor the way in which the traditional School District was delivering special ed because theres a lot of issues there. Again, you know, what we would say is that any school that has a public dollar has to serve all kids. Period. Public charter school, any other iteration of school, if youre going to receive a public dollar you have to serve all children. And part of the federal role in partnership with states and School District is to have accountability to make sure thats happening. Theres a lot of levers to ensure that happens. The worst lever is a lawsuit that means years after kids dont receive what they should receive people step in and intervene. Every Public School has to wrestle with. As folks talk about these new providers, that obligation has to be there. I think its disappointing whether we talked about it earlier in the context of kids who may be lbgtq accessing a Public Education. Some seem to believe a school that receive as public dollar can say were not going to serve you. Perhaps some may say the same thing. We dont have to serve you. We would strongly disagree with that. That would be contrary to what we think Public Education ought to mean. Again, what we would say if you get a public dollar you got to serve every baby that comes through that door. Period. Obviously you can have a cap. Any individual school can only serve so many kids. But what you can do is pick and choose based upon the identity or based upon whether a child has a special need who youre going to serve. Thats where we would come from on that. One point on that, i actually the standard that he just articulated any school that receives public dollars needs to serve all kids is not one we hold Public Schools to. We hold School Districts responsible but we dont say each individual campus needs to be prepared to serve every learner, regardless of what his or her needs are. Sometimes districts make provision for the students needs by sending them to a private school. So i think there are real questions about the ability of School Choice programs that are not specifically designed for students with disabilities to serve those students well. They need to be specifically designed with funding levels that make it feasible for them to find other alternatives. We need to be fair when were setting up the standards we hold schools participating in choice programs whether they be private schools or Charter Schools, too. They cant deny admission in the thats right. The kid can come in, you go through the cst process youre making my apologies for my flight being late. Youre making the distinction between the the underlying distinction here is an unregulated market that can do anything it wants to do versus a public obligation. And so, yes, in terms of special ed, think about it, we never got enough money. Yet theres still a public obligation and the buck stops with the Public School district, regardless. And trying to figure out how to do it even if it means taxing its inhabitants more. And yet the socalled choice programs can do whatever they want, kind of like, you know, swimming whichever way they want to swim. I think that long term, and janet and others were telling me what, you know, the discussion was here. Long term, the question that is now posed by devos Trump Administration is, is Public Education a public good anymore . Is it foundational to a democracy . Or is it a commodity that can be bought and sold in an unregulated market. And long term, that is the debate thats going to happen in the next few years. Thats the debate that jonah and i tried to address in our oped, but that is the debate thats going to happen. And special ed is a perfect example. As you can imagine we spent a significant portion of this panel early on talking about School Choice. And i did want to get your take on a couple things now that youre here. Im going to steal the floor back if you guys dont mind for a sec. You recently toured a rural Public School with secretary devos. I would love to hear whether you had any, you know, insightful takeaways from that . Youre now apparently i probably spent more time with her than any reporter in the room collectively. I think thats probably fair. If you add up every reporter here, i probably spent more time so were dying to hear. But have you scheduled the tradeoff, right, was that you were going to then tour a school of choice with secretary devos. Has that been scheduled . She asked me she actually asked me to go to the school she was doing in indiana. But i was already scheduled. Im in School Visits a lot. And i was scheduled in Mcdowell County west virginia, so im not going to move a school visit i already had. In the future i gave her a couple more dates, well see to be determined. The ball is in her court. Do you think that there what were you insights from that school visit with her . I would have liked for her to come to the school that i was at in Mcdowell County, west virginia. I think it tells a different story. The school visit was fantastic. Meaning, it was fantastic because first off, people really tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. And i dont think she heard a thing that people were saying to her. And that was really at the end, she said she was completely inspired by what she had just seen. She kept on saying to people i want to work on this, i want to work on this and then nothing happened. In fact, what happened was the cuts to the budget of things that were really important. So i think people if you ask the people in van wert today what happened at the visit, they would have been incredibly disappointed that she took nothing from that visit in terms of informing her own ideology. But people were the stuff that you saw there, the projectbased instruction, the Early Childhood learning, the questions from the round table of parents and teachers of special needs kids, the amount of time, effort, and energy that this rural district had put into this visit and showing her, wanting to show her what worked and what didnt work in a place that was completely republican dominant. But i do think she just she didnt if you look at the actions since, it was clear that it had absolutely no bearing on her learning. Do you have any other questions . Well stay a couple minutes late since we started late. The next panel doesnt start for a half an hour. Just putting that out there. Anyone else have a question . I have lots of them, i can keep going. [ inaudible question ] is that demoralizing to traditional schools, refreshing candor or something in between . Im actually not familiar with that one. So in the last two days, the school itself on monday or tuesday what is today . Today is wednesday, right . So tuesday. Honor memorial day, i hope. People fought back and were livid. Because the looking at what the problems are in Public Education and how to solve them is a legitimate exercise. But calling all of Public Education a dead end, or actually calling that school can, which as i understand it, we dont represent them, as i understand it, has done a whole bunch of other things since that student was there and not actually trying to figure out before she just branded it, you know, in a demoralizing way is not what the secretary of education should be doing. Raising issues, what were seeing now is that issues that should be legitimately raised are being used as a pretext to get rid of Public Education. And it goes back to the original piece i said, which is, is this the great equalizer . Knowing full well we have problems that have to be solved or are we, like what the republicans just did with health care, are we going to actually make this an unregulated market . So the kids who actually need the most will never get it. And that is the debate in front of america right now. And betsy devos is on the side of unregulated markets. The kids who arent getting it now are assigned to schools where their parents live. I dont think anyone is saying abolish Public Education spending. The public dollars were spending, instead of sending them to institutions, separate it. Separate the financing of education from the delivery of services. Allow those dollars to follow children to whatever option meets their unique learning needs, and every kid has unique learning needs. If that so the two nations that have done that, chile and sweden, have found that to be a terrible exercise and kids have actually been very disserved. In sweden, theyre trying to change that system now. Because what has happened in sweden is that the scores have gone downhill. Not to say that there are things that we have to do to change education. But what devos is doing with the federal dollars is its not actually saying lets lift up some experiments and provide more funding for it. What shes doing is what she did in michigan. Which is taking funding that is absolutely essential like, where i disagree with you, lindsay, is the funding for 21st century schools in Mcdowell County, west virginia, has turned around the school that has 100 poverty. And if you went with me to that school you would change your mind about 21st century schools. The levels of kids success in math, in english, is remarkable in a place that is devastated by poverty. Can i just say one more thing . If were talking about test scores, lets look how our u. S. Education system, the public system performs internationally. Were in the middle of the pack. They were hovering where they were for decades. If you look at the last results, they will tell you and oecd will tell you if you actually started separating out Socio Economic issues in the places like massachusetts that have worked on this for several years without having the reform of the moment and actually really focuses on equity, they are at the top of the pack. All right. Next question. Thank you, hi, thanks for doing the panel. Im with the the wall street journal. Not to pick on lindsay, but im curious what your thoughts would be on that interchange last week where the secretary was asked to say when she thought it was appropriate for the federal government to step in, if a school taking vouchers discriminated against a child for Sexual Orientation or religion or racial background. I thought that interchange was murky because she did say the office of civil rights entitlements still applies. So im wondering, what specifically would you say about the federals role in preventing discrimination with a Voucher School . So we do have civil rights laws in place, right . Beyond that, i think the great thing about School Choice, right. We value pluralism. Schools can be clear up front about their priorities, beliefs, expectations, what they teach and parents have the option to choose those schools. I think we have to respect freedom. We have to respect freedom of belief, freedom of religion. That goes across the board. And that means the freedom for private religious organizations to operate according to their values and beliefs and that goes for private schools as well. Federal civil rights laws in place, but, you know, i think beyond that we have to respect the freedom for schools of religious organizations to operate according to their values and beliefs. But could you be more specific . What about a Racial Discrimination in a Voucher School . Thats happened, federal civil rights law. Some peoples religious beliefs believe that black people were cursed by the hand. Its true. So just as some read, they believe that gay and lesbian is problematic. And some say black people were cursed by the curse in the Old Testament and theyre problematic. If thats their religious practice maybe they can discriminate, too. I think sometimes some of these conversations get to extremes. Theres a big middle ground, a strong bipartisan consensus between some of the things randi talked about and that lindsay talked about. You can have choice and accountability. Thats really what the public charter framework is about. Part of the reason that so many young people got left behind because middle class people already has a choice. In new jersey where i am from the middle class has moved out looking for Better School systems for their kids. They exercised choice. What was left behind were low income, africanamerican and latinos, by and large, who were in School Systems that unfortunately for many decades were not operating at a high level. That does not mean you need to have unregulated markets where private actors can discriminate where theyre not going to serve kids based on their Sexual Orientation or have meaningful accountability. Thats what president obama and some on the right as well have aligned around for many decades. What i want to emphasize thats the space where i think one theres amazing results in terms of that working for kids. You have the accountability built in, equity built in, you have transparency built in. You provide some amount of choice to poor people. I, for one, would oppose choice for poor people. As long as they can move out and go where they want to go, and pursue choice, we cant then go to the low income people say youre going to be trapped based on your zip code that we wouldnt allow our children to spend one day in. Thats very different from what we now see from devos. Right. What we see from the Trump Administration. They are perverting that. They are undermining that bipartisan consensus and, on top of that, not even investing significantly either. Its the worst of all worlds. What i really emphasize is that kind of tradition is a space where its part of the Public Education system, not an attempt to dismantle it. Its a space where everybody have supported it. Thats where we can get a lot of things done that will be great for kids. Well have to leave it there. Can i ask just to be totally clear, lindsay, you would say its okay for a school to take a voucher to discriminate against a gay child . My opinions aside, if i were to operate a school i wouldnt operate a school that way. But reasonable people can disagree about some of these sensitive issues. And i think marriage is a sensitive issue. At the end of the day, you know, we have federal civil rights laws in place, and yeah. We are past our time. Im sorry. Thank you, guys all for coming. I really appreciate it. If you didnt sign in, if you could sign in on the signin sheet that would be very helpful for us. Thanks. [ applause ] the event hosted by the education Riders Association continues now. After the 2015 education law was passed. They looked at issues of quality and how theyre addressing civil rights and what can be done to hold schools and districts accountable. This is an hour
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