Scholarships For Opportunity And Results Act

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to rise in strong support of H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act.

H.R. 471 is not new but H.R. 471 is essential. It reauthorizes and makes improvements in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which was created by Congress in 2003 to provide eligible low-income District parents with an opportunity to send their children to a private school of their choice.

But it does more. It also provides an equal amount of money for chartered public schools, which are greater in the District of Columbia perhaps than anywhere else in the Nation, and an equal amount for improving the public school system in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, this Act gives twice as much money to the two categories of public schools--conventional schools and chartered public schools--than it does to the scholarship program. However, the scholarship program is a focus of this bill, and it's a focus because this program has proven to be successful. In fact, 74 percent of all District residents, when polled, favor the continuation of this program as to these D.C. Opportunity Scholarships. Obviously among those who have had opportunities they would not otherwise have had, those who have gone on to college and enjoyed benefits because of their opportunity to seek an education of their choice, it is 100 percent valuable.

Mr. Speaker, we have pursued regular order on this bill. We have gone through both the subcommittee and the committee process. We have had an extensive hearing, and we believe this bill is absolutely essential. I will mention that, pursuant to the goals of the Republican House, we have made some austerity. Originally, this would have been $75 million. It is $15 million less because at this time, although we would like to do more, we have to make those kinds of trimmings that are possible.

Still, Mr. Speaker, this is a jewel of the D.C. school system. It is an opportunity for people to have the kind of choice they have in few other areas. And I want to personally thank the Speaker of the House for bringing this piece of legislation and for all of his work through all of the years in which he worked so hard on the Education Committee to understand this program in a way that no other Member does.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, as it says in the Constitution, to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the District, and that is what we are doing.

It gives me great pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the whip of the House.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, sometimes you just hear something that's hard to believe. We're wasting money here in Washington. The American people are hearing it first here today.
[From the Washington Post]

White House Ignores Evidence of How D.C. School Vouchers Work

With the House poised to vote Wednesday on legislation to reestablish a voucher program that allows low-income D.C. students to attend private schools, the Obama administration issued a strongly worded statement of opposition. The White House of course has a right to its own opinion, as wrongheaded as we believe it to be. It doesn't have a right to make up facts.

``Rigorous evaluation over several years demonstrates that the D.C. program has not yielded improved student achievement by its scholarship recipients compared to other students in D.C.,'' President Obama's Office of Management and Budget proclaimed Tuesday, in response to H.R. 471, sponsored by House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

That dismissal might come as a surprise to Patrick J. Wolf, the principal investigator who helped conduct the rigorous studies of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and who has more than a decade of experience evaluating school choice programs.

Here's what Mr. Wolf had to say about the program in Feb. 16 testimony to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Operations. ``In my opinion, by demonstrating statistically significant experimental impacts on boosting high school graduation rates and generating a wealth of evidence suggesting that students also benefited in reading achievement, the DC OSP has accomplished what few educational interventions can claim: It markedly improved important education outcomes for low-income inner-city students.''

There are, we believe, other benefits to a program that expands educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. The program, which provides vouchers of $7,500 to low-income, mainly minority students to attend private schools, is highly regarded by parents, who often feel it allows their children to attend safer schools or ones that strongly promote achievement. Our view has never been that this voucher program is a substitute for public school or public school reform. But while that reform proceeds, scholarships allow a few thousand poor children to escape failing schools and exercise a right that middle-class parents take for granted--the right, and dignity, of choice.

We understand the argument against using public funds for private, and especially parochial, schools. But it is parents, not government, choosing where to spend the vouchers. Given that this program takes no money away from public or public charter schools; that the administration does not object to parents directing Pell grants to Notre Dame or Georgetown; and that members of the administration would never accept having to send their own children to failing schools, we don't think the argument is very persuasive. Maybe that's why an administration that promised never to let ideology trump evidence is making an exception in this case.

[From the Washington Post, Mar. 30, 2011]

School Choice Is Not a Partisan Issue
(By Kevin P. Chavous)

Seventy-four percent of people rarely agree on anything.

In Pew poll in September, for instance, not even 60 percent of Americans could correctly name Joe Biden as the vice president. But here in Washington, there is overwhelming consensus on something: education reform. More specifically--the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Indeed, 74 percent of city residents, multiple members of the D.C. Council--including Chairman Kwame R. Brown--former local Democratic elected officials like me and former mayor Anthony A. Williams, and thousands of parents, students and other activists all support the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act, set for a vote in the House today. This legislation would reauthorize the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a federally funded initiative that provides low-income children with money to attend private schools. It would also infuse the District's traditional public and public charter schools with $40 million in additional funding per year.

It's a smart, well-constructed plan. But if we were to listen only to the national narrative surrounding school choice in the District, it would seem as if all of the program's supporters were Republicans and none of them have any connection to the city besides happening to work here on weekdays.

In reality, local support for returning all options to the District's low-income children comes from all corners of the city. After years of divisive battles over the creation of the program, its destruction in 2009, and its path toward resurrection in the current Congress, there is wide support among local leaders for the view that reauthorizing the program will be beneficial for students and families, as well as all three education sectors serving children in the city. Even Mayor Vincent Gray has in the past expressed support for the three-sector federal initiative, and it was noteworthy that he was not critical of the voucher program itself--emphasizing instead home-rule issues and the success of the city's public and charter schools--in his lone Capitol Hill appearance to testify on the reauthorization bill.

The only significant local opposition comes from D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who claimed at a House oversight hearing on the SOAR Act that providing educational options for low-income students was somehow a ploy by Republicans to use District children to further a set of ``ideological preferences'' by dismissing the ``independent, self-governing'' nature of Washington.

But if the city is to truly be self-governing as its representative suggests she wants, Norton and other scholarship opponents must do what they so often criticize others for not doing. They must listen to the city's residents.

The only common ideology among supporters of the Opportunity Scholarship Program is that it's the right thing to do. Parents of the 91 percent of program participants who graduate from high school know that, as do the parents of students who have seen their children increase their reading scores through the program. These are certainly many of the same people who elected Norton to her 11th term as their representative in Congress with 89 percent of the vote in November.

This is not, as pundits often contend, a partisan issue. The large majority of the city's residents are Democrats--myself included--and we believe in a set of core values that are consistent with both Democratic ideals and a more fundamental set of ideals rooted in the belief that all children deserve a chance to receive a quality education by any means necessary.

And we're tired of seeing opponents of school choice use traditional party breakdowns as cover for opposition to a program that works or use disparaging language about the intentions of the other side. The fact of the matter is that those who continue to fight for this program want what's best for the District's children, and there is a simple reason why a city full of Democrats want to bring the Opportunity Scholarship Program back to the nation's capital: It's the right thing to do.

[From Politico, Mar. 30, 2011]

Giving Students a Chance at Success
(By Rep. Darrell Issa and Rep. John Kline and Rep. Harold Rogers)

The House is due to vote Wednesday on reinstating the Opportunity Scholarship Program for the District of Columbia.

This is a critical education reform that can offer low-income students and their parents the chance to break out of low-performing public schools and receive a quality education. The reauthorized program would give an annual voucher of $8,000 for elementary students and $12,000 for secondary students within 185 percent of the poverty line. It could make it possible for thousands of district school children to prepare for college at the competitive private school of their choice.

But it is not just about helping one city's schoolchildren. This is part of a larger national conversation about school reform. Across the country, an increasing number of states are looking for ways to break the cycle of low graduation rates and substandard public education to give under-privileged students an educational environment where they can succeed.

Opponents of school choice represent some of the most powerful special interests in the country. Teachers unions, for example, have long opposed school choice and have tried to block voucher programs like the DC Opportunity Scholarship. It was pressure from these groups that influenced President Barack Obama's decision to end the DC scholarship two years ago. This injustice must be corrected.

The success of school choice programs like this one--which was originally passed in 2004--is convincing. Parental satisfaction for scholarship recipients far exceeds that of parents whose children are trapped in failing public schools.

Students in the Washington program who get to attend better-performing private schools in the District are approximately three months ahead in reading ability, compared to non-scholarship students. Graduation rates for scholarship recipients are more than 30 percentage points higher than others in the district's public schools.

These programs enjoy widespread support among those involved. Almost 75 percent of D.C. residents believe the Opportunity Scholarship Program's success deserves reauthorization, according to a recent poll by the American Federation of Children. The D.C. City Council chairman, Kwame Brown, favors continuing the program, as do two former Washington mayors.

Growing bipartisan support in Congress means Democrats and Republicans can work together to help underprivileged students in Washington--which is Congress's responsibility under the Constitution.

School choice programs, like the DC Opportunity Scholarship, strengthen public education systems by offering greater competition. A study by economist David Figlio of Northwestern University demonstrated that similar school choice programs in other parts of the country have improved public education.

In fact, no study to date has suggested school choice hurts student achievement in public schools.

Everyone benefits from the success of these school choice programs. High-performing students are better-equipped for a college education. College graduates are better prepared for well-paying jobs.

In this economy, Congress should be doing everything it can to give the next generation of lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and entrepreneurs a chance to suceed. School choice is a critical part of the path to success.

Support for school choice is about providing immediate assistance for parents and their children--many of whom now wait years to get into charter schools. In many cases, these parents know that their kids attend some of the nation's worst public schools, with some of the highest rates of drug use and crime. No parent should be forced to keep their children in unsafe schools that fail to provide a quality education.

We can think of no reason why Washington students should wait for long-term public school reform when immediate relief is now possible.

Reauthorizing the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program can open the doors to success for thousands of students living in the shadow of their nation's Capitol. More than that, it provides an example for states across the country to follow as they seek to reform a broken system of public education.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona, Dr. Gosar.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot of talk, and it seems like most of the talk is about how we are being unfair to the District of Columbia by giving them money that, in fact, they don't really need. Let me just be candid. The District of Columbia gets all the other Federal money that the States get and other cities. This is additional money, but here is the amazing fact:

Depending upon whose figures you use, for each student in the District of Columbia, they spend between $17,000 and $28,000 per student. Cato says $28,000. We'll take the District at $17,000. These Opportunity Scholarships go between $7,500 and $12,000. I'll agree that perhaps some of those students would have gone to a parochial or to a private school otherwise; but for those who leave the public school to take advantage of this scholarship, they leave all $28,000 behind; and they leave with $7,500 in opportunity and some parent who cares enough to find a way to make up the rest if there is additional cost. Many of the parochial schools mentioned that are high school equivalents of Georgetown--except they're not getting Pell Grants; they're getting this grant--in fact, take this as the entire payment.

So the truth is that this is a gift to the District of Columbia in several ways, and I want it understood here today: when you look at the ranking of all of the States, if the District of Columbia were a State, it would be 51st. If you rank it against the top 50 inner cities, it's still only around 22nd. It is a failed school system with the second highest amount, by their own figures, per capita spent on students. If you take Cato's figures, they're far and away the most expensive public schools anywhere in the country.

Mr. Speaker, we've had a lot of talk about how Republicans are cruel because we're funding less than the Democrats would like, and we're actually funding less on this program than they would have. The difference is they were simply handing $75 million a year for the next 5 years, or at least for this year, to the public schools, with no strings attached, while, in fact, we are breaking it into three pots of $20 million in order to allow the public school to get something.

The Speaker, in this bill, believes strongly they should get something so they're net better off. There is another $20 million so that children can go to charter schools. Let's understand something. If you go to the public school, they say you have choice, but the regular public schools have districts, boundaries. You can't exceed them. Going to a charter school gives you an opportunity to cross town for the school of your choice. The last 20, a mere $20 million out of hundreds of millions of dollars, in fact, goes to these few lottery winners.

The gentleman on the other side of the aisle--and rightfully so--said it's a lottery. Yet as a former businessman--and I don't call myself a recovering businessman because I hope to never forget the lessons I learned in business--if you came to the State of California and said, We'll give you, whether it was $60 million or $600 million, but you've got to take a small amount of that and put it out for lotteries, and if you asked the voters in California would they take it, you'd get the same 74 to 80 percent absolute approval. If it were absolutely new money, they would.

But if you went to a businessman, if you went to somebody who had to understand how to make a dollar go further, there's no question what you would find is--let's do the math. I spend between $17,000 and $28,000 on each student; $7,500 in expanding these Opportunity Scholarships. If they were to use their own in-district money, for every time they hand out $7,500, they would leave themselves over $17,000. It means that every student who remained would have more dollars.

The fact is, it's a self-inflicted wound for the District of Columbia not just to take all of this money but to take additional money because every student who exits is an opportunity to have more for those who stay, but that's not the way public education thinks. It thinks in terms of how much do I get per student, how many union teachers do I make sure I employ, how much union dues do I get.

I'm sorry, but that's not way the rest of America thinks. It's not the way the Speaker thinks when he crafted a bill that was incredibly fair to the District of Columbia and fair to many of the students who, yes, have an opportunity to get these few scholarships; and God help us, I just wish there were more because they wish there were more.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

You know, there has been a lot of talk about H.R. 1, and I think that's a bigger picture than what we're looking at here today; but it should be considered.

Republicans offered on this floor, and passed without the support for the most part of the other party, a continuing resolution. We have been responsible in trying to fund the government, and we tried to fund the government at over 90-some percent of what it would have been funded had the majority not changed and certainly at or above 2008 levels.

But that bill died in the Senate. Everything seems to have died in the Senate. And yet it can be demagogued as though we've cut, but you can't cut what you haven't done and you can't cut what you haven't offered an alternative for. We cut what was already on the book: $75 million to $60 million.

We did decide, the Speaker's leadership, that we were going to keep this program which we believe works. At $20 million, it's just a fairly large pilot program. As one of the speakers on the Democratic side so aptly said, you have to win the lottery, there aren't enough slots. You're right, there aren't enough opportunities for the District of Columbia. But unlike what the gentlelady, the Delegate from the District of Columbia said, we don't have an authority to go out and do this as a national referendum; but more importantly, we don't have the money. This is more a matter of showing the benefit to States which may or may not choose and giving an opportunity to one of the worst school systems, most failed school systems in the Nation.

Students in the District of Columbia in math and science and reading are typically 51st when compared to the 50 States. This is, in fact, a difficult area if you happen to be a student in this District. If you're like the President's family or his predecessor or his predecessor or his predecessor, if they have school-age children, they don't go to public school. They go to private school. That's pretty well-known.

But private school offers opportunities and it offers choice; and, Mr. Speaker, this $20 million per year of special funding for Opportunity Scholarships is all we're talking about today. One of the speakers, rightfully so, called it $100 million over 5 years. The Delegate from the District of Columbia called it $300 million, but she was forgetting the other $200 million goes right where she wants it to go. The only thing we're debating is over 5 years will $100 million go to Opportunity Scholarships that don't basically go to union schoolteachers that are failing the students in a system that is failing.

We just lost the head of education here, Ms. Rhee; and, in fact, part of the reason she left was she saw a new administration that didn't seem to live up to the high expectations that the previous one did. That's a local matter. That's local control and local rule. We're not preempting that. They have a right to fail, and they are failing; but Congress has a right to at least intervene.

And in closing, what I want the Speaker to understand and America to understand is in 1996, when chartered public schools were authorized in the District, it was authorized by my predecessor on the Republican side, Mr. Davis. He got it in and got it funded, and he got it made law over the objection at that time of the people of the District. We've looked through our records and can find no broad support for this mandate. The District did not do chartered public schools on their own. They did it with an act of Congress, with help.

I believe they should take the same suggestion. If they want to choose to disagree with the conservative extreme Washington Post, so be it, but I think they have to begin to look at themselves more deeply, at those that they actually represent, those who voted for them but did not vote to have this money rejected.

I urge strong support for this bill, for this opportunity for the few who win the lottery.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, isn't it true that the House rules prohibit direct accusations about the intent or the personal features of somebody or, in fact, whether or not they have nerve?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, we should bear in mind that home rule is not the right of the District of Columbia to rule people's private homes and how they make their choices for their children.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, maybe we should lighten up just a little here. Yogi Berra apparently said, ``Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded,'' when referring to a restaurant that had long lines to get in. Mr. Speaker, we are finding a way to say a program isn't good because it has long lines waiting to get in. And, oddly enough, when it comes to the charter public schools that have been lauded on a wide basis here, they too have no free rights to automatically go and they have lines. Perhaps what we should be asking is, on a bipartisan basis: What could we do to reduce the lines to both to provide that opportunity to all the children in the District of Columbia?

I will say one thing in maybe a Yogi Berra-type way. If the Democrats will come halfway to the center of the aisle to talk about how we can hit a reasonable number for spending, I will put everything on the table, at least as to my vote, to meet them the other half. But we can't simply say all cuts are bad and have no alternatives, all programs are so needy they can't be cut, and then complain even when we preserve a program.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, in closing, we won't fund failure from this side of the dais. Yes, we're giving additional money to the failed public schools. Yes, we're giving additional money to a chartered public school system that tries valiantly to help those children trapped in those failed public schools. And, yes, we are going to make a continued small investment in children having an opportunity to find other alternatives, just as we do when children a little older get to go to Georgetown or Catholic University with Pell Grants that in fact go to these parochial colleges.

Elections have consequences. The majority a year ago had planned on simply giving it all to union schools, to government schools, because the party of government was in charge. Mr. Speaker, the election made a difference. We consider ourselves--and we try valiantly on this side of the aisle--to be the party of the people. And we believe that the small amount of money to empower people and parents to do something they choose, and they stand in lines--in lotteries, as the other side has said--to escape those schools and to have an opportunity for these scholarships, we believe they have spoken loud and clear.

And although the Delegate will talk about elections and home rule, she ignores those long lines to get out of failed public schools. She ignores the hearings we had in which people came and said, Please don't take our scholarships. And, Mr. Speaker, she even ignores her own party, and she ignores what is in her own amendment.

Mr. Speaker, her amendment would leave 216 special cases that were denied still in for this year. Her amendment would leave in, the same as the Democrats did when they closed out the previous bill, it would leave those already in school in private schools getting additional funding every year. And there's a reason. President Obama's children were not going to watch their schoolmates be thrown out because a successful program that allowed them to be side by side as peers rather than relegated to a failed school was going to be stopped.

So all we're doing is keeping a program of hope alive for the District of Columbia. And I have never been so insulted to be told that if we give money, we're bad; and if we don't give money every place the other side wants it, we're bad. We're trying to give the best we can to parental choice to failed school districts.

With that, I urge the defeat of this amendment, that does nothing but retain the public school status quo that has failed, and the passage of the underlying bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. We spent an hour and 40 minutes discussing the bill and the amendment, and at least the delegate from the District of Columbia attempted to move these dollars all to the public school system.

This bill, in fact, not only denies the children who are in these programs today, some of them side by side with the President's children; but, in fact, it cuts funding for public education.

Under this motion to recommit, the funding for public education on a yearly basis would go from $40 million to $20 million. There would be less money in the public school system, in addition to being no money for Opportunity Scholarships.

I oppose the motion to recommit and urge the support of the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. We spent an hour and 40 minutes discussing the bill and the amendment, and at least the delegate from the District of Columbia attempted to move these dollars all to the public school system.

This bill, in fact, not only denies the children who are in these programs today, some of them side by side with the President's children; but, in fact, it cuts funding for public education.

Under this motion to recommit, the funding for public education on a yearly basis would go from $40 million to $20 million. There would be less money in the public school system, in addition to being no money for Opportunity Scholarships.

I oppose the motion to recommit and urge the support of the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source