Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his terrific help on all we have done on this bill.
Let me count the ways I strongly oppose H.R. 471:
Because it reestablished a program that failed to improve academic achievement as measured by standardized reading and math tests;
Because it infringes on the local government's right to make decisions about quintessentially local education matters;
Because it was introduced without so much as consultation with any elected official from the affected jurisdiction, the jurisdiction I represent;
Because it provides Federal funds to send students to religious and other private schools, despite the absence of support for vouchers, as demonstrated by the failure of every State referendum to authorize vouchers, including two in California; and
Because it increases the deficit by $300 million, violating the majority's own CutGo for discretionary authorization legislative protocols.
Although I am a proud graduate of the D.C. Public Schools and strongly support our public schools, especially given their great improvement, I have always supported public charter alternatives for those parents who are dissatisfied with our traditional public schools. Children can't wait until public schools now in the throes of ``a race to the top'' meet the top.
I'm proud that the District of Columbia has the largest charter school system in the United States of America, with almost half of our children attending. Parents and organizations in the District of Columbia have made this alternative, not the Congress of the United States.
The existence and the phenomenal growth of our public charter schools has fueled the competition that has actually helped our public schools improve. The reason is because the charter schools and the public schools, unlike the voucher schools, are competing for the same local dollars.
So, today, it is interesting to note that the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the D.C. Public Schools have awakened to the competition, and now is the only one of 18 large urban school systems that showed improvement in the fourth and eighth-grade achievement tests over the past 2 years.
Now, contrast this with what the Bush Education Department found for the very voucher program we will be voting on in H.R. 471, and I'm quoting:
The Department of education found ``no conclusive evidence that the Opportunity Scholarship Program affected student achievement'' as measured by standardized reading and math tests. Yet the program was established precisely to measure and improve performance of the lowest achieving students in our schools.
D.C. charter schools, however, outperform the D.C. public schools and greatly outperform the voucher schools. Our public charter schools at the middle and high school level, with a majority of economically disadvantaged students, scored almost twice as high as their D.C. Public School counterparts in math and reading, and the graduation rate of charter school students is 24 percent higher than the graduation rate of our traditional public high schools and 8 percent higher than the national average. Yet these public charter schools have a higher percentage of African American students and of disadvantaged students than our public schools.
They are entirely accountable. They can be closed and, like public schools, they have been closed.
With this remarkable record, why in the world would anyone pick the District of Columbia to impose a voucher program on, or target the only big school system that has set up an alternative public charter school system?
If the majority were truly interested in our education agenda, instead of their own, they would do what former Speaker Newt Gingrich did. When he approached me about private school vouchers, I told him of public opposition to vouchers in the city, but not to charter schools, as demonstrated by a fledgling charter school program in the District that had attracted few charters. And there was a District of Columbia charter school law. He worked with me, not against me, to introduce a bill----
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. CUMMINGS. I grant the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.
Ms. NORTON. To introduce P.L. 104-134, which has helped us produce a large-scale robust alternative public school system that is now a model for the Nation.
The pattern of this Congress could not be clearer. They began by stripping the District of Columbia of its vote. They have done nothing but try to take from the District of Columbia with bill after bill. Now they want to help us, against our will.
We reject the insult of your help with the children of the District of Columbia. We are not second-class citizens. We are not children. If you want to help us, give us the courtesy, have the good grace to ask us how we want to be helped.
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the majority has been obsessed with depriving the District of Columbia of its home-rule rights ever since this Congress opened. They have come now with their choice, their preference, for the people I represent. If, in fact, the majority is correct that this program has been so effective, I ask you why you have not brought a national voucher bill to the floor so that your constituents could have the very same thing my constituents have? I know why. It's the height of hypocrisy to put it on us and not bring a bill to the floor to give the same wonderful, wonderful opportunity to your own people.
I have a home-rule agenda in the amendment coming up. I challenge you, I challenge you to bring a national voucher bill to the floor this session.
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I have to correct the gentleman from California. The District charter school bill was created by Speaker Gingrich in partnership with me. He came to me and proposed a voucher bill. I asked him, since the District had a local charter school bill, if he would introduce, instead, a charter school law. We consulted with the local public officials, with the school board, with citizens. It was the home rule alternative to vouchers, and you can check with Speaker Gingrich.
Now, my home rule substitute would redirect the $300 million in H.R. 471, 50 percent to the District public charter schools, 50 percent to the District of Columbia Public Schools. If the majority wants to add $300 million to the deficit without an offset, then let it at least be on the basis of educational merit; then it should be added to the public schools which have shown major growth, the only public school system of the 18 largest urban school systems that showed significant improvements in math and reading over the last 2 years.
If you want to add to the deficit, then at least add to it by giving money to our public charter schools which outdo the D.C. public schools and way outdo, of course, the voucher schools, which show no improvement. The public charter middle and high schools scored twice as high as the traditional public charter schools in the District in math and reading, and they have a graduation rate 24 percent above the D.C. public schools and 8 percent above the national average. This is where you would give the money if you had any interest in education in the District of Columbia instead of your own parochial interests in making the District a petri dish of the pet project of a few Members of Congress. You would look at our public charter schools as the alternative to the District's public schools.
There are 53 campuses, amounting to almost 100 different charter schools, almost half of the children of the District of Columbia. How did they get there? They voted with their feet. I mean, listen to some of the names of these schools: Washington Latin School; Washington Math, Science, and Technology High School. I have, myself, appointed two students from Washington Math, Science, and Technology to Service Academies. Early Childhood Academy; Hospitality Academy; Howard University Middle School--that's a charter school; the KIPP Schools. We've got eight of them. Those are the top charter schools and some of the best public charter schools in the United States. SEED Residential charter school. You have some money? You want to spend some money? Here is the place to spend it.
To show you just what kind of a home rule alternative this is, with almost 100 different schools, they have got 19 new charter school applications coming for 2012. People keep coming despite the improvements in the District public schools. They are going to have a preschool charter. They are going to have three new high schools: one an all male college prep, one that focuses on public service, another that focuses on math and science.
You want to talk choices, you want to talk creative choices, look at the District of Columbia. We know how to create choices for ourselves, choices that our parents want, choices that our parents create and pay for because they want their own choices, not the choices of the Republicans of the House of Representatives. In a democracy, the choices of a self-governing local jurisdiction trump all other choices, and especially the choices of Members who are not responsible to the people of the District of Columbia, who do not have to stand for election in the District of Columbia but get a free ride, as I do not.
If you insist on adding to the deficit, then, for goodness sake, reinforce the home rule, hard work of our own parents and our own local organizations. Commend them for the dazzling array of almost 100 public, accountable charter schools they have created. Relieve their long waiting lists, which now contain thousands of students waiting to get into our charter schools.
The District of Columbia did not appreciate being an unwilling object of a Republican experiment once. With your cavalier defiance of our choices, we like it much less the second time around.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. NORTON. The gentleman cited a number of schools that he said vouchers had helped. There is no data showing that voucher schools--and there have been a few in the United States--have ever scored better than children in public schools. And since Milwaukee was mentioned, let me indicate some news that just came out Tuesday.
Results from the first administration of Statewide exams for students participating in the Milwaukee voucher program showed lower academic achievement than students attending Milwaukee public schools. The results also show that the Milwaukee public schools and voucher schools have significant lower achievement than the Statewide average.
But here, you have a big city public school system that is doing better than the voucher schools. And that is what the data shows all over the United States, including the District of Columbia, where the Bush Department of Education specifically found that the children in voucher schools did not show significant improvement in math and reading scores. While I have shown details here this afternoon of significant improvement of the D.C. public schools, the only urban school system that has in fact shown significant improvement in math and science, and particularly dazzling results in the D.C. charter schools.
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, the residents of the District of Columbia see a pattern here. The majority begins by taking away my vote in the Committee of the Whole so I can't vote on any part of this bill this afternoon, then they take away or try to take away the needle exchange program that keeps HIV-AIDS from being spread throughout the District of Columbia. Then they are also trying to take away the choice of low-income women in the District in two bills, the reproductive choice of low-income women in two bills: H.R. 1 and H.R. 3.
They have introduced a bill to put their version of gun laws on the District of Columbia, although the courts have found our new gun laws to be constitutional. This morning we hear that they are coming forward yet again with more to do to the District of Columbia by trying to erase our marriage equality law.
Now they say, after taking all of that from you, we have got something for you, something you never asked for, vouchers, instead of funding your own home rule choice, your public charter schools.
Yes, we know you fund the charter schools as well; but you then fund your choice, not ours. My amendment says if you want to fund something, ask us. Fund what we want, not what you want. And if you want vouchers, bring a national voucher bill right to the floor.
I can understand Republicans voting against my substitute. They will argue perhaps that it adds to the deficit. But if you vote against my substitute, then I don't see how you can vote for H.R. 471, because it certainly adds to the deficit, too; and you will be voting for your choice, not ours.
Many of you have come to the House under the banner of liberty, to get the Federal Government out of even Federal matters. Now you're trying to get into a purely local matter involving our children and our local schools. If this were your district, you would ask us to defer to you. I'm asking you to defer to our preferences. The District of Columbia asks to be treated exactly as you would want to be treated--as free and equal citizens of the United States of America and not as second-class citizens, not as children, and certainly not as the colonial subjects of the Congress of the United States.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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