<DOC> [105 Senate Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:44136.wais] S. Hrg. 105-364 A PROGRESS REPORT ON THE REFORMS IN D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ SEPTEMBER 8, 1997 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs <snowflake> U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 44-136 cc WASHINGTON : 1998 _______________________________________________________________________ For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee, Chairman SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine JOHN GLENN, Ohio SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas CARL LEVIN, Michigan PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii DON NICKLES, Oklahoma RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, BOB SMITH, New Hampshire New Jersey ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MAX CLELAND, Georgia Hannah S. Sistare, Staff Director and Counsel Leonard Weiss, Minority Staff Director Michal Sue Prosser, Chief Clerk ------ SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah MAX CLELAND, Georgia Ron Utt, Staff Director Laurie Rubenstein, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel Esmeralda Amos, Chief Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Brownback............................................ 1 WITNESSES Monday, September 8, 1997 Hon. Richard K. Armey, Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives................................................ 3 Jeanne Allen, President, tHE Center for Education Reform......... 10 Nina Shokraii, Education Policy Analyst, Domestic Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation........................................ 14 Kent B. Amos, President, Urban Family Institute.................. 16 Bruce K. MacLaury, Chairman, Emergency Transition Education Board of Trustees, District of Columbia Public Schools............... 26 General Julius W. Becton, Jr., (Retired), Chief Executive Officer and Superintendent, District of Columbia Public Schools, accompanied by Major General Charles Williams, (Retired), Chief Operating Officer.............................................. 28 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Allen, Jeanne: Testimony.................................................... 10 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 51 Amos, Kent B.: Testimony.................................................... 16 Prepared statement........................................... 81 Armey, Hon. Richard: Testimony.................................................... 3 Prepared statement........................................... 43 Becton, General Julius W., Jr.: Testimony.................................................... 28 Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 88 MacLaury, Bruce K.: Testimony.................................................... 26 Prepared statement........................................... 83 Skokraii, Nina: Testimony.................................................... 14 Prepared statement with an attachment........................ 62 APPENDIX Prepared statements of witnesses in order of appearance.......... 43 A PROGRESS REPORT ON THE REFORMS IN D.C. PUBLIC SCHOOLS ---------- MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1997 U.S. Senate, Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia Subcommittee, of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. Present: Senator Brownback. Staff Present: Ron Utt, Staff Director; and Esmerelda Amos, Chief Clerk, and Joyce Yamat, Professional Staff Member. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWNBACK Senator Brownback. I call the hearing to order. I would like to welcome everyone to our second hearing on the District of Columbia public schools. This hearing is timely as the 1997-98 school year will soon begin. The purpose of this hearing is to hear about the progress of the education reforms of the District's public schools. The Subcommittee would like to revisit many of the issues that were raised in our last education hearing which was held on April 17 and hear about the progress made on these various reforms. We would also like to examine the issue of management in the District of Columbia public schools. There is definitely no shortage of improvement opportunities in management when it comes to the D.C. public schools. But the central office has implemented changes, and I am anxious to hear what improvements have been made and what we can expect in the upcoming school year. I am also pleased to see that the charter school application process is underway. Since enactment of the charter school legislation in the last Congress, however, the District has only two charter schools. There is obviously plenty more to be done. At our last D.C. education hearing, one idea that was raised was for D.C. public schools to take advantage of the resources of the Federal Government and the expertise, such as the Smithsonian museums. I am interested to see if the D.C. public schools are using these opportunities and if the Federal agencies are helping them to do that. We just received this morning word that of the seven agencies in the Federal Government asked to help the District with establishing and working toward charter schools, only two have responded; we need a lot more response and help from the Federal Government and the Federal agencies. On the issue of school choice, I am a cosponsor of legislation, that is, S. 487--and we will hear about companion legislation from the House shortly--that would provide scholarships to low-income students who choose to get a quality education at a private school. Every child has a right to quality education. If they are being denied that right in their public schools, they must be given the option to make sure they receive the quality education they deserve. That is a fundamental and a paramount right. If people are to be able to experience the fullness of education and be able to make the most of themselves, they need to have access to a quality education. A bureaucracy may be able to wait years for its improvements to take place, but a child, however, cannot. They have to receive that quality education when they are in the school system. In 2 years, first and second-graders learn the basics of reading and mathematics. We cannot put off learning basic reading and mathematics skills for those children. S. 847 would provide an immediate option to maintain these learning standards for children during the 2 years of improvement. I would like to thank all of our witnesses for coming to testify at today's hearing, and I just want to say as well as I conclude my opening remarks that I am very concerned about where we are on District of Columbia public education. In the reconciliation bill that just went through Congress, we did a lot on improving the District of Columbia. We addressed the tax issue; we put in zero capital gains for property held for 5 years; first-time homebuyers. There has been a lot done on the crime issue in the District of Columbia. I think there is more that needs to take place. We need to address the management issue in the District of Columbia. There is a lot of consternation and concern, but there are a lot of needs to manage better in the District of Columbia. I think some of the fundamentals are being addressed--of crime, of growth--but the one that we have not adequately addressed yet is education, public education. And that is my deep concern and commitment, that we need to move forward for the D.C. public schools for the children. They just are not getting the chance for the quality education that they need to have. That is what we want to examine at this hearing, and I have a number of questions for our witnesses, particularly for General Becton, on running the schools. Our first witness is the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, who has been following and working on this issue for some period of time, and I am delighted to have Representative Dick Armey here to testify. Representative Armey, thank you for coming over to this side of the Hill and testifying. I look forward to your presentation and a few questions. Please proceed. TESTIMONY OF HON. RICHARD K. ARMEY,\1\ MAJORITY LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Mr. Armey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and I appreciate the fact that you are holding these hearings. I want to especially thank you for the opportunity to talk about the question of education in Washington, D.C. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Armey appears in the Appendix on page 43. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you know, I am a sponsor of school choice legislation for D.C., which will soon be taken up in our own body in the appropriations process. I have long been a supporter of the concept of choice for families in the education of their children. But I have to tell you that this current effort that I am working on has brought me into closer contact with the real families and the real children than I have been in other efforts. And you are absolutely right when you put the emphasis as you do on the children. One of the things that I have learned in the last few days is that Washington is a city full of beautiful children, and every one of these children have a once-in-a-lifetime period in which they should and must get their education. It is so critical that we understand that for each individual child, it is now. And as George Allen--a person that we in Dallas do not always quote--I mean Coach George Allen--used to say, ``the future is now,'' and never is that more true than when you look into the face of a beautiful child looking for his or her chance to get through the third grade this year, because they know that this is the year to do so. I would like to talk about that in some more personal terms without naming any names. I want to tell a true story about an African-American family living in Anacostia. Through the generosity of some anonymous donors, six children in this family began attending a Catholic school in the District of Columbia last week. Up until now, they had attended the city's public schools, and if they were still attending the city's public schools, they would not have been in school last week. The oldest child is 13 and should be starting his freshman year in high school. Instead, he is starting the 7th grade. He has tested at the Catholic school and is actually only reading at about a 5th grade level. At 13 years old, this young man is already 4 years behind in school and on the verge of being a lifetime behind. The next child is a 10-year-old girl. Although she tested half a grade level behind, the principal at the school agreed not to hold her back; last week, she began the 5th grade. Also attending the Catholic school is a friendly 9-year-old boy. Until a few volunteers took him under their wings 6 months ago, this boy could not read. Halfway through the 3rd grade in D.C. public schools, he could barely read a word on a page. Because of volunteer help 2 or 3 days a week over the past 6 months, his reading level has improved to the 2nd grade level. Even though he should be attending the 4th grade, he will be repeating the 3rd grade. The principal only agreed to hold him back just one grade when provided with a firm commitment that the intensive tutoring would continue. And I must say I know the child and I know the tutors, and I know that they made a commitment that has been convincing to this principal. Joining the young boy in 3rd grade will be his very bright 8-year-old sister, the only one of the six children who did not test behind. Also attending the school will be a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old. If you will, I would like to take a moment to talk about the future of these children. The young man repeating the 3rd grade is an extremely kind and friendly child, but what will his future look like if he continues to go to school and continues to fall behind? He would become bored in class and begin to disturb the other students. His self-esteem would deteriorate, and eventually, he would conclude that he cannot compete in school. Unable to read, he would drop out. In today's economy, what future would this young man have? Fortunately, these six children are now attending a school that has an excellent record of success. Most of the students who graduate from this elementary school go on to succeed in a private high school, and from there, most go on to college. Their new school is already producing results. Attitudes have changed, both among the children and their parents. The children are more excited to learn, and their parents are more engaged in the children's education. Because of the opportunity they have been given, these precious children are now going to become something more than just statistics. Mr. Chairman, some people may listen to me and complain that I am guilty of argument by anecdote. Let us look at the facts and see if the family that I have just discussed is representative of what is really happening in our Nation's Capital. In the family I mentioned, of the four children who are beyond kindergarten age, three of the four test below grade level. According to The Washington Post, among D.C. public students as a whole, 65 percent test below their grade level. In 1974, 72 percent of 4th graders in D.C. public schools tested below basic proficiency on the National Assessment of Education Progress. Even many students who graduate have little to show for their diplomas. Eighty-five percent of D.C. public schools students who enter the University of the District of Columbia need 2 years of remedial education before beginning their course work toward their degree. A majority of public school graduates who take the U.S. Armed Forces qualification test fail it. What is worse, about 40 percent of District children who enter the public schools never graduate at all. Unable to compete in our economy, many end up on welfare or in prison. A report released in August showed that at any given time, virtually half of all black men in Washington, D.C. age 18 to 35 are either incarcerated, on parole or on probation, awaiting trial or being sought on an arrest warrant. We simply cannot continue to allow our young people to become nothing other than grim statistics. I have supported efforts to improve the public schools in the District. I have met with General Becton, and I believe he is committed to a genuine reforming and improvement of the public schools. I support the strong charter school law created by Congress which allows for creative and successful charter schools. I might also add that even though per pupil spending levels are already among the highest in the Nation, Congress has nevertheless provided more funding for the public school system. But we need to do more. We must do something to help the thousands of children like the ones I have described today whose future depends on getting out of failing schools, not in 10 years, not in 5 years, but today. That is why I have introduced bipartisan legislation that would provide Opportunity Scholarships to low-income District residents. Under the legislation, which was introduced in the Senate by Senators Coats, Lieberman and the Chairman of this Subcommittee, about 2,000 children would be eligible for a scholarship of up to $3,200. The scholarship could be used to attend the public, private, or religious school of the parents' choosing; it would also provide up to $500 in tutoring assistance to about 2,000 public school students. Not only will the scholarships give 2,000 children a chance to attend a better school immediately; they will also help improve the public schools. The only way the public school bureaucracy will be reformed is through the discipline and accountability that competition will provide. Let me quote Howard Fuller, the former superintendent of Milwaukee's public schools: ``If you are in a system, as I was as a superintendent, demanding change, but everyone there is clear that whether a single child learns or not, everyone is going to get paid, if everybody is clear that in schools that have never educated kids, each year you are going to put more kids in there, there is not one single thing I can do about it, and all the rhetoric in the world is not going to change that. What I am saying is simply this, I think you have to have a series of options for parents. I support charter schools. I support site-based management--that is, real site-based management. I support anything that changes the options for parents. But I am here to say that if one of these options is not choice that gives poor parents a way to leave, the kind of pressure that you need internally is simply not going to occur.'' Mr. Chairman, in suburban neighborhoods, some pressures for positive change exist because middle-class families have the resources to take their children out of bad schools and put them into private school. Thus, in a limited but important way, public schools are forced to compete for students. As a result, they frequently overcome bureaucratic inertia and improve. According to a recent Washington Post article, a Bethesda public school strengthened its curriculum in order to woo back to the public schools private school students searching for a rigorous education experience. This is the dynamic we must create in Anacostia. I would like to address two concerns that have been raised about my legislation. Some critics of the legislation argue that the only students that private schools are interested in taking are the brightest and the most privileged--not the low- income students who are eligible for scholarships under the bill. A similar strain of this argument is that private schools, if they would accept poor children, would take only the brightest students and leave the public schools with the students who have the greatest need. It is true that some exclusive schools like Sidwell Friends, where the President sent his child, only accept the best and the brightest; but under our legislation, the scholarships are awarded randomly to parents and students, not to the schools. Parents have the power to choose, not the schools. Parents can cherrypick the best schools, not the other way around. Most importantly, this argument ignores what is really happening in this city--the six children from the family I mentioned earlier in my testimony were all accepted by a Catholic school in Anacostia, even though most are testing below grade level. I went to visit Holy Redeemer Catholic School, which is located near North Capitol Street. This school is serving the same low-income minority student population as attend the public schools. The same is true for the Nanny Helen Burroughs School that Senators Coats and Lieberman visited. These schools are not exclusives. They are not institutions in the posh neighborhoods of Northwest Washington. I challenge school choice opponents to look beyond the schools where they are sending their own children and look to the dozens of schools in poor neighborhoods that are currently serving low- income, primarily African-American students. The entire mission of these schools is to serve the disadvantaged students who live in the poor neighborhoods in which they are located. Moreover, low-income students are already attending more than 60 area schools through scholarships provided by the Washington Scholarship Fund. In fact, many of Washington's most exclusive private schools have accepted poor students who are eligible for the scholarships. The Washington Scholarship Fund, which currently serves about 250 children, has a waiting list of several hundred children. The waiting list of the Washington Scholarship Fund leads me to another concern I hear expressed about the scholarship legislation--whether Congress would infringe on the District's home rule by providing opportunity scholarships. The number of children on the Washington Scholarship Fund's waiting list demonstrates that the people of Washington, D.C. themselves want alternatives to the failing public schools. That support is reflected in the polling data. A recent poll shows that by a 44 to 31 margin, District residents believe that providing scholarships to low-income children is a good use of taxpayer dollars. Among families earning less than $25,000, 59 percent support the program, while just 17 percent oppose it. African-Americans support the idea by a 48 to 29 margin. Opposition to scholarships is highest among families who earn $60,000 or more, most of whom already send their children to private schools. Mr. Chairman, let me close by returning to the family I discussed at the opening of my statement. A child who goes through school without learning has the odds stacked against him. Most children who go through school without learning become grim statistics. We cannot stand by and let that happen to another generation of children in our Nation's Capitol. Every child in America deserves a safe, quality education and a fair chance at the American dream. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me just make a final personal observation. As you know, my home is in Dallas, Texas. I do not live in Washington, D.C. I have never lived in Washington, D.C. I will never live in Washington, D.C. My grandchildren will not be raised in Washington, DC. You could ask why do I trouble myself over this question. And I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, it is not out of a concern for Washington, D.C. But Washington, D.C. is a city that has many very, very beautiful and very precious children, and it is just simply not something to be ignored. Each and every one of us who has the privilege of working in this city must be willing to look into this city and at least look into the eyes of these children, and anybody who works on this Hill, in this town, who looks into those beautiful brown eyes and can say something other than, ``You must have your chance now; you cannot be ignored until a system reforms itself; you cannot be allowed to be passed over by a system slow in reforming itself,'' is failing in his or her duty to those children. And I must say that I believe that our duty to those children is larger than our duty to this city or to our own home cities, wherever they are. And it is, in fact, I think, the closest thing to a moral imperative that any of us face in this town. I would invite anybody who thinks that somehow or another, the system may be troubled by this kind of an initiative to look beyond the system and to go and look into one of these children's eyes. And if you can get by that little 3rd-grader who happened to be in my office the other day, and if you can spend half an hour with that little guy, and you can come away without him owning you in some way, then your heart is too cold to work in this city or anyplace else. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. Armey. I appreciate very much your testifying and being here today. It seems to me it is about the children, and it is also about making Washington, D.C. a shining example, which is what we are trying to do for it and for the children who go to school here. Let me ask you, I guess, the most obvious of questions. Why is it that with the number of Members of Congress who send their children to private schools and have the income and the wherewithal to do that, with the statistics you cited of the failings of this system toward the children, and with the advantages of these scholarships and the bipartisan support for this--as you noted, Senator Lieberman, who is also on this panel, introduced the same companion legislation--why is there resistance to either these scholarships or even to the concept of vouchers? It seems to me that the whole situation would say that this is the clear answer and the way that we need to go. Mr. Armey. Well, I am frustrated by that, too, and it strikes me that in politics, sophistry and power are all too often compelling influences in the lives of people who are at work. When I look at one of these little 3rd-graders, I do not think they are particularly enamored with the esoteric formulations of some Supreme Court constitutional theory. They want to know can I go to a school where I will be happy and safe, and can I have my bright eyes lit up by the excitement of learning. I think that all too often, we do not get beyond ourselves in this city, and as much as I believe that public choice and family choice and the involvement that I see in the parents--I met with some parents the other night, and I have to tell you that some of these parents are just incredible in the way they reach out beyond themselves for these children. The Scholarship Fund provides about half the money, and an awful lot of parents who have all they can do to just stay up with their current needs find a way to reach beyond that and provide the other half. It is a precious part of the solution, but in the main, the solution is to fix the entire D.C. school system. I think public choice is part of that process, and I think competition helps. I think that once the school system knows that I do not have an automatic command and control over who will fill my halls, whether they are winning or losing here, they will in fact reach out as the school I cited in Maryland did and encourage people to come back by demonstrating greater success. So I do not want to understate the importance of public school choice or school choice in terms of the encouragement it gives to public schools to get better and in the end, the improvement of the overall performance of the public schools is what must be done. I think General Becton is committed to this. We have visited about this, and while school choice is a precious part of the answer, it is not the full answer. But we have an obligation to have our eyes opened to all the answers, all parts of the answers, that can be. Senator Brownback. General Becton raised a question about the scholarship proposal, suggesting that his big concern is a lack of accountability in a scholarship type of system. Do you have concerns about that in the legislation, whether there is going to be sufficient accountability if some of these scholarships are used for private institutions? Mr. Armey. No, I do not have any concerns about that. We have a school system here in this city that has got to be understood to be very likely the most tragic failure of any school system anyplace in America. I do not think anyone is sitting around, worrying about the lack of accountability of this system. This system has gone on for too many years without people worrying about accountability. I have been to the schools, I have seen these children. I have seen people who have taken resources that are sometimes as little as one-third of the per-child resources, and they have turned on these children to learning. I sat in one school, and grade after grade after grade, I asked the children, ``What is your favorite subject,'' and grade after grade after grade, they said, ``Science and math, science and math.'' I defy you to go into any public school in America and find the majority of children in the school saying their favorite subject in the 3rd grade is science or math. I think people who worry about lack of accountability ought to visit the schools, look at the children, see the excitement in their young faces, and see the dedication of those teachers. I have said it before, and I will say it again--there is absolutely nothing more precious than a dedicated, loving teacher, and that is what you find here. These people are generally teaching and working at salaries that are considerably less than they get, and they are in it for the love. And for us to think that an abstraction like accountability should negate a recognition of their good works is, I think, a failure on our part to, in fact, do the job that we need to go out and see for ourselves. Senator Brownback. Thank you very much for being here with us today and for sponsoring this legislation and the suggestion that you will be putting it in the appropriations bill coming through the House. There will be similar efforts on the Senate side as well. I think that it is important legislation to move forward. Thanks for your leadership, Majority Leader Armey. Mr. Armey. Thank you. I might add that I have spoken to the Subcommittee on Appropriations that has jurisdiction over the city, and I am very confident; I believe they will in fact have this legislation in the House. As you know, both the chairman of that subcommittee and the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee are both in support of the legislation. So I think we will have it properly placed in the legislative process, and as we gain public recognition and understanding of the value of this in the lives of the children, we will be able to take ourselves beyond the needs of systems and institutions and get to the ground we must stand on. I thank you again for holding these hearings. Senator Brownback. And I might note, too, that it actually may well save money even though this is in addition to the current public education--the scholarship is $3,200 versus $7,000-plus that the public education system spends. So it is not taking money out of the public education system, and it may actually cost less in delivering a better education for these children. Mr. Armey. I believe that is right on a per capita basis. By the same token, I have encouraged the subcommittee, and I think the subcommittee is fully committed to the proposition that whatever funds are made available for this scholarship program in Washington, D.C. should not be gained by reducing funds available to the D.C. public school system. While we hold so close to our hearts the importance that this can have to the number of children who benefit from it, I think we should never lose sight of the fact that the large task, the more important thing for the greatest comprehensive care of all the children of this city is the rehabilitation of the D.C. public school system so that it performs at such a level. I think the competition engendered by choice helps in that process, and I do not want to see this choice program funded by reductions in revenues for D.C. schools themselves. I do not think that will be the case. Senator Brownback. Good. Thank you very much. I appreciate your coming. Mr. Armey. Thank you. Senator Brownback. Our second panel consists of Jeanne Allen, President of the Center for Education Reform; Nina Shokraii, an Education Policy Analyst, Domestic Policy Studies, at the Heritage Foundation; and Kent Amos, President of the Urban Family Institute. We certainly appreciate all three of you coming to testify today. What I would like to do if I could with each of you is to have your full testimony put into the record; if you can summarize your statement, and then let us have a good interaction back and forth and even amongst the panelists. If you hear comments from other panelists that you would like to react to, please feel free to do that. Have you agreed upon any order of presentation, or are there any needs that individuals have to testify first? If not, I will just go down in the order in which I called you. Ms. Allen, President of The Center for Education Reform, we very much appreciate you being here today, and the floor is yours. And welcome back, I might say. TESTIMONY OF JEANNE ALLEN,\1\ PRESIDENT, THE CENTER FOR EDUCATION REFORM Ms. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Allen with an attachment of a statement from Malcolm Peabody, Chairman of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, Inc., and Lex Towle, Managing Director of the AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation, Inc., before the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives, appear in the Appendix on pages 51 and 55 respectively. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- First, I want to say that I applaud Congressman Armey for his sentiment and his passion over this issue. He, like Congressman Flake and hundreds of lawmakers across the country, both Democrat, Republican and in between, embrace the very concept that he came here to talk to you about, and in fact, preliminary results from the Center's 1997 poll which will be released next week indicate 86 percent support among African- Americans alone for some sort of school choice option that includes private schools. It is clear the time has come, and I am delighted that you have focused on the issue. I came back today, though, having been here 6 months ago, to primarily focus on the quest for charter schools in the District and related issues which the District has been grappling with. I have to say that the effort remains slow and encumbered by what I see as bureaucratic foot-dragging. I think there is a lack of clear vision of what the officials in charge think about what charters can do for D.C. school children. I believe it is still being looked at and approached very much as an aside, a fad, an additional thing as opposed to how it is being considered across the country, which is a reinvigoration of public education and the opportunity for real people, teachers and parents and civic leaders, to create schools responsive to needs in communities and make that part of, as I said, sort of revolutionizing the public education system. In the city, no less than four major business and civic groups have been working full-time to clear hurdles and send positive signs of encouragement throughout the city. For an area with the third-strongest law in the land, the dearth of charter applicants and action to me is appalling, and I certainly do not think it was Congress' intent. Meanwhile, Chicago, which is not 2 hours away by plane, was plagued with problems one could consider worse than the District's. Their major legislation replaced the ineffective school board with a CEO and a Board of Trustees and gave them 4 years to turn around a city where the dropout rate hovers around 50 percent. Chronic truancy in Chicago is two times the State average. Not 2 years after the changes were made, already dramatic reforms and efforts are beginning to be realized. The new trustees have fired 12 principals from schools with poor academic results; they have reconstituted seven schools entirely--most of those people were asked to reapply; most of them were not rehired back by the CEO in charge, Paul Vallas. Chicago Trustees also begin to recognize that reading problems, which Congressman Armey also referred to in the District of Columbia, were the direct result of a lack of traditional, fundamental reading instruction. They pushed a ``back to basics'' effort that emphasized phonics. They also required homework in every grade--the higher the grade, the more homework--and social promotion is not prohibited. Any child not able to pass muster or be guaranteed a place, say, from 4th to 5th grade the following year was required to sit in summer school this year to make up deficiencies, and I am told that progress was enormous this summer given the concentration and the focus and the fact that those people teaching summer school and those children going knew that if they did not pass what was required of them, they would not have that grade to go into in the coming year. Serious accountability is being taken in Chicago, and it is something that I think we can learn a great deal from, and I refer to several other incidences and effects of the Chicago Reform Act in my testimony. Chicago also has charter schools, as Illinois passed a law the same year that Washington, D.C. did. There, Chicago has already authorized 10 of the 15 charter laws permitted by law-- there is a cap there--and those schools range from schools for dropouts rates, although the CEO of the Chicago schools, Paul Vallas, has also instituted 26 new alternative schools for troubled children. So in addition to those schools, there are international baccalaureate and very high challenging curricula for children in the city of Chicago through charter schools; there are some ``back to basics'' schools; there are some vocational schools; there is a panoply of very strong and encouraging charter schools that we are going to be following with greater interest. One of the things that Paul Vallas also did not shy away from was trying to use the Catholic schools there as a template to follow. Making no bones about it, he said that he wanted to practice the tried and true practices that the Catholic schools there were doing, using tests and standards as a benchmark. Over the last 2 years, there has been significant progress among both elementary and middle-school children in reading and math. There is still a lot of work to be done, but there have been significant point gains where for years there had been none. In Chicago, there were no delays in repairing dilapidated buildings. It was one of the first orders of business in 1995, and by 1996, many of the most serious safety infractions were fixed. Is it any wonder that a district the size of Chicago, with 550 schools, can make progress when it permits itself to hire any number of private contracts? In fact, private contracting was something that Paul Vallas put on the top of the table when he first went in to look at maintenance and all the various things he had to do in the school system from, as I said, maintenance to food service. It also pays its bills on time. He was willing to open up to people throughout the State, and as a result, the number of work orders completed in Chicago rose from over 1,000 in 1 year to 16,000 just last year. So they got their buildings up-to-speed. Just 6 months ago, I shared with you my frustration over the pace of already-enacted school reform here. As an observer with a wide and deep knowledge of reforms at play throughout the country, I recommended that some time lines be established here for officials to carry out the intent of the charter law. I spoke of the unparalleled potential for dramatic improvement that charters are bringing to children everywhere. Yet, while over 150,000 children started off to about 750 charter schools across the country just last week, the District still has only four, two of which are new, one of which should have been closed long ago, quite frankly, and one that has struggled for every penny and ounce of freedom otherwise guaranteed to the school director by law. I have to share with you that an acquaintance who worked briefly at D.C. public schools recently remarked to me that he had gone in as an avid defender of the system as is and left reluctantly endorsing full-scale vouchers. While I, for one, offer unconditional support for aiding low-income children with real choices, I am not sure that drawing that support from an experience with an ineffective bureaucracy is how I would like to find compatriots. For if that is the impact a central district has on its bright-eyed employees--and it does so every day--how can it be assured that any reform, no matter how mandated, is followed and carried through? The D.C. Public Charter School Coalition has recommended several steps to Congress to ensure parity and equity for charter schools. I think their recommendations are sound, and as a result I have appended them to my testimony. But I have gone further to suggest that Congress make further demands and squelch the ability of the board and the school system to suck the life out of this critical education reform; otherwise, we will be having the same conversation next year. As we have seen in countless other States, if the people controlling the purse are not advocates and are not charged with fulfilling the law with appropriate oversight, then little will be done to affect charter schools. The D.C. Public Charter School Coalition, for example, has been negotiating for 6 months on the definition of ``preference'' when it comes to facilities for charter schools. Why it takes 6 months to define what ``preference'' should mean when Congress' intent was relatively clear--to me, this should be perhaps several meetings within a month's time span; get it over with, and get it done, so that people can have access to facilities. I think the main reason that DCPS is in this position--and there are hundreds of other stories I could share with you of foot-dragging--is because they have been wedded to doing business as usual for too long; there are no incentives to push this, and as I said, I do not think there is a clear vision and a role for what charter schools can do for this city. Why did it take more than 6 months, for example, as you well know now, from one of the only two charter schools in D.C. to get a portion of Federal charter school grant money. If two or three people have to sign a check, to me, that does not take 6 months. Six months, countless meetings, media attention, constant badgering--is this what we want for D.C. school children? In Chicago, the Trustees have fully-established, well- publicized time lines and goals. The legislature has assigned people to work hands-on with the Trustees to offer support as well as hold accountable those now in power. Part of this, to be sure, is about personalities, but it is also having a set of six goals and sticking to them. You cannot turn around a city with the severe problems of D.C. without doing so. Among my recommendations as a result of my observations are the following: First, you need to convene a congressional briefing session for the Public Charter School Board, General Becton and staff, the Board of Trustees and others that are critical to this reform--some of the agencies you mentioned earlier, Senator, that were to be helping in the charter effort, including the Smithsonian and others--and have that briefing conducted by leaders of a dozen or so States where charter schools are prospering and flourishing. I just do not think people understand or, quite frankly, get it and what can be done here. Second, enact measures, requirements and time lines similar to those that are paving the way for dramatic reform in Chicago. Third, as I recommended in April, require 100 percent of per-pupil funding to be disbursed early in the process so that schools can get off and running, buy curricula, train teachers in the summer, in four easy payments. Congress can make special allocations from prior year funding; it would not break the bank, and it certainly would not increase appropriations. Fourth, assign a senior-level congressional staff person to attend and monitor all charter school policy meetings and serve as the liaison with the civil resource groups. This person would ensure that the congressional intent of the law was being fulfilled, and the DCPS would know clearly that Congress is aware of its various moves. Finally, establish a separate State education agency for the District. The District is the only area in the country where the SEA and the local education agency are one; it puts a conflict of interest in place if they have to be one and the same in terms of funding, and they view everything as competition as a result. Please understand that I do not question the motivations or intention of General Becton, the DCPS, or his staff. It is clear, however, that the priorities of DCPS are not consistent with fundamental education reform and that foot-dragging and delays will continue on every education measure unless and until the control is reestablished. This is no doubt an issue for the Board of Trustees, but as Congress created the board, so too must Congress amend its plans if it fails to develop as originally enacted. Thank you. Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Ms. Allen. That was very good, pointed testimony, and I look forward to some questions to ask you about carrying out some of these items. I, too, am very frustrated. This was 6 months ago; it was April 17. Much of your testimony then was similar to what it is now. Why haven't we had more progress in moving forward on this? Perhaps it is time for us to set those specific time line dates and just say this is the way it is going to be if you are not going to move forward on these proposals. Ms. Shokraii, Education Policy Analyst for The Heritage, we are delighted to have you with us today. Thanks for joining us. TESTIMONY OF NINA SHOKRAII,\1\ EDUCATION POLICY ANALYST, DOMESTIC POLICY STUDIES, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION Ms. Shokraii. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to appear before you today to discuss reforms in the District of Columbia public schools. Much has happened since the D.C. Financial Control Board appointed General Julius Becton as Superintendent of D.C. Schools last November. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Shokraii with an attachment entitled ``A Comparison of Public and Private Education in the District of Columbia,'' September 17, 1997, appear in the Appendix on pages 62 and 68 respectively. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Board has acted swiftly and efficiently with many of the dilemmas facing the D.C. school system, specifically, by stripping the D.C. School Board of its power over budget and policy. But, as with many one-size-fits-all solutions, General Becton's solutions are bound to displease some people. This was particularly apparent when they swiftly voted on shutting down 11 D.C. public schools just a few months ago, although a fiscally sound solution, it lacked one key component--parental input. Nearly 2 years ago, Congress enacted one of the strongest charter school laws in the country for D.C., yet the city has only managed to open two. While the rest of the country, as Jeanne noted, is reaping the benefits of charter schools, the Nation's Capital, whose families could benefit the most, is lagging behind. The dismal state of D.C. public schools, coupled with the current decrepit state of its school buildings, which has caused a 3-week delay in opening this fall, the abundance of violence and drugs on school grounds, and the vast but ineffective school bureaucracy, has mobilized everyone from the President to Congress to local activists to find ways to fix the system quickly. Mr. Chairman, there are many elements to an effective solution to the D.C. school system's shortcomings. One is an overhaul of the public schools, especially their suffocating bureaucracy, which General Becton has taken on and vowed to fix by the year 2000. Another is to incorporate competition by offering charter schools within the public system, an alternative that I hope will flourish under the General's rule. But the best solution is to offer D.C. parents vouchers to send their children to the schools of their choice, be they public, private or parochial. The District currently allows parents to choose between public schools of their choice. It is critical to make sure that option is expanded to private and religious schools. This is crucial for three reasons, the first being that private schools, especially parochial schools, produce better results, especially in the inner cities. As shown in the Milwaukee and Cleveland school choice experiments and the numerous private scholarship programs around the country, low- income inner-city children are benefiting from school choice. Recent studies of the Milwaukee school choice program by Paul Peterson of Harvard University and Jay Greene of the University of Houston, for instance, show that after attending the choice program in Milwaukee for 3 years, the gap in test scores between whites and minorities narrowed from 33 to 50 percent. This study was nearly replicated by Cecilia Rouse from Princeton University, who found very similar results. Other studies also confirm the success of choice programs, especially in the Catholic school arena. The most important work in this area, as you know, was done by the late sociologist, James Coleman, of the University of Chicago, who found that Catholic school sophomores scored 10 percent higher in science, 12 percent higher in civics, 17 to 21 percent higher in math, reading and vocabulary than their public school counterparts. His study also showed that a child is more likely to attend school with a child of another race in a private school than in a public one and that dropout rates are significantly lower in private schools than in public schools. Recent studies confirm Coleman's findings with an even higher degree of accuracy. William Evans and Robert Schwab from the University of Maryland, for instance, found that attending a Catholic high school raised the probability of finishing high school and entering college for inner-city children by 17 percentage points. A study by Derek Neal at the University of Chicago found that African-American and Hispanic students attending urban Catholic schools were more than twice as likely to graduate from college as their counterparts in public schools. They also found that 27 percent of minority graduates who started college went on to graduate, compared with only 11 percent in urban public schools. Neal's study was just recently replicated by University of Oregon Professor David Figlio, who found exactly the same results. Finally, Caroline Hoxby from Harvard has found that competition from private schools increased academic achievement at both public and private schools. She found that greater private school competition raises the academic quality of public schools, the wages of the teachers in the public schools, and high school graduation rates of public school students. Through choice, Ms. Hoxby concludes that both public and private school kids would increase the amount of time spent in school by about 2 years, while their math and reading test scores would improve by about 10 percent. She also noted a wage increase later on in life of 14 percentage points. Another reason why school choice will make a tremendous change in Washington, D.C. is the fact that more dollars will actually reach the classrooms. The legislation that you have offered with your colleagues channels Federal dollars in the most direct way to parents, who then select the school of choice for their children. And finally, vouchers would save the public schools money to use on public school students. According to a study, for instance, of the cost of private school education conducted by the Cato Institute, 67 percent of all private elementary and secondary schools charge $2,500 or less in tuition. The average tuition in private schools is only $3,116. This is half the national average of $6,857 to educate a student in a public school. In D.C., the per pupil cost is even higher. The last estimate I have seen was $8,841, and many think that number is even higher. The average cost of a Catholic school in D.C. is less than half that amount. The public schools involved in a school choice or voucher program can in turn use the extra space and money to benefit their students by managing their resources better or taking firmer action against unruly students. Mr. Chairman, school choice is the only reform mechanism that would offer D.C. schools immediate and measurable results. Offering the parents of the District of Columbia choices through the traditional public education system via charter schools and private schools will ease the burden on the District's public schools while ultimately offering all children in D.C. a better education. Thank you. Senator Brownback. Thank you very much for that testimony. I look forward to some questions and interactions. Mr. Amos, President of the Urban Family Institute, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it very much, and the floor is yours. TESTIMONY OF KENT B. AMOS,\1\ PRESIDENT, URBAN FAMILY INSTITUTE Mr. Amos. Thank you, Chairman Brownback. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Amos appears in the Appendix on page 81. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- First, I would like to note that we will amend our written testimony because things have been very fluid in our area in the last few hours and given last night's conversations, which we think will be very positive toward this end. In the last several hours, we have been able to have a conversation with a number of the city leaders around the question that we bring before you today, and that is the question of how is it that we are going to fund the charter schools that are going to come on line in this city. We have become part of the charter school movement by a particular route which we will come back to a moment if time permits. But let me start with what we are asking you to support, and that is a change in the funding stream on how we fund charter schools in the District of Columbia. The reason for this request is that we believe that the one way we can really impact this system is to bring private capital to bear. My background is one from corporate America--again, I will comment on that later--but we have been able to put together a pot of money, fairly sizeable, from the private sector, which is willing to invest in the public schools in the District. Those dollars therefore have got to be repaid. The funding that we currently receive does not include capital dollars. If you want to improve the school buildings in this city, bring the private sector heavily involved into it, and we believe we can and will do that. But to repay the loans associated with that effort, we would like to be able to share equally in the capital costs associated with what comes to the District of Columbia. In addition, each of the teachers that we want to bring into the charter schools that we will be representing next year and beyond, we want to be able to be fully compensated as well, which includes their pension costs. Currently, the formula does not provide for the pension dollars that flow to the District of Columbia to flow to the charter schools; we would ask that be amended as well, and we believe that the city is going to move to do that. Third, right now, the funding structure is such that the funds are predicated on the previous year's enrollment. To the extent that charter schools are brand new, there is no previous school enrollment, and therefore you are still a year out from receiving funding. For a start-up organization, the initial days are very important. Therefore, we would hope that we would find some formula that would allow for those dollars to flow to the charter schools as well. We think we could use the month of September--because actually, the fiscal year starts in October--and just count who is there the first day, so to speak, and use that as your measurement, but if that does not work, we can find another format. And finally, we ask that if some point in time, the adult education programs in Washington, D.C. begin to be refunded, that charter schools also participate in those dollars. The truth of the matter is our situation is such that all the children in our community are, in many instances, surrounded by adults who need the same kind of training that the children do, because they have gone through these systems prior to their children and have also not been fully developed. So therefore, adult education at some point is going to be a very crucial element, and we would like to combine that. So we are asking that you support what we believe will be an initiative by the District of Columbia leadership to, in fact, amend the existing District resolution to accommodate these things; if Federal law would follow that, we would certainly be appreciative. I come to this hearing today as a fourth-generation Washingtonian. My grandfather taught in the D.C. public schools for 47 years. My father graduated from a D.C. public school and became an attorney. My mother taught in the D.C. public schools for 32 years. I am a graduate of D.C. public schools, and in fact, 16 years ago, I came back to Washington, D.C. as vice president of a Fortune 50 company and put my children in the D.C. public schools. A lot of people suggested that was not the wisest thing that a corporate executive could do at that time, or certainly today, but we felt it was important that we live up to the legacy of our public education system. We found very quickly, however, that choice that we made may have a negative impact on our home and on our family, so we decided to do something about it. That ``something about it'' that we did was to first of all bring corporate resource to bear into the public system that our children found themselves in. Through my position in the company, we were able to put a computer lab in the school; we were able to put a summer jobs program in the school for the children around us. But it was not enough. We still found ourselves with children in our home who needed the kinds of supports that only a family can provide and that a community that surrounds it children can provided. So my wife and I decided to open up our home and our resources to the children who surrounded our family. To make a long story short, Senator, we adopted 87 children over a 16- year period, 11 of which--we had as many as 25 kids in our home every, single day for as many as 2 years. Senator Brownback. That $500 per child tax credit would be a nice one for you. [Laughter.] Mr. Amos. Any time, anywhere. So we have sent dozens of children to college, children whom many people would have suggested would not have made it. We have seen a host of our children graduate from college and go on to receive secondary degrees; we have 11 with advanced degrees today. But I am also here as one who has seen his children reach those pinnacles, but has also seen his 16-year-old son gunned down as he was heading to school. We have also been there when our 19-year-old son, who came home from his freshman year of college and was playing basketball on a local playground was stabbed to death in an argument over a basketball. We have also gone down to Norfolk Stadium in our son's junior year to bring him home in a body bag because he was stabbed in front of a 7- Eleven. We have seen our children gunned down, stabbed to death, and in fact, a 16-year-old child of ours was hung on his 16th birthday because he would not sell drugs. So the reason why I am here today as a parent, if you will, and the reason why I walked away from corporate America to now beg for a living, running a small nonprofit organization, is not because we are here trying to do something about schools-- we are trying to save our society and in many ways, our soul. The question for us is not how do you structure a school, but how does a system as powerful as this one create the kind of carnage that is going on in our society, and how can we do something different about it. So we dedicated ourselves to trying to figure out a way to change the system that is producing the kind of foolishness that is going on in this society today, and we believe we can do that. We believe, as we did several years ago, working with your colleagues in the Senate on S. 138, with then Senators Danforth and Bradley, when we put forth a bill called at that time ``The Community Schools Act'' to use school buildings as the centering point for community life in many communities where there is no centering point. That piece of legislation went through, and we are still supporting that. Today, we are here supporting charter schools. Why? Again, because it comes back to the same principle: How do we organize community around caregiving in a sufficient manner that children end up productive adults. That is the goal. It is really simple; it is not hard. What we said we would do is, OK, how can we find a way to use public buildings called schools as a part of the human development equation. We brought corporate American to bear. We now have, as I said earlier, a host of dollars available to us by the corporate community that they are willing to spend on public schools if, in fact, they have control of the assets. And as any business interest, we have a way to repay that loan. We figured out that for about 2,000 to 3,000 kids, at $1,500 per child--which is basically what it is coming down to with the capital cost--we can fund some $50 million worth of changes in the physical structure of the buildings that we are talking about, and that is where we want to go, and we will use the capital dollars to accomplish that. In addition to that, we are working not only with schools, but with families. In the last several years, we have been working with public housing, and I know this is not the subject of the hearing today, but you cannot talk about children who go to schools and who come from public housing and not understand the environment they are coming from. The truth of the matter is they are only in school 10 percent of the time; 90 percent of their time, they are out of school. What happens to them there? Our argument is that we have to do something there as well. So, working with then Secretary Cisneros and now with HUD, we have figured out a way to bring education reform to public housing and tie that to public schools, surrounded with other public assets like playgrounds and with the faith community of church and other kinds of assets, building a continuum that sees to it that every, single child, every, single family has a developmental paradigm that produces the kind of outcome that we want. In conclusion, Senator, Brownback, I would say that our plea is one of a family that has seen pain and known joy, to somehow bring the full weight and power of this institution to bring the kind of joy to all families that we know is possible. If you support the leadership of this city and the transformational efforts that we are undertaking today, give us the financial wherewithal, the political support and the intellectual capital that this city has available to it, and we can then make a difference. Thank you. Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Amos. Thank you for your work, and my heart goes out to you on those tragedies. That is just terrible to see. It strikes me that what we are seeing take place here is that we are now allowing every life every opportunity to succeed. If you look at life as sacred, it needs to have every chance to succeed and to grow and to prosper, and that we are just not allowing that in this powerful system as you describe, Mr. Amos. That is what we really want to get at, fundamentally, is what can we change in this system to allow that beauty that is in each of those lives to be able to blossom as much as possible. It seems like now, we are just crushing so many of them, and that has apparently been your experience as well. You are strongly supportive of the charter school effort and trying to move that forward. Do you see other things we ought to be doing as well to grant those greater opportunities? Mr. Amos. Yes, Senator. Let me also just be clear about my support for charter schools. I believe that Generals Becton and Williams and all are, as Jeanne said, and as I also believe Nina said, well-intentioned. We are all well-intentioned. But the system--if we wait until they do what they have to do--I think Mr. Armey talked about his grandchildren--well, my grandchildren will probably go to D.C. public schools--and I have a bunch of them, by the way; I have 22 of them. But the point is that at some point in time, we cannot wait for the system to change itself; we have got to move as expeditiously as we can. I believe that the charter movement and also providing young people and their families with enough opportunity financially to go anywhere they can--I do not want to see a single child left behind if we do not have to--so if we can fund a child to go to another school while we build the better system, let us do it. But right now, we have got to change systemically. Again, Jeanne talked about the 750 charter schools in the country that kids are going to. Well, there are 120,000 schools. We are not going to break this thing school by school; we have got to build a systemic kind of change. We have an opportunity here in Washington, D.C. that is very, very unique, where we can put together a systemic movement between the charter schools--there are 50 closed school buildings right now. We are proposing, for example, with our private resources, to acquire all 50 of those. That will then give us a school base of 50 buildings. Then we will join, as we already have--we are currently working with a host of people who want to fill those buildings with new ideas, new ventures--we are prepared to do that, and we have been working now for several months at putting that network together. So we think that we can work with the system and provide for it, in many instances, changes that they cannot do, because we have more flexibility. So the combination of what they want to do and what we are currently doing together will bring rapid change and thereby save more children. Senator Brownback. Mr. Amos, on purchasing those 50 buildings and starting schools, are you being supported by the education bureaucracy? Are you fighting it? How would you characterize your negotiations? Mr. Amos. I think it is the last word that you said; I would characterize them as ``negotiations,'' Senator. I think we are in the process of trying to have everyone understand that collectively, we win, that fighting does not win. That is a losing proposition. So as I said, as recently as last night, speaking with the chairman of the District of Columbia City Council's Education Committee--they have the ability to write at least a ``sense of the Council'' resolution--and talking last night with two members of the Financial Control Board for over an hour, everybody is beginning to understand that if we do this thing right and together, we can bring substantive change quickly. There is no reason why we cannot in the fall of 1998 have a host of schools open and ready to go in a first-class way. Senator Brownback. How many should we target to be open in the fall of 1998? Mr. Amos. Our goal is anywhere from 5 to 12 schools. Senator Brownback. From your organization? Mr. Amos. Well, it is not just our organization. It is a combination of organizations coming together and working together. Senator Brownback. Ms. Allen, how many charter schools should we target to have open a year from now? Ms. Allen. Twenty. Senator Brownback. A minimum of 20. And you stated four, and I heard differing testimony here, two or four. But you have stated four, and one should be closed. Ms. Allen. Yes. Senator Brownback. And I think that one is pretty well- documented as far as the problems that it has had. But you think 20 at a minimum, with the physical property available. Ms. Allen. Yes. And Senator, as Mr. Amos has told you, there is no dearth of people who want to do this. There is a lot of lack of information. There are not as many people out there who have stepped up to the plate as could be potentially quality candidates, working with a variety of the resource groups around, quite frankly, because you do not even want to get involved in a process that just looks like a bear. Gee, there is this application, there is that, and I hear the money is not coming, and I hear that special education might not be there, and I hear that, well, they had a problem getting their Federal money--and suddenly, you have a great teacher out there who wants to do something, and you have given that teacher no hope. Whereas if you look at communities where we have had charter schools in existence as long as 4 or 5 years in States like Minnesota, they have not only become schools for, say, 150 or 200 kids, but they have become these great meccas of a community. The Urban League has gotten involved in an after- school program. There is before-school care by the YMCA. The civic groups have adopted them. I mean, suddenly, people who have wanted to be able to have input and guide children along have found an opportunity in so many cities through charter schools because there are no rules written saying, no, you cannot. It is very open. So to a large extent, while Kent is absolutely right, there is a much larger mission in terms of savings lives of people like he is directly involved in, the whole concept of education reform through both school choice and charter schools helps to build back a community and give children hope, so that those kids on the outside are wondering what they are missing inside, whereas right now, the kids on the inside are wondering what they are missing outside. Senator Brownback. And it looks like in the community, too, as Congressman Armey was talking about, this is a way of saving public education, and it gets fought so much. You, though, Ms. Allen, believe that the only way we will really get at this is by setting specific time lines for certain accomplishments. You think that otherwise, the system will slow-roll and crush anybody who really wants to get a grasp on establishing charter schools? Ms. Allen. That is my feeling, yes. Senator Brownback. And you listed several specifics. Have you listed specifics in your testimony on what should be done by what time lines? Ms. Allen. I have some that I could amend--some of the suggestions filed from April that I could amend based on that. Senator Brownback. I would appreciate it, and we can look back at your testimony in April again to see about putting those on fast-forward. Let me ask you as well, in Chicago, you noted a similar situation if not worse than in the District of Columbia and the dramatic reform that took place in a short period of time. You mentioned the firing of 12 principals in the Chicago school system. How many principals have been fired in the District of Columbia; do you know? Ms. Allen. I believe three. There were a lot of reassignments, also. Senator Brownback. Do you think there has been ample work done in the District of Columbia in these restructurings, or do you have any separate thoughts--as separate and distinct from charter, just from the operation of the current public school system? Ms. Allen. The complaint that big-city officials often use, which for a long time has been very, very valid, is that, well, we cannot really reconstitute a staff because we have the union, and we have a collective bargaining contract that says X, Y, and Z, and if we dismiss staff, they will end up somewhere else in the system, so why do this? There are lots of excuses. In Chicago, they have a very strong union. Chicago Teachers Union is one of the strongest in the country. But the attitude of the trustees and in fact of the legislature was: You can be with us or you can be against us, and if you are against us, we are going to profile you for just that. So get out of the way; we are going to move in, and we are going to take care of this. And if you have a problem because someone has tenure but they are incompetent, why don't we sit down and talk about it in public? So it was real clear from the very start. I mean, there were not words to that effect spoken specifically by Paul Vallas, and I am not putting words in his mouth, but it was clear all along--we have a job to do; if you are in the way, if you have a problem, come to the table and make sure it is clear to everybody what you are doing, because we are going to get rid of people who are not working for our kids. That attitude is not here. The attitude is that, well, we have these people, and there is a separate evaluation, and they have had several years--it is almost piecemeal. Senator Brownback. Here in the District of Columbia, it is too piecemeal? Ms. Allen. Yes. And with the lack of standards and clear tests, which were also part of the original D.C. education reform bill, I am not sure where they stand right now. The lack of an overall set of good tests used, with a high rigorous standard to assess where children stand--you would be able to see pretty quickly which schools were falling down and which were not, and you would have been able to close failing schools as opposed to some schools that were actually doing a darned good job. We can assess them like that. Senator Brownback. Do we know that in the District of Columbia? Do we have sufficient test scoring to know what schools are failing and which ones are succeeding? Ms. Allen. You have your basic standardized tests, norm- referenced tests, that most cities have, but I do not think there is anything more specific, where in Chicago, for example, Milwaukee and New York, you have specific reading, math and science tests that are pegged to how much kids should know as opposed to norm-referenced how much everybody else is doing. A norm-referenced test simply gives you 50 percent of the people are above average, 50 percent are below. Based on that, D.C. test scores are pretty low. Based on other kinds of criteria, what would it look like if you were supposed to be doing ``X'' in 4th grade in math, and children in 4th grade math were tested, and we found out that, say, 40 percent were not there-- then people could get to work. That is what they did in Milwaukee. They recognized that less than half the kids could do basic math in 4th grade, and everybody got motivated and did something about it. Senator Brownback. But you are saying we have not accumulated that same sort of---- Ms. Allen. Objective analysis. Senator Brownback [continuing]. Objective, clear, specific test data for the District of Columbia public school students. Ms. Allen. I do not believe we have, no. Senator Brownback. Mr. Amos, did you want to respond to that? Mr. Amos. No. I think Jeanne covered it very well. Senator Brownback. Do you agree with her statement? Mr. Amos. I would agree. I think there is a certain amount of data that is beginning to be amassed, but unfortunately, it is going to tell us exactly what Jeanne is saying, and I think that, again, the system can only move so fast. And I guess what we are suggesting is that we have got to help them move faster. Senator Brownback. And it seems to me that the very first thing you have to have is objective data. To really know what sorts of steps and means and things you have to do, you have to know what is the extent of the problem. As bad as it might seem, you have to know first what is the extent of the problem before you can get in and specifically begin to fight it. Mr. Amos. I believe, Senator, that there is enough body of data to understand the gravity of the circumstance. That is fairly well-documented. It may not be on an individualized school basis as it may need to be, but we have a fairly good handle on that. I would suggest that the first thing that needs to be done is to pretty much believe that every child is capable, as Mr. Armey talked about, and looking into the eyes of these children as I do every, single day--I still see kids every, single day and have for 16 years, and I know they are capable of something else, and we demand of those children to be capable of something else. The question is what paradigm do you put in place for that to take place. Kids in my home, for example, were all reading below level for the most part, just as has been described here. Well, if you are reading below level, what do you have to do? First, you have to make sure there is a paradigm that gets you reading more. So in our house, for example, there is a minimum of 2 hours' reading every night, period. That was a starting point. If you watch television, every hour of television you watch, you also have to read for an hour; so if you watch 2 hours of television, you have 4 hours of reading--and you have to do it the same night. Senator Brownback. But not at the same time. Mr. Amos. No, definitely not at the same time. But what that ended up doing was that people stopped watching television. The formula became real easy--but it also meant that I had to stay up later, and I had to read, too--not you do it, and I do not do it--I have read more in the last 16 years than I did in the first 45 before that. But that is beside the point. The point is that you have to create the kind of environment. We can do the same thing in our schools. If schools are still operating on the same paradigm--school starts at 9 and ends at 3--and doing all the same things, well, you are behind, and you are not going to catch up. So what we are suggesting is that schools stay open later, or open earlier, and that the adults in the students' lives also come there. And by the way, some of those adults have gone through bad experiences in literally those same buildings. So if the adult in that child's life has gone to the same school and had the same experience, what makes it any more attractive for them to go back? Well, we have got to change that so that when the adult comes back and the child comes back, there is a new day there, there is a new encouragement there, there is a new set of resources available to them within the same dollars. There is not new money here; we are talking about how do you allocate the dollars and the resources, and we believe we can do it. One of the things we told the principal at the high school where my kids went to school was, look, I want to make sure the school stays open later. And the argument was that, well, we cannot keep it open later because somebody is going to vandalize the school. I said give me a key. I am pretty good at unlocking doors, and I can lock it back up. He did, and we kept the buildings open later, even if it meant just us being there, and I took the liability. So how do you create the kind of environment, I guess we are suggesting here, that creates the new learning paradigm for all of our children and their families. Senator Brownback. Ms. Shokraii, your testimony supports full-scale vouchers. Would you support the small step forward on the scholarship program? Ms. Shokraii. Absolutely. Senator Brownback. OK. Ms. Allen, do you support a full- scale voucher type of program for the District of Columbia? Ms. Allen. Absolutely. I think anybody that is within an income level should have access to the public, private, or parochial school of their choice. Senator let me just add briefly that over the last several weeks, we have been meeting a number of parents and community- based and some church-based groups who have heard about this effort on the Hill and are very, very interested. I have long known that parents do care, and parents do get involved when asked, but it really never hit home until these last few weeks, when you see people who say, I am on public assistance, and they called me last week and told me my child is going to be in special education, and I do not know why, because he was doing well all year--she would love to come and tell her story to you, by the way--and all of a sudden, they want me to do this. What am I supposed to do? they say I have to sign these papers and put him in a special education class, or he cannot come back to school. She has nowhere to go. She has no help. She has no support. We hear stories like this every day. It is just not fair. Senator Brownback. Mr. Amos, do you support a full-scale voucher program for District of Columbia public schools, D.C. students? Mr. Amos. Again, like Jeanne, I think there ought to be some economic question associated with it, and I think it also ought to be on a trial basis, candidly, until such time as we give an opportunity for the system to change itself. If it does not, then so be it. But I think that the system is moving toward change, and that we ought to give that opportunity. At the same time, however, I think we ought to have some limited scholarship program, if you will, vouchers, if you will, that will allow children who are in need of that kind of education right now. While we go through our machinations, if you will, as adults to change the system, we should not hold the children back. So therefore, I would have some limited support for that, yes. Senator Brownback. Well, I thank you all for coming. I must say I am disappointed, not in your testimony, but that since April 17, there has not been further progress made. This is a paramount issue for the District of Columbia, how we educate our children, and we have to start making more progress. We need to get all the facts on the table, and we need to move forward rapidly. We just cannot wait for a bureaucracy to crush more kids. I hope we can have some of you back here to be willing to review the system in another 6 months to a year and that your statements at that time will be much more positive because we have made much more change. At the end, our objective always has to be to be able to stare in that child's face and say, ``I did everything I could to recognize you and to be able to give you every chance you have.'' So we look for you to continue looking at the school system, and thank you very much for testifying today. Our final panel today will be General Julius Becton, Chief Executive Officer, District of Columbia Public Schools, and Dr. Bruce MacLaury, Chairman of the Emergency Transition Education Board of Trustees. Thank you very much for coming today. We appreciate it. We also have with us today Chuck Williams, retired Major General, Chief Operating Officer for the D.C. Public School System, who has joined us on the panel as well. Thank you very much. I am sorry we do not have a name plate up there for you, although that may help you to not get as many questions that way. Thank you very much for coming. I called this hearing because I have a lot of serious concerns about what is taking place in the District of Columbia public schools. We heard some strong testimony before us today, and I look forward to hearing your response to what you have been questioned about publicly and seeing if we cannot get to the bottom of some of this. Each of us holds in our heart the clear desire to have the best education system possible for these kids, and the question becomes how do you get there. I want to hear how you folks think you are doing on getting there, and then I have some real concerns about how the pace is going and what is happening. As the chairman of Emergency Transition Education Board of Trustees, Mr. MacLaury, we will go with you first if that would be OK. We are delighted to have you here. We will accept your entire written testimony into the record, and you can summarize if you would like or present it in full. TESTIMONY OF BRUCE K. MACLAURY,\1\ CHAIRMAN, EMERGENCY TRANSITION EDUCATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS Mr. MacLaury. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to present the views of the Emergency Board of Trustees on the progress toward school reform in the District of Columbia. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. MacLaury appears in the Appendix on page 83. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you know, the Trustees have been given until June 30, 2000 to accomplish wide-ranging and long-lasting reforms for the District of Columbia's school system. Inescapably, we have had to make tough choices and put safe and secure schools at the very top of the list. If our motto, ``Children First,'' means anything, it means ensuring that students go to schools that are safe from violence and free from leaky roofs that could cause fire code violations and unexpected shutdowns as we have had in the past. This administration took over from earlier ones that had allowed schools to deteriorate while not even spending the admittedly inadequate capital funds that they had at their disposal. We were given not quite $50 million to make a responsible start toward stabilizing aging schools, and we gave full support to General Becton when he decided that the job had to be done right by replacing leaky roofs instead of patching them in an endless cycle of wasting taxpayer dollars and disruptions during the school year. When we took on our new responsibilities, the public school system was in meltdown. Data on students and staff were difficult to obtain and hard to verify; procurement practices and financial controls were lax, and standards for hiring and evaluation were unenforced. I begin on these points for two reasons--first, to give General Becton credit that he has rarely received for taking on a series of actions to rationalize an organization and put it on a sound footing. He has worked hard over the past 10 months to put in place the people and the systems needed to do the job--but much of that effort that has already been made has not been visible. The second reason I cite this effort is because the groundwork has brought us to the point where real accountability is now becoming possible. Beginning with this new school year, you and the public will know what to expect, how soon it should happen, and who is responsible. Our fundamental principle is that the performance of every individual in this system must be measured by how well their work contributes to increased student learning, and that accountability begins with the Trustees and with General Becton. Over the past several months, we have obtained broad public input on how to shape our academic plan for the coming year and beyond. In an upcoming public meeting, we expect to ratify this ambitious program, which includes, first, tough new academic standards and assessments to go with them; second, performance targets for each school in the system, plus rewards for those that meet targets, probation for schools that are in trouble, and reconstitutions for those that are chronically failing our children; third, an evaluation system that bases teacher and principal evaluations on progress that the students are making; and fourth, a new student promotion policy, ensuring that students in the 3rd through 8th grade have at least basic reading skills before moving to the next higher grade. No more social promotions. The key to systemwide accountability is solid, quantifiable evidence on student learning. That is why the Trustees have endorsed not only strong standards for D.C., but also a system of assessment that provides consistent, reliable data to parents, teachers and administrators. In releasing preliminary results of last May's Stanford-9 assessments a few weeks ago, we saw the power of good data to mobilize public opinion. District residents were dismayed to know that one-third of our 3rd graders are ``below basic'' in both reading and math, that 29 percent of 8th graders are ``below basic'' in reading and that an astonishing, dismaying 72 percent of 8th graders were ``below basic'' in math. Citywide, grade-by-grade results will shortly be released, and shortly after that, school-by-school results. Part of our charge from the Control Board is to direct resources to the level of individual schools. The budget we have presented takes a major step in that direction, and our academic plan envisions going further, much further. But our mandate is not simply to pour more dollars into business-as- usual schools. Over the past decade, educators have learned a great deal about what works and what does not work in education. The work of the New American Schools Development Corporation, the Edison Project, the Core Knowledge Foundation and researchers such as Bob Slavin from Johns Hopkins have provided eye-opening new approaches to the education of America's children, and those here in the District deserve those that are best. In the coming years, we will encourage more schools to affiliate with these and other effective, research-based programs that work. But there is another way in which to encourage innovation in the District, and that is through charter schools. Although the Emergency Trustees bear no direct responsibility for chartering, we have an oversight role as the Districts State Board of Education, and our support for the charter process is strong. We are also responsible for approving policies responding to congressional directives to provide a preference for charter school operators in the disposition of excess public school property in the District. This has not been an easy matter, because Congress has asked on the one hand that we maximize the revenues from the excess properties through sale or lease, and on the other hand, that we help make them available for charter schools. I am confident that we will be able to strike the right balance between these conflicting purposes very shortly. I believe that charter schools are an essential component of reform, providing not only fertile ground for trying out ideas and innovations that are difficult to introduce systemwide, but providing a healthy dose of competition as well. As we try to move from a dysfunctional, monolithic school system to a lean, responsive system of schools, I believe charter schools can and will be an important asset even as we focus most of our attention on efforts to raise the standards of all of the students in the public schools. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Mr. MacLaury, for your concise statement and for addressing some specific issues on the charter schools and on testing. The issue of testing came up earlier, and I want to explore that with you a little bit further later on. General Becton, thank you for coming here today on the difficult assignment that you have. I look forward to your presentation and some questioning back and forth if we can have it. We welcome you to the Committee. I might say just at the outset that during the reconciliation bill, a number of issues were passed regarding the District of Columbia. We tried to deal with the issue of economic growth by putting forward a zero capital gains on property held for 5 years, and a first-time home buyers credit in that bill, and that went through; there was a lot of focus on the crime issue and what we are doing for crime control; and we focused on prisons and the changes we are making in prisons--closing Lorton, privatizing, and trying to get some of the prisoners out of the area, which was one of the areas of concern. It seems to me that we have hit two of the three pegs pretty hard and pretty clear lately, on growth and on crime-- and we still need to do more on crime. The school peg is another clear one that we have just got to hit well to get people coming back into the District of Columbia and making it a shining example. This is just a paramount issue, and it falls squarely on your shoulders, and I know it has been a tough assignment, and I will have some pointed questions about that after your testimony. Welcome to the Committee, and I look forward to your comments. TESTIMONY OF GENERAL JULIUS W. BECTON, JR.,\1\ (RETIRED), CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND SUPERINTENDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ACCOMPANIED BY MAJOR GENERAL CHUCK WILLIAMS, (RETIRED), CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER General Becton. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to be here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of General Becton with attachments appears in the Appendix on page 88. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- You said you know it is a tough assignment. Let me put it this way. In my more than 50 years of public service, this is the toughest assignment I have ever had, but yet it also has, in my judgment, the potential to be the most rewarding, not from a personal standpoint, but for the ones whom we are serving. So we think we are up to the challenge. I welcome the opportunity to appear before you to discuss our efforts to improve the District of Columbia public schools. As you have already noted, I have with me General Chuck Williams, who is the Chief Operating Officer, and he will be available to respond. I also have a number of key staffers, whom I will introduce as appropriate if there are questions that come up in their particular areas. Senator Brownback. Good. General Becton. As you know, I became the Chief Executive Officer through an order by the Control Board. Dr. MacLaury has already identified and described that background. Let me just comment that the Control Board took this action after concluding that, ``in virtually every category and for every grade level, by virtually every measure of performance, the public school system has failed to provide a quality education for all children and a safe environment in which to learn.'' That is a devastating comment. Indeed, the school system was broken over time in fundamental ways. It lacked academic standards, employed uncertified teachers, could not pay its bills on time, and had crumbling facilities plagued by fire code violations. And no one was held accountable. Today we operate in a new context of opportunity but face the challenges of past failures that mounted over many years. This new school year will be a very different one for the children and parents of the District. We expect to be held accountable for achieving our goals for them. I believe that our success or failure will be judged on whether or not we achieve fundamental improvement in three core areas: (1) academics, (2) school facilities, and (3) personnel and financial management systems. Our priorities in fiscal year 98 for the core area of academics are focused on accomplishing the four goals described in our draft 1-year implementation plan, which is attached to my written statement--first, improve student achievement by adopting world-class standards and providing high-quality training. Beginning this year, DCPS will have content and performance standards that define what we expect every child to learn and to be able to do. Second, ensure quality school staff by ensuring that all teachers are qualified to teach in their subject areas and developing a corps of school leaders with skills to manage instructional and fiscal autonomy. This school year, all new DCPS teachers will enter our classrooms with the appropriate credentials to teach in the area they have been assigned. If teachers already employed by the system are not similarly credentialed, they will be removed from the work force in January of 1998. Third, increase accountability through the school system. Starting this year, principal evaluations will be tied to growth in test scores. Schools with too many students performing below basic will be placed on probation. We are also ending social promotions. This year, if our children cannot read at a basic level in grade 3, they will not move to the next grade. In addition, we will ensure an accurate enrollment count that is audited. And the fourth goal is to promote school restructuring, decentralization, and parental choice. This means moving more resources to the school level and giving parents greater opportunities to choose the schools their children will attend. This also means facilitating the development of charter schools that will serve as laboratories of change for the entire school system. And Dr. MacLaury has already described how we believe that that can happen. Our priorities for the second core area, school facilities, are guided by our Long-Range Facilities Master Plan. The first phase of this plan is underway with the emergency roof replacements that are essential for schools to remain open during school year 1997-1998. While the more than 1,600 fire code violations we have already abated would have permitted schools to open on time, we opted for a long-term solution. I cannot accept doing quick fixes and patches when we know that a roof must be replaced. In this respect, we will have all program roofs replaced and schools opened on 22 September, which is the comment I made to you as you were riding to the airport last Friday. Regarding personnel and financial management systems, our third core area, we have made major improvements. We have verified how many staff we have and are realigning them for the fiscal year 1998 budget. For the first time, the DCPS budget will be constructed around programs--that is, budget amounts for each program will be specified, allowing us to hold managers accountable for spending. While this may sound like common sense, it represents a major accomplishment given that funds were previously commingled across programs, allowing for no accountability. We are focusing resources at the school level. Nearly 90 percent of the FTEs will be directly assigned to schools. Our budget figures for fiscal year 1998 translate into a total per pupil expenditure of $7,271 and a local per pupil expenditure of $5,923. In concluding my statement, I wish to take note of the frustration that has been expressed in many quarters. I too must admit that at times, I become frustrated. However, the problems were piled deep when we arrived, and many remain. My job is to look at the 3 years we have and ensure that we effectively execute the essential steps to place the school system on a firm foundation for continuous improvement. I must make the hard decisions necessary for lasting reform. You may quarrel with our pace, but I do not believe that you can quarrel with our direction or our resolve. Failure to meet the needs of the children of this city is not an option. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I am prepared to respond to any questions that you may have. Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, General. The quarrel with the pace is that a child generally does not get a shot the second time at the 1st, 2nd or 3rd grade, or if they do, in many cases, there have been some failures in the system because they get this second shot. That is why I press you all the time about how we have to move fast on this, because this child does not have a second shot at it--and I realize that you are dealing with a large institution that has lots of problems, but that drives so much of my frustration, because the child does not get a second shot. General Becton. I agree, and that is why we will be working very hard to start helping that youngster from pre-K, K, and through the first three grades, because we expect that literacy and reading will be paramount to what we will be doing. Senator Brownback. Good. Let me start with a series of questions if I could. First, you are saying that you will have all of the schools open on September 22. General Becton. We will have all roofs replaced, and we will have schools opened on September 22. If we have, say, on September 18, something like what happened to us 2 weeks ago, when someone torched one of our schools, it may be difficult to get that school opened, but that is what we are faced with. Senator Brownback. OK, but absent dramatic consequences going against you, you will have all schools open on September 22? General Becton. We will have all schools open on September 22. Senator Brownback. Do you still have to go through a number of repairs and clearances by the proper authorities yet on a number of these schools? General Becton. Yes, we do. Senator Brownback. How many schools remain that have incomplete repairs and how many need to get clearances from the proper authorities? General Becton. Well, the smart thing for me to do is let Chuck Williams answer that, but let me make a comment first. I was out with Chuck Williams yesterday and Saturday as they were working full-time, basically around-the-clock, repairing the schools--we will have all of the schools' roofs replaced. Following that, it is required to have a fire department inspection and then to get the judge's clearance. So the fact that we have the roofs replaced does not necessarily conclude that the process is finished. I will ask Chuck to describe how that works. General Williams. Good morning, Senator. Senator Brownback. Good morning. General Williams. We expect to have all of the roofs replaced, as General Becton said, in sufficient time to open schools on September 22. There is a five-step clearance process that takes time. After the contractor represents that the building or the facility or the work is complete, we then accept the work. Then, of course, that has to be subjected to the fire department inspection, to be followed by a court date and the judge subsequently clearing it. As of this date, we have over 75 percent of the roof replacements complete; the others are in the 80 to 90 percent completion status. So we feel very confident that the roof replacement will be done. And of course, as to the rest of the process, we are working around the clock to push those clearances as fast as we can. Senator Brownback. OK. You have a number of steps to do in a 2-week time period, so you are going to have to move, it sounds like to me, heaven and earth to get things moving along. But it has to be done. General Williams. I understand that, Senator, and to that extent, we have set up what amounts to an emergency operation center in the field, working around the clock. We were there this weekend, as General Becton pointed out, and we are doing everything we can. We are receiving good support from our contractors. They worked with us this weekend, realizing the problem. It was a massive undertaking, 57 roof replacements, but we are committed to getting it done. Senator Brownback. I trust, General Becton, that next year, we will not be opening the District of Columbia schools late and that they will be opened on time--have you projected when you will open them next year? Most students across the country will have been in school for a month already by the time we will be open in the District of Columbia. Maybe, Mr. MacLaury, that is a better question for you--I do not know. General Becton. No, but I will have to turn for help. What is the program date for next year? Does anyone have that information? If not, we will get it for the record. Insert for the record In general, D.C. Public School students begin school each year on the Tuesday following Labor Day. The answer is that we have every expectation of having the schools open on time. Up until July 10, I had every expectation that schools would be open on September 2, too, until I found out that we could not have people in a building at the same time we are replacing the roof. Because we already replaced six roofs this spring with schools in session, so therein lies my ignorance that we could not do that. Senator Brownback. Well, I do not know if it is the sort of thing where you can work on weekends next year to prevent this from happening next year; but it just sends a bad signal when we cannot open the schools on time. General Becton. Senator, believe me, there is no one in this city who is more sensitive to that fact than I. I can assure you, I am reminded of it morning, noon and night. I can also assure you that we are replacing 57 roofs, which has never been done in the history of this school system before. It could have been done with the schools open--other places do it--but we were stopped. So yes, I made a mistake, but I think my mistake in judgment was based on the information which I had and certainly not on something that was sinister. Senator Brownback. Well, I guess we will all learn from that, and next time around, it will not be a similar situation, so we can open them up in a timely fashion. Mr. MacLaury. Senator, there is one point that I am sure you are aware of, and that is that the schools were not able to contract with the roofers until the funds were available to them. The reputation of the District of Columbia in terms of paying its bills simply made it impossible to get any credit with contractors. And we are going to be fighting that kind of problem next year--I hope that we can handle it a lot better. The capital funds to get the roof work or other capital improvements done do not exist as we speak today. They are going to be coming out of bond issues of the District and other sources of funding. Until we have those dollars in hand and ready to spend, we cannot enter into contracts. That is not an excuse, but it is a fact. Senator Brownback. Are there things that we can do here that can help you expedite those? Mr. MacLaury. Well, looking at the costs that General Williams has estimated for the capital improvements for next year--Chuck, correct me if I am wrong--the total amount of the bill is something like $200 million for school year 1998. This is more money than anybody has. I think the point is only that we are going to have to be coming to the Congress as well as other places to help us with the capital funding for the District's schools. Senator Brownback. Associated with that, I am getting some questions about the cost of the roof repairs being substantially higher than what some people would project as market cost. What is the cost based on square footage to repair the roofs? General Williams. Senator, I would be happy to respond to that. We do have a unique situation in the District of Columbia. It is running about $11 per square foot. Normally, in our neighboring communities, it is anywhere from $6 to $8. But we must understand that the District of Columbia has a set of unique features with it that impacts contractors--for example, the access to the particular site, and the degree of difficulty in trying to remove what we have to replace, because some of the roofing systems here, because of neglect and lack of attention to the problem, have been patched as many as 19 times. So it is not a simple matter of just removing what would be considered an old roof; you have to remove several. So there is a degree of difficulty. There is the labor situation--Virginia, for example, is right to work; D.C. has the Davis-Bacon law--and then, of course, there is the bidding environment. The District of Columbia and in particular the D.C. public school system had an atrocious record on dealing with contractors. They did not pay their bills--they did not do anything. So with each one of the contractors, I went out personally and called and literally begged them to come in and try us on faith. They are doing that this time, fortunately, and we are paying them with the money we have. So that is the difficulty, Senator; it is just that. Senator Brownback. General Becton? General Becton. I would like to respond to your question about what can you do to help us. If we could get a definition of fire code violations attached to our appropriations, it would sure make a difference to us, because right now, in Fairfax County, where I live and where my grandchildren go to school, they replace roofs year around. They barricade portions of a building to keep youngsters out of certain parts. We can do none of those things in the current environment in the District of Columbia. Senator Brownback. Is this because of local ordinance, or is it because of Federal law? General Becton. Because of a judge's decision. Senator Brownback. Interpreting local ordinance or Federal law? General Becton. May I ask my general counsel to respond? Senator Brownback. Please. Please identify yourself. Ms. Wirtz. My name is Cecilia Wirtz, and I am general counsel for D.C. public schools. The situation which General Becton has just described is the result of a court order interpreting the local fire code law. Senator Brownback. OK. So that if we had a definition in the Federal law that would allow you to replace a roof during the time that a school is occupied, that would facilitate--or, is this a moot issue now, because you are replacing virtually all the roofs? General Becton. Sir, we have a lot more to go. We have a very old system, and we need the legislative relief for the future. And we are obviously concerned about safety. We are not going to violate the judge's order or put any child in jeopardy. But right now, I have not been permitted to have principals in the schools since July 11. Senator Brownback. Just because of the replacement work? General Becton. That is correct. Senator Brownback. Well, let us work with you on that to see if we can help and facilitate that. We want to review it-- obviously, I do not want to put people in an unsafe position, and neither do you, but let us see if we can help with that to prevent this from happening again. Next, I want to probe if I could some areas that you identified, Mr. MacLaury, on testing and replacement. I have been concerned, and I do not think we are moving fast enough, because the situation is so desperate and so paramount. It just seems to me like we have got to move faster. We had people testify ahead of you about what happened in Chicago in a similar situation, and much of this set-up system- wide here is modeled after Chicago. There, they went in rapidly and quickly and dealt with a number of situations. We heard testimony earlier that they released 12 principals in Chicago, initially going in and that they went in and did a number of rapid changes. I do not know how many you have replaced; earlier today, I heard it was three. And I am concerned about some news accounts that the one school that had attracted so much attention because of the sexual actions by the children in the school, the principal retained his position. What are you doing to change the personnel in schools that have not been performing? General Becton. Sir, let me clarify the record if I may. We did not reappoint eight principals because of their failure to do what had to be done. We placed nine principals on probation who had demonstrated potential but had not reached the standard we thought they should reach, and they will be given additional support to either succeed or fail, and we think we are going to help them to succeed. We appointed a new group of 23 principals; many of those were acting principals before, and the remainder were reappointed of the group of 146. The principal at Winston that you mentioned paid a heavy price for his failure to follow instructions. He was not the person who permitted the activity in that classroom. He failed to follow the procedure for how you report it, who interviews whom, and the price he paid was to be right away, as I mentioned the last time I was here, suspended without pay. He remained suspended without pay until he was reappointed, and he was reappointed because of his expertise, the fact that people in the community wanted him back, the teachers wanted him back. He was a qualified principal, but he made a mistake, and he paid for it. I would do that with anyone else who made an honest mistake, not dealing with the sexual thing, but dealing with procedure. Senator Brownback. So you have not hired 8, you have 9 on probation and 23 new ones in a total system of how many principals? General Becton. One hundred forty-six. Senator Brownback. One hundred forty-six total. And what about teachers--what have you done in that category? General Becton. I will have to get the numbers. We have hired in excess of 500 teachers. May I provide that for the record? Senator Brownback. Please, or if you have someone there who can answer, if they could come forward and identify themselves. General Becton. Yes. This is Shelia Graves, the chief human resource officer. Senator Brownback. Good. How many? Ms. Graves. As of last Friday, 550 new teachers. Senator Brownback. Five hundred fifty new teachers out of a total of how many? General Becton. Five thousand three hundred forty-three, or something like that. Ms. Graves. About 5,400. Senator Brownback. How many wanted to be rehired and were not because of evaluations in the system? Can you give me that? Ms. Graves. I can tell you that there were about four who were not rehired because of positive TB tests, and three more were not hired or terminated after rehiring because of negative background information. General Becton. That is from a personnel standpoint. I would like to provide that specific information for the record. Senator Brownback. How many were not rehired because of competency or just not producing the results? General Becton. That is what I would like to provide for the record. Senator Brownback. Yes, please, if you would. [Information follows:] Insert for the record ``No teacher has been dismissed on the basis of poor performance since this administration was put into place in November 1996. However, several have been terminated for cause for other reasons, which are discussed above. Beginning in the current school year, DCPS principals, who are directly responsible for supervising and evaluating teachers, will be subject to a new evaluation system through which they will specifically be held accountable for their performance in this area. Under the new system, principals will be evaluated on the basis of five criteria. The first and most important criterion, of course, is academic achievement. Two of the other five criteria--human resource management and leadership--speak to the issue of selecting and developing quality staff, providing staff development where needed, and using the teacher evaluation process to weed out those teachers who should not be in our classrooms. The new system is being communicated to principals now and will be implemented system wide this school year.'' Senator Brownback. OK, because it does not sound like you have any or very many for those reasons, for competency, and I want to check on that. General Becton. I go back to the statement I made at the opening about holding people accountable. We really had no accountability on the part of the teachers or the principals when they arrived, and we are establishing that now. Part of the baseline for that will be our test scores that Dr. MacLaury mentioned. We now have a base from which we can measure the teachers as to how well they are doing. And those teachers who can demonstrate through their students that they are competent will be continued; those teachers who cannot, we are holding the principals directly accountable for their teachers and holding the principals accountable for what happens inside the classrooms in terms of academic standards. Senator Brownback. How long will a teacher have to produce whatever you determine as adequate test scores from the students? Will they have 1 year? General Becton. It will be 1 year, because we tested in May, and the results will be given to the principals, and we will also have results for the students, the teachers and the schools. That information will be made available to them when they start on September 22. We will test again next May. We therefore have it benchmarked at a point which they may have reached. Senator Brownback. What will be a failing benchmark, or have you established that yet? General Becton. We just brought on today our chief academic officer, and I really do not want to put her on the spot---- Senator Brownback. This is a good way to welcome her-- putting her in front of a Subcommittee. General Becton. No, I am not going to put her before you. The point is that I want to really sit down and work with her before we give you something definitive. I can assure you that we will have a way to measure that. Senator Brownback. There was concern in the last panel that you are not testing enough on the basics, that you are doing one set of standardized tests, but in Chicago, they had more testing along the lines--if I am getting my testimony correct-- of reading and mathematics. Are you putting in more testing requirements, Dr. MacLaury? Mr. MacLaury. Again, General Becton will be able to answer, but the fact is that this past year, the Stanford-9 test was given. It was given in math, it was given in reading, across a number of grades. Therefore, we have now, as of May, baseline data which will be available--within the next month or so-- school-by-school, and indeed, child-by-child. The purpose of tests is not to fail children, obviously, but to assist them and to help provide teachers with the kind of knowledge their classes need. I believe, personally--and I am not an expert in this area--that the Stanford-9 tests, which are nationally-normed, and competency-based, give us a profile for each class of ``below basic,'' ``basic,'' ``proficient,'' and ``advanced,'' so that teachers will know that information and, more to the point, be able to work with their students. I think we have the tools now for the first time to use for diagnostic and instructional purposes. I do not think we need more. Senator Brownback. Was May the first time those have been conducted in the D.C. public schools? Mr. MacLaury. For 13 years, the CTBS, the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, was used, and I am told that exactly the same exam was given year after year after year, so that it was compromised, and, from my point of view, useless. General Becton. May I point out that we are starting out with basic skills of math and reading, and in the testing that Bruce mentioned, in reading, we tested grades 1st through 11th; in mathematics, we tested grades 3rd, 6th, 8th and 10th. Senator Brownback. And you will be releasing those grade- by-grade and school-by-school? General Becton. And child-by-child---- Mr. MacLaury. No, not child-by-child; school-by-school. General Becton. No, I did not mean they would be released child-by-child, but that information will be available. Senator Brownback. I understand--to the parents---- General Becton. To the teachers. Senator Brownback [continuing]. Teachers and parents. And you will be releasing that information when? Ms. Jones. I am the interim and acting chief academic officer, Helena Jones just identified--in about 3 weeks. Senator Brownback. Very good. I think that that is critical to have out and in the public for people to be able to see--is the school my child is going to succeeding or failing? General Becton. We agree. Senator Brownback. To me, it is like going into a grocery store and seeing what is in the product. We require that adequate labeling. I think this is a basic, and I am delighted to hear that you are getting it out there. And I think that at first, there is going to be a lot of screaming about it, but my goodness, this is just basic information that people need to have to be able to exercise their choice within the D.C. public schools and asking, ``do I want to go somewhere else''--and for you to be able to evaluate. General Becton. We are trying to set the standards and provide the information which will cause the public to recognize that we are making a difference. But there will be a large hue and cry come next May, when a number--which will surprise people--of youngsters do not pass because they have not mastered the skills to get beyond third grade. What we intend to do, about halfway through this school year, is to let the parents know, based upon the teacher's assessment, where that child may be, so that the parents can do more to help their children. Senator Brownback. So you look for potentially a number of children not to pass this year. General Becton. If what has been stated in the past is correct, yes--not because we were not making the effort, but because there are some people, including parents and community, who I suspect are sitting back and saying, ``I have heard that before; there they go.'' We are going to hold to those standards. Senator Brownback. Good. I think you should. We have to establish standards and live by them. I think it also applies for teachers, and I hope you put teachers to a high standard and require that they meet that, or adverse actions will occur. General Becton. I think you can rest assured that that is going to happen. Senator Brownback. Good, because I look at each of these children as you do. Each is a precious life, and they are entitled to every possibility they can have. We cannot fail them by having a systems failure taking place. And I realize that what you are proposing can be pretty harsh on teachers, on principals, possibly on the social standing, I guess you could put it, of some students if they are not passing on through and the rest of their grade goes, but I think you have to establish good, strong standards and then stand by them. General Becton. On a personal note, we have five grown children in my family. All five went to school in the District of Columbia. Two of them graduated, and of course, my movement in and out caused some of them not to go completely through. I have 10 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. Believe me, I am very sensitive to the subject of education for our youngsters. Mr. MacLaury. And I think, Mr. Chairman, if I may, that one of the keys is not just the testing and the standards, it is how much support the schools can provide. You cited Chicago. They, too, have gone to a ``no social promotion'' policy, and they have had summer school as a fallback. Youngsters in certain grades who do not get through the gates are required to go to summer school. We are going to have to do the same thing. It is costly. The real test is not how many failed, but how many you can bring to success. That is what this game is about. Senator Brownback. Will you be providing summer schools next summer? General Becton. We will be providing summer schools. We will also be providing Saturday academics for those who we identify need additional help. We have tutors and mentors who will be helping out. We have, to borrow an expression, a ``full court press'' to make that happen. But it is also going to take parental involvement and community involvement to make it happen so that every child has that chance. Senator Brownback. On charter schools, Dr. MacLaury, you testified as to your support for charter schools. We have gotten a little conflicting testimony today on the number that have been opened in the District of Columbia. Someone said four, somebody else said two. Mr. MacLaury. My understanding, Senator, is that the previous elected school board granted charters to I believe five schools. Of those, only two opened this past year. Two more of those five are, I believe, intending to open this fall, and I think the fifth has withdrawn, but I am not sure about that. There were only two operating charter schools this past year. Senator Brownback. And some suggestions that one needs to be closed. Do you have any comment regarding that? Mr. MacLaury. That is an issue for the elected school board which chartered that school, the Marcus Garvey School. The school board chartered that school last year, and the school board has to make a tough decision on whether to keep that school in operation. Senator Brownback. It strikes me that it has been awfully slow going on the charter schools. Some people looked up how many Chicago has, and they have 10 charter schools in Chicago, where the law passed at the same time as the D.C. Charter School law. And I do not know the size, the scale, the scope of those schools. I continue to receive a substantial number of complaints that the bureaucracy is trying to crush the charter school movement in the District of Columbia, that they are being crushed by the system, they are not being approved on time, they are not being supported. Dr. MacLaury, you opened with a strong statement of support for charter schools. We had testimony earlier that we need to establish time lines and baselines for the establishment of charter schools, and Jeanne Allen suggested that we should have 20 open by the fall of 1998. I do not know which of you would care to respond to those statements as far as what you would like to see happen to move the charter school movement along a little more aggressively. General Becton. I would like to make a statement, and then I would like the person who used to be on that side, not working for us, to comment as to where the charter schools are today--that is Rich Wenning. The charter approval cycle is underway. The public charter board developed an excellent application, and proposals are due September 15. The approval cycle is off to a much better start than last year, and we expect 10 to 20 schools to be approved between November and January. We are setting up a revolving loan fund with a $200,000 annual contribution. We are seeking additional start-up funding for charter schools. We requested a $6 million grant from the Department of Education, and I'll ask Rich, if I may, to explain where we are beyond that point. Senator Brownback. Please. General Becton. Richard? Senator Brownback. And please identify yourself for the record. Mr. Wenning. I am Richard Wenning, Director of Policy for the D.C. Public Schools, and I handle charter schools. A lot of folks are frustrated by the pace. The charter schools in the District of Columbia are very much in their infancy. Things got off to a rocky start last year, as you know. This year, things are moving along quite well. As General Becton said, the Public Charter Board does have an outstanding application together. They will be approving schools in November, so during the November to January time line, we are probably looking at about 10 to 20 charter approvals, and we are going to continue to facilitate that process. With the start-up funds that we will be getting from the Department of Education, we will be able to provide funds early to charter schools, before September, so they have some money to hire staff with and get started. In addition, the revolving loan fund is going to provide some additional funds as well. We are laying new groundwork at DCPS with charter schools. Implementing a congressional law is difficult, and we are putting together the guidance to do that, and we are confident that we are going to have a good chartering process this year. Senator Brownback. So you think that you will be somewhere between how many charter schools next fall? Mr. Wenning. Between 10 and 20. Senator Brownback. Ten and 20 charter schools approved next year. It seems to me that you have the opportunity for some grand charter schools in the District of Columbia, given some of the institutions that are here. I do not know if they are willing to do it, but a National Geographic Society-associated charter school would be a pretty interesting place, with a lot of selling power to it, I would think. Are you getting some proposals along those types of lines? Mr. Wenning. I have not heard from National Geographic. But it is important to note that, of course, the two chartering authorities may also be getting information from some of these organizations. We have had some conversations with the Smithsonian. There is a great deal of interest; there are great resources in this city. What is very important, though, is that all the applications for charters go through a rigorous review process to ensure that we have high-quality schools approved, with accompanying strong oversight. Senator Brownback. Do we need to establish some time lines for the approval process, or are these pretty firm ones that you have given me today of times and numbers for approval? Mr. Wenning. Well, there are time lines in the current statute, and the Public Charter Board had some difficulty getting started; I know they have submitted some language to the appropriators and I believe to your staff. And I think that with a few tweaks, the schedule should work quite well. Senator Brownback. Good. Thank you very much. General Becton. Mr. Chairman, it sounds as though there may be an impression that DCPS controls this process--and we really do not. Maybe we need to clarify the fact that the Trustees and DCPS do not approve charter schools. That is done by the chartering agency, and there are two of those. Senator Brownback. The point in raising it here is that if we have to do something to make sure that the bureaucracy does not kill this, then I am going to be looking at doing that. I think this is an important concept; it is one that you are supportive of. In operating the current system, if there are difficulties in doing that, or the bureaucracy is, for whatever reason, causing slowness in it, then maybe we need to engage and force that along more. General Becton. I would encourage that at least consideration be given to expanding in legislation my role as the chief State education officer. I have four titles, and that is one of them. In every State, there is a person or a board that has responsibility to ensure monitoring and to ensure certification and all those things that are important so that they all comply with the same single requirement. Today we have the public charter agency and the D.C. Board of Education, which also has charter responsibility. And technically, while I have stated we are the State education officer, it would be helpful if there were some legislation clearly charging me with that responsibility. We might therefore be able to do what you would like to see done. Senator Brownback. That is a good proposal. We will look at that and see if it is something that would help move that process further along. There is going to be legislation coming forward on D.C. public schools regarding the scholarship program that Senators Coats, Lieberman and myself have introduced here. As you know, that does not take any funds away from the D.C. public schools, but provides it in addition to, and Representative Armey testified earlier today about that as a concept that would be offered to certain income categories of students. We believe strongly that competition is an important factor, and that choice is important, too, and that this can be a positive step forward. I hope you will look at those as just that--this is what we are trying to do to provide additional options for people who frequently cannot afford them. Most Members of Congress--I should not say ``most''--but many Members of Congress take their children to private schools, and they have that option because of their income category, whereas a lot of people in the District of Columbia do not, and we feel like they should have that available. So it is not a statement toward you, but it is a statement to the kids, to try to provide some of those options for them. I hope you will be able and willing to work with that system where we are able to get it in place as a scholarship program. General Becton. Well, obviously, Mr. Chairman, we will work with whatever law comes out. I think we are the only school board that you have to tell what to do---- Senator Brownback. That is true. General Becton [continuing]. So clearly, we understand where the money comes from. But let me point out, sir, that we have not developed a position on the legislation--when I say ``we,'' I am talking about the Board of Trustees, wearing another hat that I wear--but I do have one or two concerns. I am charged with the responsibility for the education for all of our children--not 4,000, 400, or whatever may benefit from the scholarships, but all of them. My concern is that when you say, grant scholarships, vouchers, whatever you want to call them, to a group, I still have to raise the standards of those left behind. So I hope that you can understand that as I deal with all of the students, that is my primary concern. Last week, a member of the House Subcommittee, Duke Cunningham, asked me the question, ``Could you support a bill that was the result of a referendum that the public voted to go vouchers.'' Obviously, if the public says that is what they want, we have no choice but to do that. But right now, I am still faced with raising the education standards for all of our students. Senator Brownback. And that is what all of us want to do. Some may look at it and say this does not do it; others may say competition has been such a key factor in the U.S., in making this a great Nation, that it should apply as well in public education and that that is what we are about. Representative Armey testified earlier, saying that is exactly what it is about--it is about raising the whole--it is about a rising tide lifting all ships and having competition being a key force in doing that. That is the basis of that scholarship program. I personally would like to see just a wide open school choice program, where the child and his parents decide where they would like to go to school, and the public schools be in such a position that they are so competitive and so good that, by and large, that is the place chosen. That is what I would like to see. General Becton. And we want to make it very tough for that parent to make up his mind because our schools have reached the standard that they would consider that, hey, this is not a bad idea. Senator Brownback. We want to push that day as quick as possible, just so that more and more children get a higher and higher quality of education because there is competition within the system to try to encourage that. General Becton. Yes. Senator Brownback. So you are going to continue to see moves out of this Congress to do that, whether it is a scholarship program, trying to open up to full school choice, a voucher type of system, because that is the way that child then chooses. And I hope you are in a position where the D.C. public schools get the vast majority of students because they say these are the best schools. That is what we all want. General Becton. We are striving for that. Senator Brownback. And we are going to keep pushing you on it, too. Dr. MacLaury. Mr. MacLaury. Mr. Chairman, I think both of us here share your belief in competition and in choice for the schools. There is now choice among public schools, as you know. And from my point of view, personally, giving the charter effort the biggest opportunity to get underway and get going is where my emphasis would be with respect to this element of choice. I do not want a distraction from another kind of effort. My concern is also that there needs to be a different, separate administration for the awarding of these scholarships if that comes to pass. The public schools should not have anything to do with the awarding of those scholarships. I think that is an issue--administratively, how many different kinds of choice can the District and its administrative units cope with. That is something that at least I would like to keep in mind. Senator Brownback. It is a fair point. It is just that the school system is in such meltdown that there need to be some radical and quick changes. Mr. MacLaury. Yes, I understand. Senator Brownback. And General, I appreciate your identifying this as the toughest assignment you have ever had. I believe it is, and you have got to succeed--you have got to. General Becton. My last statement, sir, was that failure is not an option. Senator Brownback. Very good. Thank you all for coming and joining us today. We may well try to have another hearing in 6 months or so to monitor the progress that is coming along, and we will keep working for the good of the kids. With that, the hearing is adjourned. 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