Norton to Testify Against D.C. Voucher Bill at Rules Committee Today, Final Step Before Floor Vote Tomorrow

Releases Testimony Ahead of Rules Committee Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will testify against a reauthorization bill to impose a private school voucher program on the District of Columbia at a House Rules Committee hearing scheduled for today, Tuesday, October 20, at 5:00 p.m. in H-313. Norton and President Obama have supported allowing all current voucher students to be funded under the program until they graduate, but oppose the admission of new students because the program failed to meet its own stated goal of improving student academic achievement. At the hearing, Norton will offer a two-part amendment to the program to restore the integrity of the program's evaluation and to prohibit voucher mills that rely solely or largely on federal funding for their existence. The controversial program, which provides federal funds for low-income D.C. students to attend private schools in D.C., has been Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) main political pet project, and the reauthorization bill is being voted on a year before the program expires because of the Speaker's retirement from Congress at the end of the month.

Norton said, "This bill demonstrates Republican hypocrisy in seeking to impose private school vouchers on the District when just three months ago, the Republican House and Senate defeated all national private school voucher amendments."

Norton's testimony, as prepared for delivery, follows.

Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton

House Committee on Rules

H.R. 10

October 20, 2015

I am here today to speak on behalf of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee Democrats as well as for an amendment I have filed. I must ask why the House is even considering this bill when a majority of the District of Columbia Council, including the chairman of the Education Committee, and I, the District's only representative in Congress, oppose it? I ask that the Council opposition letter be included in the record.

Along with President Obama, I support allowing our current D.C. voucher students to remain in the program until graduation. That is the kind of sensible compromise that Congress must get back to, or be content with the label "least productive Congress," as it has come to be known each year. This bill, however, goes beyond the compromise we have offered by seeking to admit new students as well.

Like many D.C. bills the city faces in Congress, this bill seeks to impose a program on the District that does not have national support. Just three months ago, both the House and Senate defeated several national private school voucher amendments on the floor. No wonder. Since 1970, every referendum to establish state-funded vouchers or tuition tax credits has failed by large margins. So the Congress rejects private school vouchers for their children, but wants to impose vouchers on ours.

Far from helping D.C. students, the bill seeks to reauthorize a program that has demonstrably failed. According to the study mandated by the D.C. voucher law, the program has not improved the academic achievement of the students as measured by math and reading test scores, which are the objective and universally used measure of educational performance. Most important, the program has not had "significant impacts" on the achievement of students who the program was designed to most benefit, students who previously attended low-performing public schools.

Even if the program were successful, it still would not be needed, least of all in the District, which has perhaps the most robust public school choice programs in the country. Almost 50 percent of our public school students attend charter schools, which the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ranked as the strongest in the nation. In addition, 75 percent of public school students attend out-of-boundary schools.

Moreover, the D.C. public schools (DCPS) have made some of the most impressive improvements in the country by any measure, spurred by competition from D.C. charter schools, not vouchers. D.C. charter schools have even higher educational achievement and attainment than DCPS. D.C. charter schools outperform DCPS across traditionally disadvantaged groups, including African-American and low-income students, and have a higher percentage of such students, precisely the students the voucher program was ostensibly designed to serve. Greater confidence in D.C. public schools is clear: D.C. public school enrollment has increased for seven consecutive years.

If Congress wants to support D.C. students, we ask that you support our home-rule public school choice, not impose yours. Any new federal funding for education in the District should reinforce the hard work of our city, parents and residents, who have shown the nation how to build a fully accountable public school choice program. D.C. residents, not unaccountable Members of Congress, know best what our children need and how to govern our own affairs.

I have submitted an amendment to H.R. 10. Although I strongly oppose the bill, I want to work with Members who favor the bill to provide some much-needed oversight for the millions in federal funds that are used to finance private schools in the District of Columbia.

The stated reason for the program is to improve access to quality education. The objective evaluation of the program demonstrated that it did not improve student performance on math and reading tests. Ensuring that voucher schools meet minimum standards should help more voucher students succeed. This bill requires, for the first time, that schools be accredited, but gives unaccredited schools five years, along with a one-year grace period, to become accredited. This is far too long, and allows existing and new unaccredited schools to accept voucher students well into the next decade. Allowing our children to attend unaccredited schools is at odds with the purpose of the voucher bill itself. Why not allow only accredited schools, which would not affect the larger number of accredited voucher schools, most of which are longstanding Catholic schools?

Amendment Statement

My amendment has two parts. The first part restores the integrity of the program's evaluation, and the second prohibits voucher mills.

1) Restoring Evaluation Integrity

My amendment restores the requirement from the prior authorizations that the evaluation of the program be "conducted using the strongest possible research design." The program has been evaluated with the gold standard of scientific research, a randomized controlled trial. That is, the study compared the outcomes of students randomly assigned to receive or not receive a voucher. This requirement is extremely important, especially considering the finding that the voucher program has not had "significant impacts" on the achievement of students who the program was designed to most benefit, students who previously attended low-performing public schools.

In contrast, this bill requires the evaluation to be conducted "using an acceptable quasi-experimental research design," and expressly prohibits a randomized controlled trial. The evaluation will compare voucher students with students in D.C. public schools with similar characteristics, even though, in any scientific examination, only randomized controlled trials produce results. Moreover, as the researchers conducting the current program's evaluation point out, a randomized controlled trial "is especially important in the context of school choice because families wanting to apply for a choice program may have educational goals and aspirations that differ from the average family."

2) Prohibiting Voucher Mills

The second part of my amendment prohibits fly-by-night, storefront school voucher mills by limiting the percentage of voucher students in a school to 50% of the school's total enrollment. No current voucher student or sibling will be affected by the cap.

School vouchers are premised on market forces, competition and accountability. Yet, ironically, many schools that participate in the D.C. voucher program would not survive without the unconditional financial support of the federal government. For example, there are a number of voucher schools that did not exist prior to the program, and would not exist without these federal funds. If a voucher school cannot continue without relying solely or largely on federal funds, that would show there is no market for the quality of education being offered. No voucher mills should receive federal funds.

The amendment disqualifies private voucher mills that cannot survive without government funding, and startups that have sprung up in low-income neighborhoods from receiving unrestricted federal funds. Government funding to private schools distorts the market, especially when, as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its 2007 and 2013 reports on the D.C. school voucher program, the program lacks quality controls, transparency, and information. Schools should survive on their ability to attract students with a high-quality education, not their access to unconditional government largess.

For example, in its most recent report on the program, GAO found that, in six participating voucher schools, more than 80% of the total enrollment consisted of voucher students. In a 2012 Washington Post investigation of the quality of the voucher program, the founder of one school where voucher students comprised 93% of the total enrollment of 72 students noted that "[i]f this program were to end, this school would end." The school director of another school where voucher students consisted of 100% of the school's total enrollment of 50 told the Post that if the program were to end, they would "have to stretch with fundraising" to continue operating. I ask that the Post investigation, titled "Quality Controls Lacking for D.C. Schools Accepting Federal Vouchers," be included in the record. The federal vouchers give a school the imprimatur of the federal government. Considering the purpose of the voucher program is to improve student achievement, voucher mills are inconsistent with Congress' intent and should not be enabled with federal funds.