Tim Walberg Rejects The Notion School Choice Harms Traditional Public Schools

2 days ago

During Tuesday’s House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) questioned experts about the consequences of school choice policy on public school funding.

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Transcript

00:00I'll first recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Wahlberg.

00:06Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, the panel, for being here.

00:10With the most recent NAEP scores that continue to show the downhill slide that's out there,

00:16I don't even know why we need this hearing, because choice is what's going to change it

00:21all around, and the choice that comes through vouchers, a full opportunity for parents to

00:29make the best decisions for their students, to support the teachers that will do the best

00:35job for their students, is what we are concerned with here.

00:38So thank you for being here this morning.

00:41Dr. McShane, one of the most frequent arguments we hear against, and we heard it today, against

00:47school choice is that it harms traditional public schools.

00:53But unbiased research simply doesn't bear this out.

00:56Can you talk more about what the research actually says, and why school choice doesn't

01:01harm traditional public schools?

01:04Absolutely.

01:06Thank you so much for the question.

01:07Yes, this is one of the most consistent findings we see in the private school choice literature,

01:11that students who remain in public schools, their scores actually do better in the face

01:16of, if you want to call it competition, or the effects of the program that are there.

01:22And I think the way of thinking about it is sometimes we've gotten into a bit of an

01:26outmoded way of talking about schools, where we say these are the good schools and these

01:30are the bad schools.

01:31I think it's, we need to move to a way of thinking about fit, that certain students

01:36fit in certain schools better than others.

01:38And there may be schools that on average, in an aggregate, look good on paper, but there

01:42are students that are struggling in them, and there are students that are doing, schools

01:45that look like they're doing poorly, but students that are doing well in there.

01:49So as students are able to move to a school that best fits them, we tend to think about

01:53it in the term of that student.

01:55They get to go to a school that's a better fit for them.

01:57But you can also think about the school where that student left.

02:00If they weren't having a great time, they could be taking time, resources, et cetera,

02:05so the students in the school that they left could actually be better off.

02:08So it could be a rising tide that raises all boats, and that seems to be what the empirical

02:12literature tells us.

02:13As generally an all-above plan works best and gives more opportunity, doesn't it?

02:18It fits best for your child.

02:21We're doing the same for our grandchildren now, with the opportunities that they have,

02:25with dyslexia and others.

02:27And so Ms. Clark, thank you for being here.

02:29You mentioned that school choice matters for all children.

02:32I certainly agree.

02:35But I think it's especially important for children with special needs.

02:38Could you talk more about why that is?

02:40Yes, thank you for the question.

02:42So it's very interesting because in Arizona, the number of families that are on our ESA

02:47program, the percentage, if you will, of students with disabilities is actually higher

02:51than the Arizona public school system.

02:54About 18% of students on the Arizona ESA program are students with disabilities whose families

02:59believe that they were not being served in their local public school system.

03:03And of that 18%, 50% of those students with disabilities are students with autism.

03:10We know that one in five students have a learning disability in reading, usually dyslexia.

03:14Now the number for autism is around one in 33 boys have a diagnosis of autism.

03:19And families are choosing Arizona's ESA program because they feel like they're doing more

03:24for their student with disability, disabilities with less money than what the public school

03:29was doing.

03:30Yeah.

03:31Good to hear.

03:34Mr. Banks, I won't say anything about Go Blue since you're from Columbus.

03:41Congratulations from the national championship.

03:45But let me ask you this, and I appreciate your life story that you have to give.

03:50Many critics of school choice say that private schools cream skin, which in other words says

03:56that they only take the most academically gifted and talented students.

04:01And that's why some of these schools have high scores.

04:06Tell me about the school you attended with a voucher.

04:09Do you think your new school will only accept the most talented accomplished students?

04:13Well, thank you for that question.

04:15And that championship was a long, long overdue.

04:18Yeah.

04:19So the school that I attended, actually I failed the entry test twice and the principal

04:25and the superintendent took a liking to me for what reasons, I'm not sure, but they saw

04:29a lot of potential in me and they chose to bring me on anyway and accepting me actually

04:35forced them to open up an entire sixth grade wing.

04:38So they had to take on more students to justify just bringing me on.

04:42And so we often refer to ourselves as the class of rejects because most of us were coming

04:48from schools that had failed us in lower academic outcomes.

04:51And so all of us struggled during that time.

04:54And so in my experience, the school did everything that they could to bring the students who

05:00were struggling the most and coming from tough environments to a school where they could

05:03actually thrive.

05:05They wanted to perform education on you.

05:08Correct.

05:09They, they made the cream of the crop.

05:11So thank you for being here.

05:12My time has expired.

05:13I yield back.

Tim Walberg Rejects The Notion School Choice Harms Traditional Public Schools

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