Summer Lee Warns Closing DoE Will Raise Property Taxes To 'Fund The Discrimination Of Children'

2 days ago

During a House Education Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) spoke about Republicans' proposal to close the Department of Education.

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Transcript

00:00I will now recognize the, uh, who's the next Democrat witness, Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania.

00:07Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, public education is, is important to me, right? I am, I am a product

00:14of public education from pre-K to, through college, um, the, including programs like Head Start. Um,

00:23when we, when I listen to our colleagues on the other side, I'm always baffled by the conversation

00:27because, uh, I feel like sometimes it maybe intentionally misses the points. We, we've,

00:31we've talked and we will continue to talk about, uh, good public schools or, or passing public

00:35schools versus failing public schools. Instead of talking about failing public policy, uh,

00:40failing, uh, funding schemes, um, failing bureaucracy, we know that we have a system

00:45of inequitably funded schools in this country where the quality of your education can largely

00:49be determined by your zip code or your family's wealth. Uh, in my home Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,

00:54our funding scheme was so, uh, inequitable that the court said we needed to go back to

00:58the drawing board. Um, Republicans would love to believe that the solution is dismantling the

01:04Department of Education to give us local choice, but what they're actually giving us is the

01:08responsibility of subsidizing education to localities where people will pay higher property

01:12taxes to fund the discrimination of children. The burden of the federal government divesting

01:17from public education will be shouldered by first time home buyers, for instance,

01:20in Pittsburgh where home ownership is already becoming unsustainable or by seniors in my,

01:25you know, school, the home school district of Wilton Hills, those neighborhoods who are

01:28already strained and facing the loss of their social security benefits. These additional tax

01:32dollars will help charter and private schools hand select students that will improve school's

01:37outcomes while maximizing school's bottom line. Our tax dollars won't help the children who will

01:42never be able to avail themselves of discriminatory school choices. Our public education system serves

01:47the child who is unhoused or transient, the child in the foster care system who doesn't have too

01:52well-connected parents to push for scholarships or the family facing the digital divide who will

01:57miss application deadlines reasonably, the child who didn't have access to Head Start or preschool

02:02like me because we didn't invest in those and it's behind, that child is behind in reading.

02:07We need to invest in public education because it's the only option for children that so-called

02:11parents' rights movement has decided are not worth investing in. It's also no coincidence

02:15that the school choice movement is financed by billionaires like Jeffrey Yaz from my commonwealth

02:20who's trying to turn my state's education system into his own personal business. But a business's

02:24priority is to its stakeholders and children have no stake in the economic model of school choice.

02:30Ms. Levin, I want to ask you about charter schools run by for-profit management companies as you

02:34ended in the last question line. If a company is maximizing profit, it's not spending all public

02:38dollars on students, especially students who require more resources, which is why charter

02:43schools educate fewer students with disabilities than traditional public schools. And in your

02:47opinion, Ms. Levin, are these for-profit charter management companies maximizing profit at the cost

02:53of students and families? Yes. Related to moving education into the private sector, one of the

02:59rationales for school choice is this free market idea that school choice will force public schools

03:04to compete for funding, thereby for public schools will improve because of that. Does evidence

03:10support this? What does the research show? It does not and neither does common sense. There's a lot

03:15of school choice right now in the public school system, so if competition is good, we're already

03:19creating and getting those benefits. But providing high quality education shouldn't be accomplished

03:24through cutthroat competition. It should be accomplished by giving every school the resources

03:30that it needs. Thank you. According to the 2022 GAO report, over 30 percent of Pennsylvania

03:35charters that receive federal charter schools program grant funding between 2006 and 2020

03:40closed or never opened. I request unanimous consent for the 2022 GAO report on federally

03:46funded charter school closures to be entered into the record. Without objection. Thank you. I've

03:51heard countless stories about charter schools closing because of fraud, mismanagement, and

03:54voucher programs taking advantage of the fact that they have no fiscal responsibility. How concerned

04:00should we be about mismanagement, fraud, and corruption if we expand federal support and

04:04funding for charters and vouchers? We should be very concerned. You're right that there are

04:08numerous reports throughout the country of both charter and voucher schools engaging in fraud,

04:13waste, and abuse of public dollars. It's unconscionable to send billions more in a

04:19federal voucher program to schools that have almost no accountability or transparency requirements.

04:24Thank you, Ms. Libman. It's clear that school choice, the school choice fallacy we're talking

04:28about today, just exacerbates the inequalities, the inequities we already have. Wealthy white

04:34families will continue to have their choices subsidized by depriving largely black and brown

04:38and other marginalized children of educational opportunities. If school choice is going to work,

04:42children and families do need real choices. A for-profit charter school that closes a month

04:47after opening because of fraud, mismanagement is not a real choice. A private school where

04:52tuition is twice as much as a child scholarship amount, where a child is not entitled to an IEP,

04:57and where a child can be expelled, for instance, for having two moms is not a real choice.

05:01An underfunded neighborhood school with larger class sizes, fewer books,

05:04substandard wages for teachers, and deteriorating infrastructure

05:08because everyone's increasing tax dollars are being used to subsidize

05:11charters and private is also not a real choice. Families and children are owed fully funded,

05:16high-quality, well-resourced public schools, and we can accomplish that, but not by giving

05:21away more handouts to billionaires that will discriminate against the most marginalized

05:24students to turn a profit. I thank you all for your time, and I yield back.

Summer Lee Warns Closing DoE Will Raise Property Taxes To 'Fund The Discrimination Of Children'

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