good morning, everyone. thank you for coming to this panel. eric, the deputy director or today we will discuss an issue that has been getting a bit of attention these days, school choice and especially private school choice. i know there is all sorts of forms of school choice in this country and a lot of conversation about charters. in particular as well, but given the recent conversation and recent presidential election i think this is where we will do our primary focus, but we will

allow time for other issues and is so forth school vouchers and other voucher like programs, voucher cousins, if you will has been growing in numbers. the cousins would be like tax credit scholarships and education savings account and the latter is what one proponent yesterday called the cool new kid on the block. as most of you know president trump and secretary of education ours big fans of school choice and a secretary betsy devos was to talk about choice and it's made it the centerpiece of her education agenda. that said, these are complicated times in washington. the president billion-dollar plus plan are by no means certain to become law even in the gop led congress and we had a panel yesterday on the politics of g12 where that was one of the points made, so

probably good to keep that in mind. it's not clear what we might see at the federal level, but there is still good reason to be here because as i think palace will tell you a lot of the action, most of the action is at the state level anyway and will probably continue to be so. it's been a busy legislative session in states already this year with big debates. i think one of our panelists, robert were you when texas recently? >> i was. >> there was a lot of debate and i'm-- i'm not sure they got past debate in texas. florida, arizona, arkansas, oklahoma are a few examples of the states where there have been efforts to either create new programs or expand existing ones keep in mind also that the 2000 election didn't just bring in donald trump to work with the-- republican-led congress, but also made gains in the states

and now hold what is sometimes called a political trifecta with a 25 states where republican party controls the governor ship and both chambers of the legislature so that is likely to give further momentum to some of these even while this is not always a clearly partisan issue. >> or not. >> clearly though, i think that will probably build momentum. our goals today will help you understand current landscape of private school choice and what's on the horizon and how journalists can do a better job at keeping the public informed about these initiatives. question-- such as who do the programs serve and what impact do they have two families and communities, how should the public judge their success or failure, what should journalists keep in mind and as they monitor and explain existing programs in their communities. so many of these are new or have

changed, may be expanded in one way or another and it can be a bit, located to keep track of and it's not so easy to carve out time when you're maybe covering a major school system, so that can be a challenge for local reporters. remember that details matter a lot, who's eligible to receive a voucher, how much money it's worth, which is schools per to state don't and to what extent our families using the funds that are eligible for things besides tuition with a whole menu of things you can use it for. our most families able to get into the schools they want using the vouchers and are there many schools that don't participate and what kind of accountability measures are included. one other that's near and dear to the heart of most journalists is transparency, what is required of schools and the programs so journalists and other people can understand what's going on. meanwhile, went to at least say

a little bit about charter schools especially because in light of the election i went to point to two particular outcomes of note. one of them was in massachusetts where voters overwhelmingly rejected a plan to raise that states charter limit and in a counter narrative there was a school board runoff election in la i just finished up that actually tipped the balance towards a coalition of board members to support charter schools and so that may well bring new amendment to the charters in la, which is already i think the city with more kids and charter schools than anywhere else in the country. before we dive in and went to offer one last piece of context. i gave the political reality check before about the trump administration agenda and how that will be comforted to get through congress, but another piece of this that's important

to remember is the number of students we are talking about at least in the current situation and i want to thank edit choice the research and advocacy group for helping to collect these numbers and they have great data about how programs were, their design, where they are and what's happening so it's a great place to get that information. currently, when you look at vouchers and voucher style programs across states he might get one, two, 3 million participate, no comments about 450,000 compared to about 50 million kids in public schools today. it's a very small piece of the pie. currently, a lot of the work underway is looking to expand that. i'm joined by atrophic lineup of people today to help us talk through get through these issues more including immediately to my left, maggie garrett who is the

cochair of national coalition of public education sort of an umbrella group for more than 30 national organizations that have been fighting against voucher programs both in the political arena and in the legal arena and they represent teacher union, school board member, school administrators, aclu and others. also the legislative director of separation of church and state so she keeps a close on what's happening across the country and her group has been involved in political advocacy and legal efforts to overturn vouchers and that's one of the issues i'm sure will come up to-- today. next to her is darrell bradford, executive director of new york can, busy guy. >> don't let that get out. >> these are both organizations promoting school choice among other issues and his network works on the ground to monitor and influence state local

decisions and work with families and others. next we have samuel abrams who directs national center of the study a privatization at columbia university where he studies school choice and he's also keeping an eye on the elements and you may often find him quoted in the news on the subject in recent times. finally, we have robert enlow and i am mentioned his organization of choice. he's the president and ceo of this national nonprofit advocacy group tracking voucher and voucher style programs closely and as i mentioned they have helpful resources that kind of describe the landscape in a nonpartisan way, you know here's the program, here's what they do and so forth. with that, one other thing before we jump in is that we have another conversation later today at 3:30 p.m. where we will turn the table and let journalists who will talk about their coverage of school choice especially private school choice

, so if you want to dive in and hear their perspective on what to watch for, tips for getting information questions to ask, that would be a nice complement to what we have here. despite what i said at the beginning about the trump agenda having a tough time, i went to start is a little bit about that and i'm not going to-- for this when i'm just going to ask each of you to spend a minute or two getting your quick view of trump's plan, what you make of it and what you think will happen. >> hello. thank you for having me. so, i represent the national coalition of public education and americans united, so clearly i am disappointed in the trump betsy devos plan for education and what i think is particularly troubling is that instead of spending time on figuring out how to support public schools and improve public schools and work with the kids with 90% of the students in public school,

so instead of having a plan that works with those students, instead they are solely focus on how to spend taxpayer dollars to send to private schools that don't have the same accountability and no servile students that can reject students based on differentcharacteristics, so i would be more pleased if the focus was on public schools and the most kids and schools that have to accept all students, but instead they have been using the pulpit to talk about vouchers around the country. we have a budget that is decreasing funds for public schools, increasing funds for private schools. one of the programs would give millions of dollars to study and expand private school vouchers. i think that is particularly troubling especially when you look at what they just did with the dc voucher for those of you that have been following that with only fully funded voucher in the country and they just renewed that again in one of the

things that is interesting is they instead of saying that it's been studied for years, the studies are showing these are actually performing worse academically than the other students and instead of when they renewed that saying they would keep studying they said i know you are using the golden standard now. my thinking is it's not working out because the studies show is on improving academically and now they say instead of using the gold standard you're not allowed to use it and have to use clause -ites terminal studies for your voucher program, so i think looking at that and you can no longer use the gold standard for the dc voucher and look at the budget saying we want to expand and study vouchers, knowing that they want to use quasiexperimental studies makes me suspicious, when they are trying to further at number two what it-- what will those studies look like under the administration? >> i went to clarify that this

is not a law yet peered just pass the house. >> the budget? >> dc vouchers. >> the dc voucher was put in the spending bill. >> so it's a done deal. >> the first thing i would like to do is think the reporters that have covered me in a balanced way in this room and the second thing i would like to do is think georgetown university for the outstanding institution of higher learning run by religious order that lots of people attend with public funding and ironing should not be lost. as far as the budget is concerned other than the fact that i think it's dead on arrival one tickets to congress it's like sprinkles of things i really like in an ocean of things i don't like and i for one have approached this entire episode since it started in november as on a comfortable

safe harbor in which to make progress for kids who are really getting the short end of the stick based on the zip code, color of the skin or amount of money that parents make, so i think we will haven't actual discussion about what this budget means when it gets there and i would like to point out the majority of the money in the choice portion of the budget is actually to promote public school choice, so i don't know i feel like if you are against that that's cool, but i for one -- i don't consider myself a private school advocate. private schools have a important role to play in helping us all problems are kids face. on the good schools advocate and think if we align public policy to help you get to a great school instead of being conscripted or assign the one that doesn't work for you about something we should support. >> thank you. on that point just to kind of build on your observation about the content of what the president has actually propose i think is a 250 or 300 million.

>> 2050. >> implementation of vouchers and some research that's been unspecified like there's a lot in this and there is a piece where they want to ramp up charter school funding, which already gets a pretty good chunk of change with about 350 million and they went to take up to 500 million and meanwhile they are talking about somehow carving out a billion dollars to title i program for disadvantaged students to create incentives for some sorts of public school choice. i think there is a lot of question around that and the political feasibility for all sorts of reasons including the way the money is distributed and so forth so it will be interesting to see how that discussion-- what happens with that discussion. >> thank you for having me here. it's an honor. i would like to build on what darrell said-- durell, i'm sorry

that the billion dollars in this proposal is for public school choice. its title i money that is supposed to follow the students from him public school to the another and that by itself didn't surprise me in the proposal. what did surprise me was that there was only $250 million set aside in this education research program to fund voucher and fund research in vouchers. i expected more. so, that was my gut response. i was thinking something more along the lines of race to the top where obama allocated $3.4 billion in 2009, 19 states took slices of that with the provision as you might remember that states lifted the limit on charter schools and determine teacher pay according to student performance. i thought and perhaps this is where trump is a possible go and

i think it is something we need to focus on is that they will allocate more than $250 million to states with the condition that states come up with some kind of education savings account program or tuition tax credit program. i thought they-- it may be down the road or too early for them to propose more than two and $50 million for that, so that was my gut response. >> thank you. robert? >> thank you for having us and thank you to georgetown for hosting. lets first of all before we talk about the budget have a reality check here. federal spending on education is nine to 11% of the total work the majority of funds is at the state local level spending roughly seven and $50 billion in america on k-12 education of it which is 60 were so comes from the federal government so when we talk about $2,050,000,000 in some cases that is a rounding

error compared with traditional schools get in a million dollars in the budget is higher for public school choice is for private school choice, so i look at the budget this way. there is good stuff and there's a lot of stuff that makes me worried, but the reality is once it goes to the congress it is not going to withstand the pressure. i don't think any of the presidential budget has withstood the budget-- pressure. no budget from the president ever goes over unscathed so we will see a lot of challenges. also, we have a lot of questions to answer about the budget. what do these proposals look like a detailed? we are spending time argued about the eye doc-- ideology rather than the proposal so as we begin to see them we can hopefully have nonpartisan dialogue about this as opposed to the ideological dialogue we are having now and to talk about what might be: what might not be good. those of us that don't think that cuts are good idea and

there are those of us that the the choice program are a good idea, so it's a bit of a mixture, but the reality is it's only a small portion of what we spend on k-12 and it's not going to withstand the congressional oversight. if you look at the bulk on the scholarship program done by the former admissions show's research department you find positive effects, actually particularly in attainment, so children graduating at higher rates and going to college at higher rates. most recent study is the first study and we will seek what happens in the third year because most of the programs that you study in the third year you find a increase. the dc social program has been renewed for three years. >> would like to respond? >> i do. there have been five studies on the dc voucher.

hasn't been around for one year. the last year it was called a one-year study because it studied one year of schools in the program, so it's not like a justice started. the prior studies showed no significant improvement for reading and math. some people point to the fact that in the third year there was an improvement in reading though it was found not statistically significant, so if you look at the dc voucher it says there is no statistically significant improvement in reading or math in the latest study looking at one year of the students show they performed worse in math and reading and there was a statistically significant decrease in achievement in reading, so i just want to make clear that the prior study did not show any statistically significant in reading or math and graduation rate did show higher but it's important look at that portion of the study where that was not based on actual student records, it was based on calling parents who students should have graduated and they called them and said du jour student graduate from high

school and it was a very small number like 400 some parents who responded. that is the graduation rate everyone is hooking into for the prior five years of study is that the parents to answer the phone, 450 of them a proximally said their students graduated from college. i just wanted to point that out. >> we will talk a bit later about the research, but try not to get too deep in the weeds of it, but to give people a sense of what's going on. the one piece of the trump agenda that has been sort of unspoken by the administration itself is-- we have heard a lot about the idea of somehow building in tuition tax credits into a tax system overhaul if that happens. anyone want to comment? is that feasible? >> it could happen. it's possible to amend the

federal tax code to make this happen. i do think in this is sort of the challenge, one if you suffer in a blue state like i do and have one of the challenges to what samuel was saying earlier is that the administration would not do this in a fashion that sort of had everything automatically and states would have to opt in. from my perspective, the kids of the state i work closely with-- with our likely left out of that which is not-- which is why no race to the top vampiric also, the democrats and republicans are split on choice, which is to say like how much, where, for whom. teachers like andrew cuomo will tell you like a new york state the teachers union came to democrats in the city and republicans upstate, so lots of people waiting their hand to be

what i think is on the wrong side of this. whether or not this proposal can survive the politics of congress right now is like a coin toss. i feel they should try it, but i don't know if it will be successful. >> it's interesting when you think about politics that leads to the next thing that i want to talk about his recent developments in states and i will first ask robert because i know you really track this closely and we mentioned texas, which a lot of people would be mystified. how is it texas of all states has not been able to enact private school choice policy? >> durell said football. i will argue that has a lot to do with rural texas and rule america. who is the largest employer in most rural areas? is the school districts were then working with the teachers union so you have this sort of political connection between rural towns a legislative

leadership with a lockstep control on folks in rural america. that has an impact on voting in texas. it's always been about the rule about on this issue. >> i think it does have to do with rural, but i don't think it's really about the teachers union. so, often times when we are reading articles about vouchers the way they are sometimes framed as it's the teachers union versus i'm not quite sure who they think against, but that is not reality. i am the cochair of an cpd and we have about 60 organizations in our coalition and its isn't just the teachers union. they are part of it, but we have the naacp, baptist joint community, lgb t organization, women's groups. you could go down the list and pick up the communities opposed to private school vouchers for various reasons, so when i walk

in the door i don't win with a certain perspective, i go in and argue naacp is concerned there are not civil rights protections for these students. i say they are concerned because this money can go to private schools that can reject kids because they are gay or have gay parents or can teach anti- gay curriculum with your taxpayer dollars. there's more to this than just the teacher's union second, i think we are missing the idea of how important public schools are to the rural areas. there's no public private schools there is an option, so this means it will be a twisting tax credit system taking money from the public school, their one public school it won't go to their community. it will go to a private school somewhere else and i think that's important. >> tuition tax credits don't work that way.

that's really important tuition tax credits are like the neutral way to fund these programs because the money-- you went out about vouchers that's one thing. second thing i will say is i will totally agree with you on rural and private school debt. like check or failing a lot of people write about this. i think that choice in the way that i at least have approach and a lot of people have approached it is sort of optimized in places like are pretty dense and have people close to one another that have like i do know private schools, charter schools like a universe of options, so no one at least no one i know is also proposing this is the optimal solution for every place or even every kid, only that it should be one solution. >> durell, ultimately the tuition tax credit does function like a voucher because the money is fungible and if corporations and individuals are getting

dollar for dollar tax credits there's that much less money in the coffers to fund public schools. >> that assumes you believe every dollar that is spent on education is dedicated to the public school work in new york state when i worked on this and in new jersey when i worked on these things like to the point is that the tax credit is actually different but even after you get past like there are lots of churches state issues resolved much better with a tax credit than a voucher, but the reason why these proposals are like the cool cousin instead of the cousin who like shows up and ask up is because they don't directly impact public school spending. >> i would have to disagree. it's an end run. you mention football, you are, pushing something in a different way. actively there is just not that much money right or wrong. you can be an advocate for or against school choice, but i think you have to concede that if the money will be reallocated to these programs to fund

private school attendance through tuition tax credits then there won't be that much money left in the budget to fund public schools implicitly. >> the presumption here is that all dollars are dollar for public schools instead of per-pupil funding, so when you move from one school district and you are like enough to afford to move if you're in a district that doesn't work and i was hoping we wouldn't get into these conversations, but it looks like we are. we come to the table with private school choice with that thousands of parents trapped in schools that don't work for them with children or gay and lesbians that are bullied in public schools at a higher rate than any other school. should we restriction the options of those families are increased the options for those families? this ends up being a debate about who controls the money and people in charge of this conversation from the traditional school site to control the money picked oh scholarship program in america spends anywhere near what the public schools spend per child. in indiana if you receive a scholarship to a program you

average $4000 for a low income child to go to a private school. private schools that except the program are accepting more children of color and a surly more children of poverty than traditional schools right now. >> they have higher rates of poverty acceptance. >> there are a lot of myths and we bring that thousands of parents and groups who are tired of being forced in schools that don't work who want options. they want to be able-- we also went to have conversations about -- if i was want to say something to journalists, spend more time understanding what the house school funding formula is. in my home state we spent over a billion dollars in the last three cycles. i can tell you did not go to teacher salaries, so if we have conversations about money and who gets it, let's have real conversations. we have federal money, state money and local money coming in. no private choice program takes any local dollars.

that's just not part of the game. in indiana we get 90% of the state dollars, so i was hoping we would not have this conversation in this way, but we are then we have to talk about who controls the money and where it goes. >> it that-- if i could highlight one thing there is an organization i checked with school finance work and looks at school district boundaries and those types of things and i'm like the dumbest person in all of the meetings, but we recently did a 50 state survey and i cannot tell you, there are 50 ways to spend money poorly and not know what you get out of it. i mean, it's a deeply frustrating to know that you can like the taxing power is awesome that we can collect resources with the best content and have absolutely no idea where it goes even less of an idea of actually what we want to get for it. like sound basic in new york is like a grade education, maybe. like is any kid going to be well-equipped and $23000 a

student as sound basic to make their way in the world right now? this-- the conversation about how we spend money on our children is one that far exceeds where they go to school. when we totally need to have. not just about private school choice. >> if you want like 30 seconds or anything to respond to? so, robbers and others feel free to chime in on this. what is the most important developments that you have seen this year? i know one of the biggies is arizona. i think arkansas and a few other safe. can you quickly highlight? we have reporters presumably from all over the country. if there is a few you want to tick off to say pay attention

because something my becoming. >> there were 17 states this year introducing savings accounts which were call the new cool kid-- coolest kid on the block like these are funds set aside for families to customize your child's education. arizona has passed a program allowing all families in the state to receive education savings account customizing for their child. arizona has now makes education savings account for all families with this robust charter school movement in a robust public school so there is this state of educational options. >> how much money is in the pot? >> they get 90% of the state funds is what i believe. >> so, this-- if enough people participated this could be a huge change? >> s and typical programs talk about 1% and then they grown to like four or 5% picked the sky has not fallen with private school choice programs. nevada will-- and about it will probably get their savings

account funded. >> so, they last year pass what i believe was the first of what people call universal or near universal education savings account where basically a pot of money will be set aside for families that wanted to use it for tuition to private schools in the usually a menu of other options and what is different about nevada that caught everyone's attention was that for the first time it's had virtually any family as long as they had a child in public schools in the last hundred days a could use that. so often as we know voucher programs often this is where they start, but it's for low income children or just with students with disabilities and then it grows. nevada is an example where it expanded picked there was a legal challenge that blocked it based on the way it had been planned it to be funded and a so now they are trying to figure out a different way to fund it that will pass legal muster.

>> legally and the supreme court of nevada said it's a constitutional program, just find a better way to fund it. so, even if you don't find funny for the program this year, its constitution will be on the books so the question will be can you find funding. your places like ohio that try to consolidate their programs into one bill. texas tried to get a special needs bill force education savings account. as a parent of a special needs son i know how important it is to customize your child's education. florida is growing its program. arkansas passed a small program. you have seen a lot of states grow. indiana grew its program increasing tax credit scholarship amounts. there has been discussion movement this year, but there hasn't been any new states come online this year. >> more building on existing. >> more building on existing.

>> it's more like about the environment, not like the school choice programs specifically, so i would urge everyone to not just focus on the conversation about choice. like they are coke constructs. there is a real sort of fight and if you align them politically on the right about choice and how many flowers should be blooming right? the equipment conversation on the left is about account ability. both of these are important by the current policy du jour in particularly on that accountability side. i'm a big believer in state testing. like in the voting public hates it. elected officials seem to hate it. if you look at the downforce of opt out on our ability to actually like figure out if the schools are working, it's a miserable political situation and so like i view these two things as something that needs

to be reconciled together. it's like how do we get it better? on the other side it's like how do we bring a more dynamic system into the universe empowering more families but isn't the wild wild west? i think you should look at resolving those questions together. >> in the midst of all this dialogue and debate at the federal level states authorizing with their choice programs. they are doing it in concert with charters and publix. in indianapolis, the school board is about reforming and bringing charters in and at the law says they can bring in anyone they want into the public district. they now have tools to create new ideas in the school district we now have charter schools, private school choice and is a more dynamic environment that's what's happening states. >> i saw npr had a really interesting in-depth story about that indiana program and one of

the fascinating parts of it if i recall correctly was how the nature of the program has changed and the students who are participating have changed. the whole demographic has a shifted. it's far more why to bennett was previously, not so many families low income families participating and so forth and i am wondering if someone wants to reflect on that situation? >> i will jump in. one piece of news that was quite striking was donald trump's visit to catholic school in orlando with betsy devos a couple of months ago and then you had cardinal dolan, a laudatory bit in the "wall street journal" several days later praising trump for that visits. that npr piece that eric just mentioned is an excellent story, long detailed story, one of the best stories on this topic conserves next school

attendance. the reporters focused on port wing in particular and they are what has happened is this voucher is funding students who are already in the schools. they are not transferring from public schools to catholic schools. they are already enrolled, so it direct subsidy of at school attendance. what has started in 2011 there were 7500 students in indiana program and today there are more than 30,000. it's a funding a different population as eric said a different demographic, so it's something to watch. i will add something else to watch is what will happen in the next week in nevada and there you have something interesting. you mentioned a trifecta. in nevada young republican governor and two democratic houses and he is running with resistance. is going to be there interesting to see how that works because

the legislature closes its session june 7. >> robber, went to ask you because i know this is your home ground, indiana so i'm sure that is a race that's near and dear to your heart. what's your take on this ship of their end is it something that you think has been moving in the right or wrong direction? >> i would think it's moving in the right direction and. i think we have to be thoughtful about the numbers. >> are you okay with that sort of, you know, removing incoming thresholds or things of that nature? >> what we have it indiana, so when we talk about who's choosing private schools using the program and whether you're subsidizing existing families you have to ask yourself what would happen after the program. if the program wasn't there how many families would be a private school? we have that answer for the last 50 years. 9% of the population. now, you know with the program more people are able to access. with a statewide program that

looks pretty much like the statewide demographics of our state in terms of racial demographics. although, the choice program is a slightly more african-american children and significantly more hispanics. children of hispanic background are served highly in low income families. one of the questions about the pathway last year if you look at the state report the largest pathway into the choice program in terms of numbers were prior probably school systems. one of the reasons also when you see growth is we added a sibling provision. that's-- so if a child was eligible and in the program now their family members can go. >> again, like might cope panelists for putting up with me. two things, the nevada situation is interesting not just because of the-- also because of the achievement school district is

under attack. what you see there isn't just like pension around the essay, but tension around reform rightly or wrongly. on the existing families and went to answer that with a different thing. there is this writer named nicole hannah jones who is an awesome writer and i just don't agree with everything she says. she did this great piece where she had this mega cute daughter on the front of the bike at integrated school for my daughter with that city being new york. when she points her at the end i think is most telling is the fear of the parents who are like the black parents who are enrolled in this one school they think is working pretty well that the school will be overrun by like white affluent parents who don't share their values and i think this is a question about how we organize education period

and who has power and who does not and that is not something that sort of like exclusive to private schools. like roberts point-- robert and i have talked about this, when schools get more white affluent families in them they become more politically powerful like and if you don't believe that we can talk elsewhere. this is the natural state of things and it's unfortunate, so the question i think also is if you care about these programs like should you care about whether or not some like working class white people actually participate as a way to make sure they don't go away? this is a really important concern because like that school in brooklyn, as it gets whiter and better it's not going away. that school what it was doing okay black family was something everyone wanted to change so

there's always this discussion about race about schools and whether or not it performs or not and it happens across sectors. >> by expanding who participates in those who are more empowered -- i went to push back on that though, i mean, milwaukee voucher program has been around for years. these programs have survived without doing that, places that did have more limited to focus have doing fine. >> but they are always under attack. like much like-- so in charter school space i would say new york and you pointed to massachusetts and i would say even the massachusetts referendum went down in boston like the majority-- like it got killed in the suburbs where a majority of the voting public who had never been to a charter school is white and likes their schools and is pretty affluent.

>> i thought i read that exit data and even in boston, opponents, there were mall-- more opponents and supporters. >> yeah, yeah but i think again this-- >> i was surprised by that. >> so was i. i think there's this question about scale in whom again. the majority of people of america don't have family members in charter. they may or may not have a family member in a private school they may or may not go great so we ask people who have not experienced this thing to talk about it and make decisions and bad politically is a difficult. >> i want to get some questions from the audience. so, if you can come to the podium. we will first start with a few journalists and then we can get to other questions. identify yourself. >> i'm brian mcvicar from grand rapids, michigan. michigan has a constitutional

ban on providing public funding for private schools to short of changing the state constitution what with the federal push to expand private school choice look like in a state with such a man? >> i have no idea how these things will collide. i do think these amendments are pretty horrible message in america. unless there is a conservative push to deal with these amendments are not sure what would happen. that said i think a lot of people-- federal tax codes are to exist everywhere and so a change to it sort of happens everywhere regardless of state laws, but i doubt michigan would opt into such a program. >> i know you've followed the legal dimension of things. >> in michigan you have a no aid clause and for those of you that don't know, there are 37 states that have provisions stronger than the us establishment costs,

so separation of church and state that says you can't fund sectarian religious organization schools etc. michigan, that was actually voted on recently actually twice in the voters in michigan said they wanted to keep it, so it's a popular thing in michigan. that actually has happened around the country every single time one of these provisions have been on the ballot including oklahoma recently. they have kept provisions in place. yeah, so the state cannot spend money for a religious school in michigan. there are other provisions in other states that would be helpful for you to know that in addition to having no aid causes they are provisions in other states that say public funds must fund public schools, so little separate than that no aid clause. florida has one of those as well and so those are always a challenge. i think the question would

become in this hasn't happened; right? if there is a program-- some are two great incentives and they couldn't take it. michigan cannot take the money because they would have to dig a program that would be constitutionally prohibited. other states if they create a program where that money funneled down would be a legal question and we would say the federal money and then the state divvy it out, they couldn't do that. something else, there is currently a case trinity lutheran in the us supreme court looking at some of these no aid causes and so that could be a factor in the future how all of this sort of plays out in the courts-- and the state legislature. >> it gets even more difficult when you heard secretary betsy devos say there will be a state often program so gets even more challenging in a state like michigan. >> i went to plant one seed in

each of your brains before we run out of time. i will take on the list and ask each of you to say if you are in a state that has a new or existing private school choice program, what are three things that a reporter should be asking about that to help their community make sense of that program, it's a fact and what it means? this is something i've been thinking about. can you tell us who you are, please? >> i'm emily logan. a cover the federal government and there is a lot going on, but a lot of people are pointed out we are sort of in this very unique opportunity. the federal government to do some policy on school choice and so i wanted to take-- pick the panel's brain and see other options out there with the federal government what they could do with school choice and what proposal might have the most chance of actually getting through congress and getting the president's signature? >> i won't take bets on anyone

of them, but i would say that there should be more than one of them, so like i have been a person talking about like to our point about like a traditional tax credit works better in the dense northeastern environment. tax credit for individual expenses around test prep and tutoring, like sort of the hybridization of 529 plans. minnesota has a credit and deduction that sort of deals with more school expenses than just tuition. i think there are lots of different levers that could be pulled at the federal level or enhanced on programs that would help more families have more power in determining the schools they want their kids to go to and we should focus on like the broadest way-- array possible both for like parental and kid

reasons and political reasons. >> next question. >> question for durell and robert. i'm trying to wrap my head around the argument that tuition tax credits don't reduce funding for public schools. by their nature they are reducing tax liability, which means a reduction in public funds, so therefore a reduction in public services including public education, so maybe it's not public schools, but some public services; right? >> again, like to what robert said and what samuel disagreed on, lots of states have dedicated funds. tax credits circumvent the dedicated public education fund if you want to call it that, so if you believe every dollar spent on education is a dollars that in a public school then there is no way i will convince you. if you believe creating a separate revenue stream that

kids can use to go to a school of their choice via tax credit is actually different part of money then you will agree with me. i don't know if i can sell you on this. i do think in the end what continues to matter here is not whether or not-- it's not about the pot of money. if you care about sort of improving options for families like if that's your number one priority then you will behave differently and rationalize this differently. >> we have spent a lot of time on that issue, so if you would like you can revisit it afterwards. the only other point i want to make on that because it's a great issue to think about is that my understanding i'm in at the federal level the education dollars are like 10%, but the state level and lot of state dollars go to education, so if it goes to that school is likely

to have more of an impact because states of pony up a lot of money. >> there is a large body of research that suggests even if it does take to your point there is a large body of research suggesting that because voucher and tax credit scholarship programs only take a portion of state funds and not include local and federal funds and actually only a portion, there has to be savings. there's a large body of research that says there are savings coming from school choice programs. >> next question. >> i'm from the las vegas review journal. i'm the nevada, reporter the room. >> nevada. >> nevada. >> what's going to happen? >> that's what i want to ask you guys. what you think what was heralded as a universal program may end up looking like monday at midnight when the regular session closes.

>> given that we still have a few questions i'm guessing both baby maggie and robert want to give like there 30 second version of what they think. >> i have no idea. >> i don't either. i feel much better. >> i think there are lots of discussions, but we won't know until monday when they come out of the dark corners of the room. >> do you think they will come up with something? >> i think there is a significant effort to do so, yes. >> i'm based in pittsburgh where cyber charters are huge and i'm wondering if you can talk about that were second in some of the culture factors that might change when talking about kids choosing a cyber charter over brick and mortar? >> i know we spend so much time in private school choice, so did you have something you wanted to say? >> i would-- >> before you do you should check out one of the award winners from ew a awards yesterday was on a deep

investigation of cyber charter by education. is excellent and i highly recommend it to you. there's my sales pitch for that. >> there's recently a good story about the online credit recovery program in florida by heather vogel. so, it's a big issue and certainly can help some students who feel like they need to be home or their parents feel like they need to be home, but there are merit-- major issues about moral hazards and that has to be investigated and reporters had to keep their eye on it. is someone having their sister do the report? it's a hard thing to control this quality control and its credit recovery and is it a moneymaker for for-profit educational management? those are big questions that have to be investigated

carefully. >> we put out a report last year sort of dropping a bomb on cyber charters. as i try to explain-- explain is that like to me like there's the implementation of the thing and there is the tool, so i do believe at some point someone will figure out a way to do this right in a way that benefits the kid who has certain circumstances that it's not being done well right now doesn't mean at some point won't happen, so i think it's important. ..

>> this is such an important issue that frankly in some way i would love to have a whole additional failed to really dive into this across programs, but tell us a little bit. >> we love this idea of transparency and want to have more data. we've done two reports on arizona and where the money is going and how it is used. you can get those on our website at choice.org. about a quarter of the parents are using for multiple uses and the other are for traditional expenditures. the reports are -- told and study. ready to do one of lord as well. it's important organizations like ours try to have a nonpartisan look at the data. it is out there. so the state in arizona cliques where the money goes, how it goes, who uses it, where does it end up. they haven't done a great conversation yet because a lot of this is for special fella needs so how do you -- of the

data is out there. you can look on her website and find out what is happening in arizona. >> i think this is a huge problem. you don't know with my is going. you might be able to say this percentage maybe went to tuition but you don't know what school that is going. i think there was a recent article in arizona that we have no idea whether my is going because the parents type and where they're sending their students, and so one of the examples one of the journal is used was like there are all sorts of different schools where parents spell the names wrong or spell them to play at the department of education was like we are not going to correct that. you had to go through and maybe it's the same school, maybe it's not. maybe kids to graduating, maybe not. maybe they're getting good grades, maybe the students have that slow degrees and maybe some of them, you know any of this information. in fact, in georgia after the past their tuition tax credit program they got a not sure exactly which could the west but they give them the black coal hf

what because you have no idea what schools are getting the money come how many kids are going. if the kids are graduating, what grades they're getting, if they like, just zero information when it is credit. >> lots of kids getting traditional high school diplomas from traditional public schools who cannot read. so the question of whether or not we have been successful and how to prove that and it showed in a transparent ways one w we'e asking across every single kind of school. i just want to point out like we should do better with esa and tax could is can we should do better everywhere. >> a reminder again 33 will have several reporters talking updated and advice for how to commence on the grantor what other interesting piece of this that would in a time to discuss, i wish we did, is the accountability piece. accountability, i feel it's a total different conversation divorce from the public schools and charter school debates about accountability. which is a bit odd.

sometimes your people arguing thinks that in another context the argue exactly the opposite, but one of the important things to ask, besides say what date is required to be submitted and is it any consequence in the public education sector? we talk about what's a consequence if the school doesn't do well by kids. it varies widely. >> there's places like indiana where they grade all the schools including the voucher schools and theoretically at least they can shut down the funding valve. they have in some cases. in cases i read of waivers so that schools got speedy and none of them have been approved. >> okay. more on that later. one last question. >> i'm from the orlando sentinel. my question has to do with accountability for schools that are receiving either the tax credit program money or voucher money. in our state it seems like the

parents are the primary mechanism of accountability for schools. there's also not a lot of public information available about schools that receive this money in terms of how kids performed on standardized tests or who is teaching at the score what kind of qualifications that. i'm interested to be this group take on that issue. >> so given our time what i'm going to say is if you each can boil it down to 30 seconds and then if you want to share at least one or two of the questions that you are suggesting journalists should pursue as they cover choice programs in their communities. >> so that is exactly one of the things we talk about a lot when we talk about choice programs is you don't know any of this information. the idea is the parents will decide. oftentimes the parent on a given proper information. the d.c. voucher program there were two reports about it and they said actually they're not

getting credit information about what's happening in the schools can even minimum requirements about the parents are supposed to know. they are deprived of all this information and yet we're telling them they can just make the decision. plus taxpayers i think should have, you should have a role in saying a public funds should be spent that when you look at discrimination issues which is one of the things i think people should look at really carefully when voucher programs are being passed. a lot of people say parents commit decision for what they want to go to schools that have civil rights protection. well, what about other tax pressing our federal funds should i go to school set can discriminate against is based on religion, disability, lgbt status, all of these things? that's an important thing. you want me to admit other two things? i'll be really fast. when schools are talk of civil rights protection i think it's important to not just a can see if there something like in the d.c. voucher it says you can't discriminate against students based on blah, blah, blah and has a list.

there's athis enforcement mechar this whatsoever. what happens if your discriminate against? there's no what to tell, no one to enforce a come nowhere to go. that's an important thing. it's also important to look at issues about whose choice is this. keep talking of school choice. in private schools they can tell you you can't come because you don't meet, you can't go. you can take an academic test. you don't meet the standards for give a disability, they don't want to serve you. they have a list of things. is it the private schools choice of which kids are taking in with money or is it the parents choice? >> so two quick things, on the latitude i think it's designed a state program that addresses those issues. so i don't know. but on the former, i think again this conversation about the candidly. some people are like choice is accountability. some people are like there's no accountability and less it state accountability. i think both of those are wrong.

the right answer, there is a mix of both of these. accountability frameworks we got under public schools i don't want to sit overweight because i care about this kind of accountability but they emphasize, they deemphasize parents choice as a deciding factor in school quality. this is an emergent conversation. it's important. we really need to have. last thing, on discrimination. i feel like discrimination is the wrong word to describe a very complicated and thought-provoking issue that we need to do with under federal civil rights protection. i went to an all boys episcopalian school on a scholarship when i was growing up in baltimore. do you know what that does? it discriminates against women. we need to have a sophisticated conversation about this, not this like frankly political exhortation that's going on right now that's making it difficult to navigate something that's really important that we

should be really thoughtful about. >> well, i would say it's an actual question to it gets to the core of this issue. when milton friedman and a seminal essay back in 1955 1955 talked about school choice he talked about minimum standards. so this does have to be explored in detail and has to be established state-by-state. those three points i would make, teacher qualifications. apropos minimum standards. what all this teacher qualifications at the school to saving money for tuition tax credit program? second, attrition of students as well as teachers. the third thing is i think for reporters and us talking about this with robert earlier, kevin had a great piece "new york times" back in february on free voucher programs, indiana, ohio and louisiana and how they had not worked out. one thing missing from the analysis that journalists have to underscore is the difference in per-person expenditure. you don't have to be a fan of

vouchers to underscore that the expenditure for example, in d.c. is about 50% at private schools. this does have to be emphasized if you're going to do apples to apples comparisons. >> robert? >> there's only one study the tax credit scholarship program and it's the florida model. it did show some positive results. we do need to have a conversation of transparency still but i wanted to refer you to that study. the three things i would say for journalists, i said before, please try to follow the money. that's really, really important when it goes, how it flows. the second thing, accountability, following up on the comets, let's have an honest dialogue. these are catholics issues, so accountability is a very difficult subject. we have accountability in our traditional schools. we have layered times of the counted on that and it hasn't improved a lot. do we want to boast the same type of candidate on all school types? these are legitimate questions reporters should ask.

what accountability, what constitutes good accountability, what is accountability? the last one went to have a much more nuanced conversation about the issue of civil rights. and schooling. the answer who could enforce the law right now is programs are written so they follow the federal code on discrimination. the federal ocr is when his post it both the state ocr, office of right. our enforcement mechanism. having a conversation is important. not all traditional schools serve all kids. they are required special needs to provide services. that doesn't mean every school does. so we have to get beyond the myths of this conversation and talk about how we are delivering services to children who especially needs and deal with at this clinician issue in a much more nuanced way. >> thank you all so much, thank you panelists for such a nuanced conversation today. really appreciate it. [applause]

>> anyone who came in late, please sign the sign in sheet. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]