will be live from the museum of the american revolution in philadelphia. we'll be joined by top museum staff to learn about exhibits and to answer viewer questions about the american revolution. here's a preview. >> so in this gallery then we kind of unpack the story of the declaration of independence. we have a small theater which explores the actual process of drafting and passing the declaration of independence. we rotate on display, printings of the declaration, we're all familiar with the engrossed copy on parchment that you can see in washington, d.c. at the national archives. but other than members of congress, very few people ever saw that document. most people encountered texts of the declaration, either from newspaper, broundside printings or having it read out loud at the various communities so we retate on display different printings of the declaration. right now we have one of the

rarest actually is a german language printing here in the center. there are only two copies of this july 1776 printing of the declaration in german that had survived. this is been shared with us by gettysburg college in pennsylvania. it's side by side with a salem, massachusetts printing of the declaration. we also explore the promise of equality, so this notion that all men are created equal endowed by their create where certain unalienable rights, that's language that each person has to decide, does that apply to me. so people who wrote those words maybe didn'tly recognize the revolutionary potential in them. actually some people like john adams probably did realize that when you declare that all men are created equal, people might say, well what about women? what about enslaved people? laboring men? we try to explore that story

through this wall here where we look at the status of laboring men, of enslaved people, of women. including abigail adams. >> more exhibits of the museum of the american revolution in philadelphia and the your phone calls about the museum and the revolutionary war on american history tv, starting tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern. >> now education policy and lists on the federal role in education and how that could change, under the trump administration. later, the topic turns to state's accountability. the education writers association hosted this conference.

>> all right. think we're going to get started. we're giving people a little extra time, it's a maze to get here. and we are missing aft president randi winegarden. she's on her way, she'll be joining us as soon as she gets here. good morning, my name is lauren camera, i'm the education reporter at u.s. news. you are at the changing politics of k-12 panel discussion. thank you for being here. ewa has wrangled a pretty awesome team of panelists to discuss and answer all of your pressing politics questions, because there's nothing really going on in d.c. right now, right? i am going to leave the bioto you guys, you can look in the program and see the extended bios, i'll quickly run down the line here, we have lindsay burke, the education policy director for the heritage foundation. which for you outside the

beltway, a conservative think tank here in d.c. chavar jeffreys is the president of democrats for education reform, he's also a civil rights lawyer and next to him is marty west. marty is an education professor at harvard's graduate school of education. he was also previously an education policy adviser to senator lamar alexander, the republican from tennessee, the chairman of the senate education committee. a quick housekeeping note. this is one of the first panels of ewa so please tweet using hashtag #ewa17, to you and your panelists everything is on the record. so it's fair game. a little warning. we want to you make news. so this is also being livestreamed on periscope. so welcome for the periscope viewers. because we have such a big task ahead of us today, we want to provide lots of time for your

questions. we are going to forgo opening remarks from the panelists and just sort of dive right into this. but i wanted to take a minute to set the scene that we're currently in. so i'll just ask six months ago, how many of you guys thought we would be in this politics and education policy position we are in today? raise your hands. no? no one? really? so the collective "we" kind of missed the ball on this. i don't think many of us expected to have a president trump. maybe we expected that a republican would be in the white house, but maybe not this republican. he's certainly doing things a little differently as he has pledged to do. we are transitioning from an administration that really prioritized education, right from the get-go, really, with

race to the top, supercharging the school improvement grant, expanding the office for civil rights. pushing for universal k-12. so on and so forth. and now we have an administration that is so far has a singular agenda it seems of school choice and is focusing a lot on rolling back the role of the federal government in undoing a lot of these obama-era initiatives. his recent budget proposal as i'm sure you all know proposed to slash $9 billion from federal education programs and eliminate dozens, including things like teacher preparation and after-school programs. we will get to all of that. we have an education secretary, who has proven controversial so far. whose confirmation required an unprecedented tiebreaking vote from vice president mike pence. she has really gone through the

wringer in terms of the last few months, been blocked by protesters trying to enter public schools. has been booed, giving a commencement speech at bassoon. similarly to trump, her main focus has been school choice, including private school vouchers. and we will dig into this as well. this is all happening of course against the backdrop of states implementing the e.s.s.o. returns a lot of the decision-making power to state and local school districts. the law was crafted with this kumbayah moment of bipartisanship in congress. bipartisanship that seems to no longer really exist. we will talk about that as well. and despite republicans controlling both chambers of congress, as well as the white house, it's unclear whether any type of education legislation or

any legislation, major legislation is going to be able to move given some of the interparties fighting. we will get to that as well. where does this all leave us? a lot to cover. where does it leave the education reform movement. teachers unions, should we expect any movement on education legislation. what's to become of the office for civil rights. most importantly, what should we all be paying attention to as we go back home and cover our education beat i. going to dive right into it. please be thinking we're going to save 20 minutes at the end for all of you guys. i want to start off and let's talk about school choice. at the top of everyone's agenda. lindsay you are from the heritage foundation. a big proponent of school of choice, the whole gamut, education savings accounts, vouchers, tax credit scholarships. some people in this room might be interested or not expecting

the fact that you don't really want the trump administration going there. so if you can talk a little bit about that, where you come from there and give us a little idea of what states are doing interesting things and what we should be paying attention to. >> i want to thank everyone for being here. it's nice to be here. thanks to ewa for having me. i think we've got a great panel. on the school choice front, you totally nailed it. we are, i have been a huge proponent of school choice, heritage has long been a huge proponent of school choice, it is our specialiperspective is ae above. charter schools, voucher options, tuition tax credit scholarships, you mentioned the new cool kid on the block, education savings accounts, which is where i really think the education choice movement is going right now. we see sort of an all of the above approach.

any option that ep able as parent to select a school that fits well with the needs of their child. i think is a good option. having said that and prefacing this with the fact that i spend my waking hours thinking about how to expand school choice, is it appropriate for the federal government to be engaged in a large scale push via a new national program and i think that's really key is whether or not it's a new program. i think we have a fair amount to risk by engaging in a new large scale federal program. states are doing it on their own already. we're seeing state after state, year after year, adopt new education choice options. every legislative session, we see more and more states add school choice. and then there's the practical matter that we're all aware of, that 90% of all education funding is state and local so practically speaking that's where the dollars are.

unless you were to do a new program, which is what i worry about a little bit. if we're establishing a new program, it's hard to reconcile the creation of a new program with reducing federal intervehicles and education. the other perspective that i hold, that at least from the conservative perspective, really wanting to advance these two notions in tandem. limiting federal intervention and advancing education choice for parents and their children. so starting a national program gets a little problematic. it continues to solidify significantly high levels of federal intervention. and local school policies. and come have some unintended consequences down the road. i think we'll get into this probably a little later. but the word on the street is maybe it's a federal tax credit approach that might be under consideration. and we can talk about this. but i think every opportunity to make this a decision with what

that program looks like it, the federal government would likely regulate it and what does the impact on the larger school choice program be down the road, the federal normative idea of what a school choice program looks like. so i think you know, the view isn't worth the hype on the federal school choice question. >> marty, i want to thank you about the viability of this. in congress. whether this is politically possible. we heard president trump pledge on the campaign trail to direct $20 billion in federal spending towards this big umbrella of school choice. we saw in the budget, a $1 billion boost for title i, for school districts that promised to allow those dollars to follow the student to the school of their choice. also a $250 million private school voucher program. which we really don't know how it would be structured. as lindsay mentioned, potentially tax credit scholarship down the road.

how does this work in congress? what should we be watching for. is it even a reality? >> so republicans now control both thes house and the senate and the presidency, i think that led a lot of people to expect that it would be politically very easy to push major school choice agenda from washington. lindsay didn't mention heritage that is located 73 feet from the senate. that works very hard advocating for its position in congress and they've been very effective and there's not overwhelming republican support for major federal efforts to expand school choice from washington. because of concerns for that that means for the federal role. that's why we've seen in the past, the house often being reluctant to even bring up for a vote, proposals to allow title i dollars to follow students of their choice, they don't want to

expose the fact that there's not actually strong support for that in the republican caucus. so that creates obstacles in an administration that's try to take advantage of its control of the federal government to advance school choice proposals. as you mentioned a few ideas. they're all relatively small hp ball ideas. the within a.s.a., there's this weighted student funding pilot program. it would allow 50 districts, up to 50 districts to use funding systems to combine federal, state and local funds and allow the funds to follow the children to the public school this they attend. the trump administration apparently seems to want to incentivizing participation that and adding $half a billion to that and encouraging states to

participate. but you know, even that is not necessarily a school choice program. it's really a way to try to model out a different way for administratoring federal aid programs, that is more compatible with school choice, but doesn't go much beyond that. so i really think that -- there's a, an uphill battle facing a lot of these proposals. >> and so far we've heard a lot about empowering states to make these decisions on their own and not relying the federal government to do that for them. it is a huge theme for this administration. you're going to see it more and more, especially as we mentioned in the introduction amid the backdrop of esa, which shifts a lot of power back to states and local districts. and shivara, i wanted to ask you

to talk about what you've seen in the terms of the rupp-up to how the stakes are getting higher at the state level, the local school district level. we're on the heels of this epic campaign spending of the l.a. school board. what should we be as reporters, local school district reporters thinking about as some of that turns over to you know, their responsibility versus the federal government's? very happy to be here. the reporters should focus on the real core issues and the core work of public scoots, you know obviously choice conversation is relevant and is significant. but it deal with a relatively small number of kids in terms of the overall scheme of things. particularly outside of the charter school sector.

the states implement esa plans, what are the standards that states are going to choose in terms of when they expect of kids. are those standards aligned with insures that kipds are college and career ready are those standards in line with the ongoing shifts in the labor market. which is changing at a rapid rate homt are school districts, and the districts hold accountable each child. we've had a history, this is where more sub stapgs, people like me would support a federal insure basic equity. where kids generally haven't met those stan rds, low-income kids, kids much color. what are states going to do to

hold districts so all children can learn. schools are consistently not meeting benchmarks or individual disaggregated of kids aren't meeting those benchmarks bharks are states going to do? just put up a letter that this school is a c or d, or make sure you're doing tangible to make sure those young people have an opportunity to fulfill their potential. how are states going to make sure it has a sufficient number of highly qualified teacher in those classrooms. >> we do lot of work. to that educators can hit the ground running from day one when they hit the classroom. how are states going about insuring that they have a strong supply of teachers and school leaders? higher end, what are states

doing to make sure that universities in their states are admitting meaningful numbers of pell grant-eligible kids, we have many universities -- i'm talking about kids in similar situations, academic perhaps, they would rather admit an upper-income kid. kids with the same academic parole file. because the state universities are under significant revenue pressure. what are states going to do to make sure that, our college and diversity is going to be open to all. what kind ever substantial levels. at the end of the day we have 400,000 kids in this country who attend voucher skills, over 3 million who attend public charter schools and over 350

million. we choice through the public education system. through public charter schools, there's a very strong track result of results there. and you also have built-in mechanisms to inchur capacities that some things those people lagss of kids. >> core bread and butter work. we think it's very important not to lose track of that. because boss kids in troy's programs. he they'll have the capacity to enter you know public universities at meaningful levels, as well as the broad masses of kids. we have so much day to day kind of nuts and bolts nitty-gritty work, we can't afford to lose track of that. >> is it more important to cover local school board elections.

focusing on the federal government it's frying to rewrite no child left behind. we have since done that the tilt-a-whirl is shifting back towards state and local school districts. what pointers can you guys give us for vetting candidates that we might see domg up. >> i'll totally not answer that question. but telling you if i'm a rother, what savatt said is right, there's 400,000 kids in private tuition vouchers so 400,000 kids today. so we have seen several states adopt effectively universal options. so if you look at nevada, there are programs currently, an enjunction legal battle right now. they're working out some financing. if that all works itself out. 473,000 kids in nevada will be

eligible for an education savings account this fall. not that they'll all take it up, but eligibility will be 473,000 skids for an esa. arizona just took their education savings account universal. it happened three weeks ago, there's still an aggregate cap on the number of kids who can participate. but eligibility is universal in arizona, that's the trend that we're seeing. states adopt, education savings accounts now primarily. and families love them. and states move to make them more universally available. so yes, you know you can focus on and it's important to focus on school board elections and mayoral races and all that good stuff. but we are, i think, genuinely getting to a tipping point. particularly if nevada works itself out. if we see arizona continue to push its texas finally gets a school choice program in place. i really think that we will be at a tipping point where the focus is going to be on kids who are exercising private school

choice. and can i add one other thing on the prior question. not to sound completely like a nay-sayer on the federal question. there are things that the federal government can and should do. on school choice. and absolute first thing that they should do is look at the 1.3 billion dollar impact aid program and instead of just sending it to districts to give it instead to military-connected children. children of military families, service members. give to them in the form of an education savings account. immediately we're talking about roughly about 800,000 kids who would immediately be eligible to exercise school choice, if we made impact aid and esa system instead. so choice for military families. and desperate need of choice for children who are relegated to underperformed bureau of indian affairs schools. make d.c. an all-choice district there are things that the federal government can do that are completely appropriate that respect federalism and that

would do a lot of good for a lot of kids. i'll sort of embrace the premise of your question which is should we be focusing mainly on the state and local level. i would say that's where the action always is for american education. that would certainly be the case of regardless of who entered office and that's because esa even more than previously really empowered states to make those decisions. what should we be looking at, i think shavar highlighted the fact that states are in the process of laying out their plans for implementing the accountability of esa. i would say there's only so much we can learn from the plan stage. the action will be when this comes to how the plans are implemented. in particular what's done in schools that are identified as underperforming. the federal government says nothing except that you need to take evidence-based actions to improve the bottom 5% of schools at this point. so really, power is in the hands

of states and school districts to make those decisions. we have dozens of states that are in the process in response to obama administration policies of implementing teacher evaluation systems, it will be interesting to see what decisions they make going forward about whether to continue with that process. or whether to develop alternatives, whether to take on teacher tenure policies and the like and the relevant battles over funding are also at the state level. we get worked up about proposed $9 billion in cuts to federal aid, title ii, title iv. it's large as a percentage of federal aid. but federal aid is only about 10% of total funding. that means that even a substantial cut to federal aid doesn't make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things so that's where the action is when it comes to funding as well. so it will be interesting to see the extent to which those state and local races do become nationalized. so there was cleelly an effort

to do that in l.a. recently. to sort of attack the reformist school board candidates who were supportive of expansion of reformist school board candidates who were supportive of expansion of charter schools to betsy devos, to trump himself. there is an effort to do that in montana. it doesn't seem that those efforts have gained a lot of traction at this point but it's clearly something that opponents of the policies that the trump administration has embraced will try to use. >> let's talk a little bit for a second about the people who are still in congress who have the decision-making authority over education issues. i am thinking of lamar alexander, congresswoman virginia fox, luke messer. i would have said a few months ago senator patty murray of washington, but it seems like there has been a bit of a

fracture in the bipartisanship that usually comes with education issues. where do you guys see them standing on moving education legislation through the pipeline? i am thinking maybe a career tech ed. there is some bipartisanship around that. what is realistic for us to expect? anyone can take that. >> i'll start. i think that there is -- i would have said pre-esa the opportunity was limited. i was surprised that esa made it through and was signed into law. it will be interesting to see if something like a federal tax credit. new national federal tax credit were to move forward. are there folks who don't play in the ed space who -- within the ed space we are not considering. there is a push on the part of

the administration, i think correctly, to streamline the tax code, to lower rates. dos that run into a push for a new federal tax credit scholarship which could go in the opposite direction from a tax policy perspective. i say that only to say there will be interesting dynamics that operate outside of the pure education space when it comes to something like a federal tax credit scholarship program. i think at this point it is anybody's game. hea is up for re-authorization. we could see movement in that direction. the calendar is pretty truncated already for congress over the summer and into the fall. not super optimistic we'll see a lot of action. >> do you think there is any alignment from senator alexander and some of the republicans with the agenda of secretary devos, the trump administration in general? >> i was surprised by the fact that senator alexander made a point of saying the last time he checked it was congress that

appropriated funds, that the president just proposes. >> a little shot over the bow. >> that suggested to me that he was signalling that he wasn't necessarily supportive of everything that they were trying to do. my sense is that senator alexander in particular feels as if they just worked very hard to establish a new consensus on the federal role that was operationalized through the every student succeeds act. that that bill set authorization levels for programs that they want to see roughly followed, because that was part of the compromise that was made to generate that -- support for that legislation. so, even setting aside the fact that there is strong support from the education establishment for the continuation of those formula funds, i -- i think just the fact that we just did this deal means that there is not much appetite for moving

forward. you mentioned things like perkins, which is a patrisepara piece of legislation where there may be opportunities to try to carve out something of a consensus. i don't actually see a set of ideas in that space that people are particularly excited about when it comes to the federal role. where you are more likely to see potential for bipartisanship in congressional action would be with respect to the higher education act where i think there is a set of ideas that -- related to simplifying federal financial aid, establishing some form of accountability for schools for their students' success in repaying federal loans that provide sort of seeds of potential collaboration. but beyond that, i don't see much. and, again, to go back to your original question, i don't see an immediate embrace from the key republicans in congress of everything the trump administration has been talking

about. >> can i jump in one second. if our friends in congress were serious will limiting federal intervention which is what they sold esa on. they said it restores state and local control. we were concerned it didn't go far enough. if it did that, i think we'd have seen some reductions in spending but we didn't. esa spends roughly 24 billion and clb spent roughly $24 billion. the budget cutting $9.2 billion. a 13% reduction. it was reported to be the largest single year percentage reduction since reagan's '83 budget. that's getting serious, towards a first step of trimming federal spending and federal programs is a necessary condition for restoring steak and local control. >> shavar, as education reporters, should some of these

cuts come to light, what should we look for, how should we be looking to portray how that is impacting teachers, students, schools? what do you think some of the first things are repercussions we'll see if some of the cuts come to light? >> i think reporters should follow the money and track the impact for kids. $10 billion, that's cut from everything from teacher prep to college aid for young people. to after-school programs for young people. that's before you get to some of the other cuts in this budget in terms of health care access, access to food security, in terms of access to job training programs. it's going to have a very clear impact on young people. it's going to have a clear impact on families in communities, on the capacity of young people to be educated and prepared for the global economy. it's problematic that at a time in which the labor market is

undergoing rapid disruptions where, you know, folks expect millions of jobs to be auto mated out of existence in the next several years that we have an administration that thinks it's smart to disinvest in education and in terms of our young people's ability to access college and disinvest in terms of how we prepare our teachers and people for this modern economy. i encourage reporters to follow the money. while we have these idealogical conversations about the role of government and these more abstracted debates about philosophies of what the government should or shouldn't be doing, i encourage reporters to follow the facts. these policy choices that are being made both in washington as well as at state capitals and local school districts will have a clear and specific impact on young people. i am from north new jersey. i grew up in a tough community. we depended on these programs.

i spent most of my childhood in the boys and girls club because people were dealing crack in the neighborhood and that program was financed by some of these investments. when i went to college i didn't know what pell was but i went to the financial aid office and said somebody named pell is going to help you. i went to law school. i had perkins. on and on. my family depended on public access to health care when i was sick as a young person. we had government cheese. the big block of government cheese they would give you. we could use private-public partnership to get better quality food. but my point is this is going to have a specific, tangible impact on kids, families, communities. i encourage reporters to do what i think reporters do at their best which is tell these stories. unfortunately, you know, part of what concerns me is that these

abstracted conversations can lose sight of the tangible impact it's going to have on real people. >> i agree, right. follow the impact. if we look at impacts we know from random assignment evaluations of kids participating in a 21st century learning centers program it hasn't had an impact. >> that's not true. >> it is true. we haven't seen the impact that was said we would see based on the experimental evidence that's out there. the c.i.g. program. it was written about the biggest $7 billion waste. if we're serious about following impacts we have all the data, all of the evidence that shows that these programs when operated at the federal level are not working for kids. it's much better to situate programs and spending closer to the people they affect than being operated by far-off people here in washington who have never met those kids. >> those are great talking points, but i can point to all types of programs. are these programs perfect?

of course not. is any program perfect? of course not. are there inefficiencies in many of these investments? sure. we can point to programs from youth build, which has turned the lives of, you know, tens of thousands of young people who are over age and undercredited who have gotten some of these investments. comparable programs. if you are committed to it, what you don't do is cut it entirely and eliminate it. you figure out a way to make the investments and make sure the investments generate the result. the idea of cutting and eliminating and how that magically creates better outcomes i think is illogical and doesn't make sense. >> so moving from the money to maybe something a little more abstract. i wanted to get to really quickly before we open it up for questions -- this will be the last one i ask -- about what you see for the future for the office of civil rights. there have been efforts on the trump administration to curtail

the -- some of the obama era initiatives put in place through the office of civil rights, the trump signed an executive order recently tasking the department of education to examine places that it is overreaching and maybe try to pull back a little bit on that. there has been a lot of i think concern among civil rights advocates about the future of the office for civil rights and how it will be monitoring or its ability to continue to monitor some of the issues we see popping up in states. this can go to anyone. what should we be looking for? >> the office of civil rights is something of a political football in the sense that its enforcement stance tends to switch depending upon which party is in control. there is certainly not going to be an exception to that pattern right now. the obama administration -- under the obama administration, the office of civil rights took

a stepped up approach to monitoring and enforcing civil rights protections. what that meant in practice was issuing guidance, non-regulatory guidance essentially in the form of dear colleague letters putting districts on notice that in two areas in particular, allocation of resources and discipline rates -- that if it were shown that there were disproportionality between students of different racial, ethnic backgrounds or gender, that the district would be at risk of being found at fault of civil rights laws. so the key question is -- or the key thing to look for is whether the trump administration rescinds that guidance, which is something it can do overnight without a notice and comment process at all. those who argue that they should

do that worry that, in particular, the policies around discipline have caused districts to be overly cautious in how they handle student behavior problems, that this has unintended consequences for all students, including those who sort of are high achievers, not involved in disciplinary issues. that's an ongoing debate. it's interesting that they have not taken the step of doing that given that it is something that they could do overnight. and it will be interesting to see how that unfolds. >> not only should reporters look at the letters in terms of the guidance that ocr provides the states but actually look at enforcement actions. we' we've seen some rescinding of guidance in terms of the way lgbtq children should be treated in bathroom access. for choice programs, they

shouldn't be able to treat all children equally. when you have an administration committed to civil rights we have seen significant enforcement actions across a gamut of civil rights protections from special ed access to the extent to certain populations of kids being treated differently based upon race, gender or other status base of decision-making. it's really what actions are being taken. we have seen jeff sessions say that this administration will be significantly less committed to civil rights. this is bound up in a lot of the states' rights language. it's never been good for people of color, low income people, for immigrants, when the federal government steps back from civil rights. most of the federal laws that the department of ed is here to enforce are really civil rights era laws because states and localities were giving short

shrift to at-risk children. when they tended to be immigrants or people of color it was unsurprising that certain populations of kids were more likely to be classified as having a behavioral disability, for example, we see a lot of black boys have that, more likely to be suspended. the school to prison pipeline is rooted in discriminatory disciplinary practices. we saw all sorts of states and localities. that's why we had a firm hand around account ability. didn't do much at all as low income children were languishing in underperforming school. it's not the writing and rescinding of letters, it's what enforcement actions are being taken. because there is not a private right of action, that means you need the feds and ocr -- the point of ocr is to enforce the civil rights protections of young people. if an administration is not committed to that, and we see in that administration oftentimes they put people in charge of

departments that they don't believe in, right? and then -- then we shouldn't be surprised that if the people don't believe in it they're not going to enforce the norms that motivates these very departments in the first place. i think this administration is going to be a disaster on civil rights. they've made that very clear. i won't mince words about that. facts are facts. jeff sessions just simply said in the last week that there is going to be a significant roll-back in terms of civil rights protections. he has already said -- which is going to affect these kids and families. non-violent drug offenses should be prosecuted back in the ways in which they were done in the war on drugs era. that will impact these kids and their families and communities. i encourage reporters to follow the impact of this. right. tell these stories. there will be real people you can name, real families you can name. you can talk about how they're hit by this because that's my concern, that in many of these conversations we lose sight of the regular people who are

struggling already and who are -- of all backgrounds, of all colors, of all ethnic groups, who are definitely afraid of what's going to happen to their kids and their stories are not being heard. >> the floor is yours. there are two microphones here. feel free to come up, ask your questions. state your name. tell us who you write for, where you are from, so we can give some good, educated answers for you. please ask a question. >> this is a question for lindsey. [ inadequate audio ] [ inaudible speaker ] >> we did just see a new, as you

mentioned, random assignment evaluation of the d.c. opportunity scholarship program which is a voucher program here in the district. i want to say roughly 1100 kids or so are in the program today. it has been around since 2003. it did find that after one year of being in the program that kids had -- did worse i think it was on reading achievement than math achievement. math achievement wasn't significant. a couple of cautions about that. not dismissing it. but it is after one year. we have much more evidence that those kids who persist through the program have graduation rates that are 21 percentage points higher than the control group. if you look at the control group in the study, 52% of the kids in the control group ended up finding their way to private schools anyway. so there were some pretty significant contamination in the control group. we also have sort of overall competitive effects. we've seen d.c. public schools improving over time as well,

which may capture some of the improvements. on the broader question about the impacts, we now have 11 gold standard random assignment evaluations of school choice programs, vouchers and tax credits that finds statistically significant improvements on academic achievement. as a result of participating in a school choice program. we know that clearly because of the study design. three programs that we have find null effects. as you mentioned, three now find negative effects. the one you just mentioned dcosp. and the other two are -- they're relatively new, about a year old, and both out of louisiana. we could do an entire panel on louisiana. >> i'll interrupt you to say tomorrow there is an awesome school choice panel. you should all go to that. this will be the meat of it. >> it's just -- many of us have argued that those two evaluations that found negative impacts out of louisiana. louisiana runs a uniquely

prescripti prescriptive regulatory environment on their voucher program. kids that accept a voucher have to take the state test. only a third of private schools participate. those third experienced some significant attrition before entering the program, suggesting that maybe they were struggling schools prior to program entry, which could explain the negative effects that we found. not to talk them away, but some caveats on the three negatives. >> did you have -- >> i will be brief. a couple points on the d.c. evaluation. i am not worried about the fact that some of the control group kids ended up in private schools because the evaluation can take that into account. but it -- most of the control group ended up in charter schools. and that actually is the comparison that's being made. another interesting thing is that they asked the schools how much time they spend on various subjects. lindsey mentioned there were

negative effects on students' reading achievement. if you looked at how much time the schools were spending on reading it was far higher in the control group schools that were charter and district schools than in the private schools. so the question becomes, what are the private schools using that other time for. is it to offer additional coverage of other subjects that go untested in the evaluation. i think we need to be very cautious about rushing to conclusions based on evaluations of choice programs very early on after one year. and we need to look at the bigger picture. >> trish. >> is this -- tricia crane from alabama media group. i have a question about special education because that's something that i cover and look at a lot in alabama. special education, like it or not, is a federal program. that's the way it is. what do you see the role -- we batted around more funding for special education, federal government has never stepped up and funded the full 40%.

it's very expensive. i know in alabama they have looked at esas as a way to start of avoid this idea that they have to provide special education. all these school choice initiatives seem to avoid the issue of providing special education. anybody can take this. i am interested in shavar's take on special education as a federal sort of function. >> i think that's critical. again, i.d.a. is another civil rights era law designed to make sure all kids receive a public education. even the public charter school sector, there has been some struggle to make sure that that right is vindicated. there has also been a lot of progress. many public charter schools have done a strong job. some have not. i was involved in a lawsuit against new york public schools

for ten years who had a special monitor to monitor the way the traditional public school in new york was delivering special ed because there are a lot of issues there. we'd say that any school with a public dollar has to serve all kids, period. period. so whether you are a public charter school, any other iteration of school. if you are going to receive a public dollar, you have to serve all children. and part of the federal role in partnership with states and school districts is to have accountability to make sure that is happening. there are a lot of levers to ensure it happens. the worst is a lawsuit. because that means years after the kid didn't receiving what they're supposed to receive people step in and intervene. that's something every public school wrestles with. as we talk about the new providers coming into the choice programs, that obligation has to be there. it's disappointing in the context of kids who may be lgbtq accessing a public education.

some think schools that receive a public dollar can say we're not going to serve you. perhaps the same thing with special needs. we don't want to serve you. we would strongly disagree to that. that's contrary to what we think public education would mean. if you get a public dollar, you serve every baby through the dollar. period. you have a cap. there can be lotteries of randomized selections. you can't pick and choose based upon a child's identity or based upon whether a child has a special need who you're going to serve. that's where we'd come from on that. >> one point. the standard that shavar articulated, any school receiving public dollars needs to receive all kids is not one we hold public schools to. we hold school districts responsible for serving students with disabilities but we don't say each individual campus needs to be prepared to serve every learner regardless of his or her needs. sometimes districts make provision for the students'

needs by sending them to a private school. so i think there are real questions about the ability of school choice programs that are not specifically designed for students with disabilities to serve those students well. they need to be specifically designed with funding levels that make it feasible for them to find other alternatives. i think we need to be fair when we're setting up the standards that we hold schools participating in choice programs, whether they be private or charter schools, to. >> they can't deny admission in the first instance. the kid can come in, you go through the cst process. >> you are making the -- my apologies for my flight being late. you are making the distinction between the underlying distinction here is an unregulated market that can do anything it wants to do versus a public obligation. and so, yes, in terms of special ed, think about it. we never got enough money, yet

there is still a public obligation and the buck stops with the public school district, regardless, and trying to figure out how to do it even if it means taxing its inhabitants more. yet the so-called choice programs can do whatever they want kind of like, you know, swimming, whichever way they want to swim. and i think that long term, and janet and others were telling me what the discussion was here, long term, the -- administration is, is public education a public good anymore. if foundational to a democracy, or is it a commodity that can be bought and sold in an unregulated market. and long term, that is the debate that's going to happen in the next few years. that's the debate that jonah and i tried to address in our op-ed. but that's the debate that's going to happen. special ed is a perfect example.

>> i wanted to get your take on a couple of things. now that you're here i'm going to steal the floor back. you recently toured a rural public school with secretary devos. right. >> i would love to hear whether you had any insightful takeaways from that. you are now apparently -- >> i have probably spent more time with her than any reporter in the room collectively. >> that's probably fair. >> of every reporter here, i have probably spent more time -- >> you were going to ten tour a school of choice with secretary devos. has that been scheduled?

>>. anyone else have a question? i have lots of them. i can keep going. [ inaudible speaker ] >> is that demoralizing to traditional schools? refreshing candor or something in between? >> i am not familiar with that one. >> in the last two days, the school itself -- monday or tuesday -- what is today? today is witness. tuesday. people fought back and were lived because the -- looking at what the problems are in public

education and how to solve them is a legitimate exercise. but calling all of public education a dead end or actually calling that school, which as i understand it, we don't represent them, as i understand it, has done a whole bunch of other things since that student was there and not actually trying to figure that out before she just branded it a -- you know, in a -- in a demoralizing way is not what the secretary of education should be doing. raising issues. what we are seeing now is that issues that are -- should be legitimately raised are being used as a pre-text to get rid of public education. it goes back to the original piece i said, which is, is this the great equalizer. knowing full well we have problems that have to be solved. or are we like what the republicans just did with health

care, are we going to actually make this an unregulated market and so the kids who actually need the most will never get it. and that is the debate in front of america right now, and betsy devos is idealogically on the side of unregulated markets. >> the kids who aren't getting it now are the kids who are trapped in district schools who are assigned to those schools based on where their parents can afford to buy a home. that is not serving low income children in particular. i don't think anyone is saying abolish public education spending. all i am saying at least is that the public dollars we are spending, instead of sending them to institutions separate the financing from delivery of service. allow the dollars to follow children to whatever option meets their unique learning needs. >> if that -- so the two nations that have done that -- chile and

sweden, have found that to be a terrible exercise, and kids have actually been very disserved. in sweden they are trying to change that system now because what has happened in sweden is that the scores have gone downhill. not to say that there are things that we have to do to change education. but what devos is doing with the federal dollars is tait is not saying lift up some experiments and provide more funding. what she is doing is what she did in michigan, which is taking funding that is absolutely essential, like where i disagree with you lindsey is the funding for 21st schools in mcdowell county, west virginia, has turned around the school that has 100% poverty. if you went with me to that school, you would change your mind about 21st century schools. the levels of kids' success in math, in english, is remarkable,

in a place that is devastated by poverty. >> can i just say one more thing. if we're a talking about low scores, look at how our u.s. education system, the public system performs internationally. internationally we're still in the middle of the pack. we have not improved outcomes for disadvantaged kids. grad rates are hovering where they've been for decades. >> the last results will tell you. oecd will tell you, if you actually started separating out social economic issues in the places that, like massachusetts, that have worked on this for several years without having the reform of the moment and actually really focuses on equity, they are at the top of the pack. >> next question. >> hi. thanks for doing the panel. leslie brody. "wall street journal." not to take on lindsey, but i am curious what your thoughts would be on that interchange last week where the secretary was asked to say when she thought it was appropriate for the federal

government to step in if a school taking vouchers discriminated against a child with -- for sexual orientation, religion or racial background. and i thought that interchange was a little murky because she did say, well, the office of civil rights still applies. what specifically would you say about the federal's role in, you know, preventing discrimination with a voucher school? >> we have federal civil rights laws in place. beyond that, i think this is the great thing about school choice. we value pluralism. schools can be clear up front about their priorities, beliefs, expectations, what they teach, and parents have the option to choose those schools. we have to respect freedom, but we have to respect freedom of belief, freedom of religion. across the board. that means the freedom for a private religious organization to operate according to their values and beliefs, that goes

for private schools as well. federal civil rights laws are in place but beyond that we have to respect the schools for religious organizations to operate according to their values and beliefs. >> could you be more specific. what about a racial discrimination in a voucher school. >> that's happened. federal civil rights laws. >> in some people's religious beliefs they believe black people were cursed by him. it's true. some people read the christian bible and think to be gay or lesbian is problematic and they don't want to serve that kid. some people say black people were cursed by the ha middic curse. so maybe they can discriminate too then. i think sometimes some of these conversations get to the extremes. i think there is a middle ground where there is a strong bipartisan consensus between some of the things that randi and lindsey talked about. you can have choice and

accountability. that's what the charter framework is about. in new jersey, the middle class folks moved out over the lost 30 years. they moved to the suburbs looking for better schools. what was left behind were kids in school systems that were for many decades not operating at a high level. that does not mean you need unregulated markets where private actors can discriminate and say they're not going to serve special ed kids or based on sexual orientation or we're not going to have meaningful accountability. that's where president obama and some on the center right have aligned around for decades. what i want to emphasize is that that is the space where i think, one, there are amazing results in terms of that working for kids. you have