Transcripts For CSPAN2 Charter Schools In The Developing Countries 20170706

[inaudible conversations] thank you for coming today. Im an Education Research fellow here at the American Enterprise institute. Id like to thank everyone who is joining us here today. Also those who are joining online stream and for our friends watching on cspan. Our event today, Charter Schools in the developing of the world with a keynote from Liberia Education minister. George k. Warner. We have a simple program. After a few introductory remarks, we are going to have a brief video. We are going to give you a couple of those. The root of todays conversations about schools in liberia. Then well turn it over to minister warner and hes going to get his keynote address. Following that, a fantastic panel today with scott andrew from democracy builders, any black firm results from development and Alessandro Favero from the International Finance corporation. I will introduce them in detail when the panel joins me appear. We will have about 45 minutes of q a time with opportunities for the audience to join as well. For those following on social media, we have the hashtag or event. Hashtag developing world charters. The questions i will be checking on during the q a. The event again is being live streamed and the full video will be posted online after we conclude todays event. Of course we are here today to hear from minister warner about liberias bold approach for school reform. But first, i want to give a little bit of context for those who dont dirty habit. It. Liberia is a west african nation founded by the United States, primarily in the 1800s. Over the past decade, liberia has seen the 1980s saw multiple coup detats in sort of a cycle of violence and unrest that culminated in 1989 in the first of two civil wars that lasted for 14 years with hundreds of thousands of casualties and more than 1. 3 liberians displaced. The country is stabilized in 2003 to some degree and further in 2006 with the election of president alan johnson for a former World Bank Economist and eventual Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Under president s to leave, liberia continue to stabilize democrat institutions with difficult works in stability. In 2014, the Ebola Outbreak killing thousands of liberians and of course a difficult emergency in destabilizing event for the country, which has come out to build Economic Growth and institutions with poverty and strengthening an Education System that were shattered. For the better part of a year. On many educational measures, liberia lags behind other african countries with low levels of Primary School completion low literacy. An illustrative statistic in 2013, nearly 25,000 student took the university of liberia Entrance Exam and no one passed. This led the president to call the Education System generally and she charged Education Minister George Warner to stay with us with a new course for Liberia Education. Mr. Warner has taken up the challenge and in 2016 he announced a bold plan to Partnership Schools for liberia programs in which School Operators around 93 Primary Schools partially funded by the government. The program is most zoo has drawn detractors. The consequences of Public School privatization and supporters cite the need for innovative change in a Failing School system. In 201617 school year, 28,000 attended 93 psl schools. Partnership schools for liberia schools run by international providers. These educational reforms come at a time of Major Political change. In october, liberia will elect a new legislature and president in the first democratic transfer of power from 1944. This will be a test of liberias Young Democratic institutions and with the new administration on the horizon and reforms underway, liberia and its School Reforms face both great change in great opportunity. A picture is as good as a thousand words. Before you bring up mr. Warner to the podium, we have the context of the psl reforms. All right. I hope that short video gives you some view on liberia schools. I would like to invite Education Minister George Warner to go with his keynote previously thought at the High School Policy levels produced by a school general in 2015. He currently cochairs liberias Health Workforce Development Tax worth. Join me in welcoming the minister. [laughter] thank you for the kind introduction and thank you to aei for welcoming us here. I am here today to discuss liberias experience with Publicprivate Partnerships in education. First, let me say that im honored to be here on behalf of the liberian government and our president. As most of you know, president s are they became the first democratically elected female president in africa in 2005. That election was also another first for liberia. It was the first president ial election since the rule in a devastating conflicts that have crippled our country and took 200,000 lines. President sir leaf will be leaving office having served two terms. All respecting constitutional term limit marked another important milestone that should not be overlooked. The first transfer of power in my country since 1944 and will consolidate our postwar democracy. After the president ial campaign got a taste in just a few months time, i am struck by just how far we have come. When you pick up the newspaper and turn on the radio in liberia, you will see and hear evidence the spirits of political debate. The engage civil society. This is an achievement we should not take for granted. So i must say occasionally i remind myself that when i am one of the last in the line of fire of criticism, beyond our democratic achievement over the past decade, liberia has emerged as a postconflict success story. Innovations in Publicprivate Partnership has been introduced and created new pop forms of collaboration in health care, human and institutional capacity, full answer p. , infrastructure and education. We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States for serving along the journey. Through both democratic and republican administrations, through war and the return of peace and most recently to the fight against ebola, the United States has been an essential partner. I want to thank the American People for your report. I want to thank all who contributed in my country. I know i speak on behalf of not only the liberian government, but the liberian people when i say we look forward to continuing the Partnership Long into the future. When you look at the democratic trends not just in liberia, but across the continent of africa, it becomes clear why the National Partnership and collaboration are more important than ever before. Today there are 420 million africans between the ages of 15 and 35. That number is expected to nearly double to over 830 million by 2015. This can either be a Demographic Dividend with the potential to transform or it can be a ticking timebomb, which depends on when being, education. 10 to 12 million African Youth currently entered the workforce every year, many without the need to succeed in finding meaningful employment. Our educational systems are failing to prepare children for the jobs of yesterday, let alone the jobs of tomorrow. Too many of our young people have a hopeless future at home and are fleeing the continent and risking to find opportunities abroad. At the same time, countries across the continent that increased demand not only on our educational system, but also health care and social services. The budget has stretched to the breaking point. In this context, African Leaders need to think outside the box and find innovative solutions. In liberia, this is what we have done. We are educating the first generation of liberian children who have not known war or conflict. They are too young to have experienced the days when children, rather than going to school are recruited and tore our country apart. The dreams and aspirations that the new generation in our hand. It is our responsibility to ensure that they have opportunity to succeed. That responsibility was front and center in my mind when i was appointed Education Minister by president sirleaf in june of 2015 and is still what drives me every day. When i spoke to him at the ministry of education, some of the challenges i would face. I knew that our educational system was failing to educate the 35 of our young women and 21 of our young men could not read a single sentence. I knew about the gender gap in the 39 of women across liberia are in Primary Schools in a knew about the inequality in Education Access in our rural areas with only 26 of women and 68 of men. I have read all the studies they knew all the facts and is a former teacher myself, when i began traveling across the country, visiting schools, speaking to teachers, parents and children, it became clearer that reform was urgently needed. Repealing the status quo was not simple. We absolutely could not risk of this or any other future generation of late. Children. So we embrace the opportunity to implement reform and truly transform our Education System. We launched a threeyear plan that includes increasing professionalization that teacher and principals across the country and cannot team regressed monetary evaluations to ensure we stay on track to reach our goals. We have taken an aggressive project and removed those workers from the teachers payroll. Nearly 2000 goes to workers, which has led to 2. 5 million in savings that could be reinvested in education. We also launched an innovative Public Private partnership testing new mottos for repealing siberia schools. That program is what i am here to discuss today. At that mission earlier, dsl has an important distinction from Charter Schools that you have here in the United States. All of the schools in the programs remain within the Public School system and employ teachers on the government payroll. They also do not not based on academic performance. Through the psl program, we partner with eight education providers, some local, some international, some nonprofit, some for profit. Each with a different model, but all with previous experience in delivering quality education and improving literacy outcomes. Those providers within the program are Rich International academies, which i am sure we will look at more during the discussion. The effort in uganda and the learning outcomes with liberia to partner with the government of liberia. More cannot profit which is all brandname on the capital of liberia, providing both education and Services Like health care, Psychosocial Support and a program. Another nonprofit provider, which also cooperates in sierra leone and nigeria and has to focus not only on provided education, but also training and supporting communities that manage the account. It also operates a network in sierra leone and has a fulltime approach to education. An ngo found in bangladesh that have experience working across africa. It runs a network and last but not least, in liberia they are in seminaries both local and providers. We just concluded it operated at 93 schools in third and counties across liberia, providing free quality education to around this encouraging result. This data creates enrollment on teacher behavior, including reviews and greater time teaching. About 90 on average across all psl schools and as high as 98 . Teachers are also 9 less likely to be outside the classroom of psl schools. These the same mike small things should be taken for granted, but no achievement in the context such as liberia. Today, the program has also delivered a muchneeded resources and infrastructure, a teacher for every classroom and training opportunities. They have also generated a new appreciation for a longer school day all without charging any fees. Just this week, for up to a providers in the psl program relieves the report, during the first year of the program in the key successes in learning outcomes. It is deeply encouraging to see not only their commitment to measurement and evaluation, but also areas including liberty. Teacher training, communities and teachers learning. Regular independent measurement and evaluation is in a program from an earlier stage, where currently an independent assessment being carried out by the center for Global Development in partnership with innovation. Why we await those results, we will move into the modest increase into psl schools for 93 to 200, about 7 of liberias Public Schools. In the coming year, we will advertise such as the southeast of liberia, which has Economic Conditions that make it a cute. Ps ill is an innovation that has the potential to accelerate the provision of quality education and ultimately make it accessible in a way that has never been before. But this program is strictly evidencebased. So it will not move forward within a last until we have received the completed independent assessment and can adjust the impact on the students and the school system. Once we assess with the future will look like, what remains clear is both action is needed if we are going to properly educate for the future. Starting by the Brookings Institution before i came here estimate that there is a 100 year gap between the developing world in the developed world when it comes to academic achievement 100 years. If we are going to leapfrog, innovation isnt an option, its a necessity. If the results are as compelling as we think they will be, psl will serve as a model of highquality low cost education they can repeal not only in liberia or even in africa, but other countries around the world that are recovering from conflict and crisis. We look forward to opportunities like today, to share our story with colleagues and partners across the globe. I look forward to hearing your questions about erics. And i lively and productive discussion. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] thank you, minister warner. Let me also thank the panels that you see before you who have made time to join us today for this conversation. Next to minister warner is alejandro alvey aero, Senior Education specialist on the House Administration team at the International Finance corporation, which is the private sector arm of the world bank. There he valued vestments in private education companies. Before joining ifc, ill hunger was a Senior Education specialist at the world bank were to have governments in higher education, science, technology and innovation in the latin american and caribbean region before joining the world bank in 2006, he was Vice President with deutsche bank, working in east asia. Thanks for coming, alejandra. Amy black, weve learned much about her. The executive Vice President Global Education is results for development previously ms. Black served as the Vice President a rogue strategy and development for teachers for all, which is a Global Network of more than 40 National Partner organizations that work to improve Educational Opportunities for marginalized youth. Before helping establish teach for all, amy was the executive or at the washington d. C. Region for teach for america. Before that, she oversell International Communications for the president s emergency plan for aids relief and then two years as a president ial management fellows rotating through the state Department Offices including a sixmonth stint. Thank you, amy for joining us. Last but not least, andrew is, if he you know staff, datasets and a blue hat down there at the end. If you dont know him, seth is for democracy builders and usually wears a yellow hat. He is launching more than 300 charter like schools in liberia, kenya, uganda, nigeria and india. Mr. Andrews served as the Senior Advisor in the executive office of the president and lead the education and Civic Technology portfolios and he also served as Senior Adviser to former u. S. Secretary of education, arnie duncan. Founded and served as a teacher or principal and superintendent of democracy pressed on a network of more than 20 public Charter Schools from harlem to here in washington d. C. Thank you, panelists, for joining us. I am going to give each of you just a few minutes to sort of get a reaction to mr. Warners keynote and your thought on the cls program. Seth, lets start with you. Sure. Thank you for joining us. This is something ive been so passionate about for the last four months. I didnt know how passionate i could be until i met minister warner. We met at the end of january, early february and he had this conversation with me or use asking questions about the u. S. Charter sector, like there is the d. C. Model with 50 saturation is a new orleans model. And i said instead way coming of the minister of education in liberia and you understand the charter sector this way that is compelling and interesting and deeply researched. He inspired me sincerely. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be in this space. Think about different ways to govern Public Schools because in the u. S. Weve been thinking this through in a relatively slow and steady curve. The u. S. Has about 3 million citizens attend public Charter Schools. Schools funded or attended open enrollment, that manage independently by organizations that are not necessarily the government itself. When minister warner is telling me about psl security started to build, i thought of him immediately because i saw the potential for leveraging the best practices in the u. S. And some of the liberian specific elements knew all about. Having those elements is something that has inspired me to dig into this work and realize we can rethink what Public Education is. For me it would be urgency really think about africa as a whole that inspired me to begin. As mr. Warner said we have 800 million kids on this continent waiting to be educated, with right now 263 million kids around the world who are not in school at all. Another 330 million kids in school but learning nothing including many in liberia having no outcomes whatsoever. If we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, thats her definition of insanity. And where they are 100 years behind, we cant just keep doing this. The key word for me that i want to come back to us to go deeper and is leapfrogging. If liberia takes the incremental approach and increases the budget by 5 or trains teachers a little bit better for second grade curriculum a little bit, they are not going to change what is possible for more than a million soldiers. For me come in the part is not just incremental, but really old and big and visionary and thats why im excited for psl. We can quibble over whether its a Partnership School or Charter School, but the big idea is looking at what the definition of Public School isnt who manages the Public Schools. Is that the government or a Partner Organization might have different expertise in where they attended the kind of education they are receiving. That is what is exciting about the work and im excited about more. Im also very excited to be here. A relatively new leader of the Education Team at results for development. Results for development would focus on healthy and educated people and try to do that in the most systemic way the most aesthetically possible through the partnership we pursue. We operate at the intersection between Global Research available and trying to get that into the hands of people on the ground so they can use it. We position ourselves beside local stakeholders to make sure theyre effective as they possibly can be with little after to get the Global Information as possible. In that role, and we work very hard with leaders across all parts of the society. Particularly publicsector leaders, which we know are responsible and really value our relationships with our public or partners. We also stirred a 750 Organization Network and the civil society. Organizations across the world and Early Childhood to help finance her research questions. It was back out to the broader landscape. But im really excited about as it pertains to this conversation in the last two or three years in a private school space and we are working with private sector operators and particularly our work that we call adaptive learning. And so, in ghana and sierra leone and liberia, we have spent a lot of time with the team that does research, uses Traditional Research methods, but close to the ground, really gets to a group of schools and says, what are your Biggest Challenges you face in the next month for the next year and what are your theories about what it will take to overcome those . Lets go fast and went fast and try things out and be much more successful by this time next year. We think that kind of research combined with of course the more rigorous, longerterm and more cost the research is absolutely needed as a key part of seeing efforts like this be more and more successful. We are excited about that in ghana we really looked at what are the barriers to financing for operators like this. Sierra leone and liberia were looking at academic outcomes and how we are helping local stakeholders in their specific questions like what is it going to take to get our secondary school kids more literate in the next six months . That is the work weve been doing. We are excited to engage. A few things to come to this work on a few principles that are important. We think its important to have a shared set of goals across sectors that if everybodys oriented towards outcomes for kids, it becomes less about whos doing what and more about rb getting their act together. Public with private rather than either versus public as a way of framing things. Private operators are across the world and a lot of the questions we support our Public Sector partners to think about is how do we leverage that in the most way . We do believe government is in a stewardship role but at the end of the day the government is responsible for outcomes, especially low income kids and so that has to be taken into account when we consider the dynamics at play. We absolutely believe theres a need for data at all levels of the system and how important that is here and we are striving to be a participant in getting the data out the grassroots level. And of course, what you heard talked about, context matters so much. Theres a unique history here, unique history in every country. History matters and i think time matters. A lot of time conversations only assume a year or two year horizon when these challenges need to take the horizon into account, but also five years to 10 years, 20 years and how different players behave and respond with a context shifts as well. These are things we are excited to be thinking with a multitude of actors and players about. Im very excited to be part of the conversation. Thank you. I represent the isc, private sector arm of the world bank and we are very excited to be here for this very interesting presentation. We tried to look for manos and is scalable and can be replicated around the world. We try to learn from experience in one part of the world and taking to another part of the world to remain focused on developing countries. Obviously, this is mainly in the context of the learning crisis, in particular in many countries in Subsaharan Africa. Significant progress over the past decade or so in insuring children are in universal enrollment because we are showing statistics for liberia and secondary education remains a big issue for many Subsaharan African countries. Some of the others we talk about like Bridge International try to address the issue of teacher accountability making sure at least a teacher is sitting in front of the students and delivering a lesson, you know, 50, 55 minutes, if were talking about an hour, an hour lesson. Obviously in the context of this learning crisis it is very important to have solutions and do what minister werner talked about, bold reforms aiming to do things that maybe challenge a little bit the status quo. Obviously we can not but agree with evidencebased approach that was mentioned and that is another very important point i think that was raised. In order for these experiences to be replicable and other governments to work along these lengths, we we need to create the evidence. Im sure we come back in the conversation. The evidence about what works in education is still nascent. Were delivering it and were building it and the more we go in this direction with impact studies that would really look into, into what works and what really brings different outcomes and learning outcomes to the table i think that better we will be and im sure well talk a little bit about that. So everything that was presented is exciting. Im happy to go deeper into some of these issues. For us at ifc promoting private sector education is important. That is one of the reasons why we support Bridge International academies. We saw potential for innovation and doing things differently in the education space. Obviously in that context were also happy to see that bridge, the bridge model can be applied in a Public Education context and thats also part of our interest in this dialogue. Well, thanks, everyone. I want to start off with the Charter Schools conversation in large part because it is in the title of our event here today. It is also part of our hashtag, which is developingworldcharters. It is a little problematic. The word charter is accessible to an american audience. It helps the american audience understand what were talking about. Were not really talking about charters. Were talking about Partnership Schools. My question is, to get this sort of fleshed out at the start, what are some of the key and fundamental differences for an american audience to understand between Partnership Schools and american chart are schools, and what might be the best language to talk about these Partnership Schools . Anyone can just jump on in and give their take. I know the minister has strong feelings about this. So i come from the American Charter School sector. I will give you a couple of things, the reason i think this is, what is happening in psl are Charter Schools by our definition. Theyre public buildings. Theyre publicly funded. Open access and enrollment. No fees for students whatsoever. State standards would have to be met. Theyre accountable for results to their authorizer in case the minister werner, that to me defines a public Charter School. That is what we do here in the u. S. The differences are and very important a subclass of Charter Schools. In liberia Charter Schools are public workers, on the public payroll. They are not Nongovernmental Organization payrolls. Theyre Union Members by default. That payroll and public worker status changes the dynamic. There are places in the United States where Charter School teachers are members of the unions as well. There are districts where the district itself is the authorizer. I understand the value of partnership. Amys point this is public with private not public with private is important one. This is partnership. Eight operators operating in liberia are doing, partnering with the government to deliver better results. That is really definition of a chatter. In the case of liberia there is an mou between the operator and government. That is in function the charter, the authorizing document that stipulates what the operators will provide, how they will provide it, what they are expected to deliver. I think at end of the day there are charters. Great research folks doing about the spectrum of charters, in liberia context they are Public Employees to those much further in the other spectrum they are the equivalent of closer to vouchers where the government basically just doing a transfer of funds to attend a private school or another type of school. So there is a whole spectrum that are met here. To me the definition of charter are these open schools, publicly funded, publicly accountable. To me this program definitely meets that part of why it is so exciting. I will say quickly about bridge, the bulk of their schools, 500 across the world, are low fee private schools, 7 a month, theyre getting a world class education. That means 8 a month. What is proud about minister werner group, there are no technical fees or none of these fees, in the developing world if youre new to the states, you have to understand traditional Public Schools charge these fees. So traditional Public Schools are not free in much of the developing world. Minister werner has created schools run by Nongovernmental Organizations and private are free. Africa that is not generally true but in the psl program Partnership Schools are free for children and families. The paradigm shift as little bit but i think charter is still the right term. So, thank you seth. Let me just Say Something that just to add to what seth just said. With the exception of maybe of singapore and vietnam i dont know any country that educates poor children with perfection. Not the United States, not the uk. In the u. S. Government would deliver perfect Public Schools you would have no need for Charter Schools. If the uk government could do similarly, there would no need for the academies in the uk. What that tells me is that governments are failing to educate poor children. There is need for private sector. Were not educating our children just for the Public Sector jobs only. A few of them get into the Public Sector. Depending which president is in power you could have the workforce reduced. Were educating majority of our cases for the private sector, for the jobs of today, and the jobs of tomorrow. All the more reason why the private sector needs to be called to get involved in how we educate our children. We chose the word partnership. There are things government does really well, policy platform, regulation, education as public good. Those things government can do well. But daytoday management assessments, planning outcomes, systems of accountabilities, government doesnt do as well as the private sector does. We partnered with private providers to strengthening government where it is weakest if you like. That is the essence of the partnership with us. Im interested, i i want to follow up on that. We can hear briefly about bridge, across the psl participants we have eight different providers so im wondering what are some specific things, some specific aspects of the model that they bring that the Public Schools would not be able to develop on their own . Where is the secret sauce or the promise that they bring that can be achieved through the psl program . Seth, you want to describe bridge . Less about bridge and more about the psl program. One of them is curriculum. This seems like relatively small thing should be fundamental of school is curriculum, what we teach he but when you walk into a Government School in liberia you dont find curriculum. You see on chalk board, says 2015 at top, they havent had chalk or anybody write on the chalk board since 2015. You have these moments, these stark realizations learning isnt happening in a lot of these places. The eight operators mr. Werner brought in are bringing with them curriculum. Werner has a specific cure rec lump. Bridge has specific curriculum and each operators has curriculum with concrete goals and aligned to the Liberian National standards. In case of bridge, most of the schools in kenya, we had a Curriculum Team working in liberia to align the curriculum with other parts of africa to specific curriculum in other countries. What is really important to think about is, the government is not usually thought of as the leader in technology. So i just left the Obama Administration where we really spent a lot of time, chief Technology Officer and others thinking about technology in government. I can tell you were still way behind where the private sector was in thinking about technology. Most of us dont use government tech in our daily lives. We use private tech in our lives. Bridge has taken best practices from the developed world, american Charter Schools and delivered it through a very lowtech solution, very cheap ereader, black and white tablet costs 50 to manufacture in china, you get content that is the same content as kids might be getting in washington, d. C. , boston or cambridge, massachusetts, getting on 2g signal in black and white and rural liberian classroom. That is not a thing the government of liberia figured out to do. The private sector was adopting curriculum into their practice. That is one of the reasons this has potential not to be just incremental change but a leapfrogging change. Another important element, there is some incentive to measure. Once you bring the private sector in, very quickly there will be questions. Is this better than what we had before . That bring as very clear incentive to start measuring things to developing either a pilot like the one currently underway or eventually even proper fullfledged impact evaluations. It might seem very obvious but it does bring very quickly the measurement part of it, something that really helps, you know bring the discussion to a new level because there is evidence that is being created. That is really what is happening or starting to happen in the liberian case. You bring up evidence. So i have sort of two questions. The first one youre interested in taking. The first is just across the developing world, what evidence have we seen for these Public Private partnerships particularly in education for low income students and also in terms of the psl, who, what specifically, minister werner have you done to put, bake into the program away to measure its outcomes that rigorous and can provide evidence to other countries and to the citizens of liberia . Yeah. I mean can talk a little bit about the, i mean about some of the studies that have taken place. First of all, there is different types of pdps. Obviously typically there is two who operates and who finances would be public or private. Depending on this obviously there is different combinations that can take place. In most cases one of the, i mean of the ppp that people talk is vouchers. Vouchers have been tested in different contexts. Were quite familiar at the world bank with the experience in chile, for instance. There was a Voucher Program that was implemented and obviously multiple efforts to assess the efficacy of that Voucher Program. What happened in most of the measurements, the evidence was not conclusive to be really clear. I mean the different studies were suggesting different things. Typically comes down to the question, i mean in, are we measuring things all else equal, basically . With re taking into account unobservable variables that can affect Student Learning outcomes . That was obviously part of the discussion that we had in chile. In the case of Charter Schools im sure, im sure seth and amy will have specific evidence about the u. S. I think that is more robust at this and maybe more conclusive. Im listing some of the cases there is very clear evidence that this has worked. In the context of developing countries we have examples like colombia with concession schools which are quite relevant and with interesting, with interesting findings, in support of potential good performance by private schools but the question is, i mean it is really the fact that private schools are performing well compared to other Public Schools with sufficient evidence that ppps will work. I think this other elements in the discussion as well. You i mean one of them has to do with, i mean are we talking about the same things . Particularly in the Subsaharan African contexts i had conversations with a number of ministers of education and the question is, i mean, are we really talking about Public Finance kicking in to the ppp model . In some cases we are and in some cases we may not look at same type models. Setting up definition of what were talking about is quite important. There is second element, the moment you have Public Finance kicking in, working together with the private sector, whether youre really able to build up systems that will work from, turning out evaluation perspective, operational per speck he tiff, so on so forth. With which is what minister werner is working with. We need to create this evidence. We dont have that many experiences. The ones that we have like in the case of vouchers sometimes bring inconclusive answers but there is, i eagerness and willingness to about down that rout by developing countries creating evidence with examples and specific pilots and measuring those pilots i think will help build a little bit about the knowledge of this space, no . So, what in liberia we immediately thought of and did by the International Community and led by the center for Global Development and policy action and ipa, we need ad rigorous evaluation of the program to generate evidence to inform policy and whether or not we should start or continue on a wide scale and what grabs would be in terms of what were looking at. So we commission and go through a trial. The baseline is is completed. By august we should have the midline i think somewhere toward the end of august, the midline report should be made available to inform the world about many of these things were looking for in terms of evidence. I must admit that our ct was commissioned for three years and so we still have some way to go yet to know whether or not this program is giving us what we want to do. Let me remind you that only in the second year that we are trying to reach the remotest part of liberia. We also have to examine whether or not psl works in those contexts where you have too many rivers that children have to canoe up a river or as we saw in the short video clip, walk across sticks to get to schools and what the implications are for a country with seven months of heavy rainfall during which time children dont have access at all to some of the school infrastructure. I dont have much to add except to say, it is true, we just need more evidence. We need more time. We need, we he need resources to go into evaluation. There is a lot of discussion in the Global Community about that. So i do think that is on its way. I will reiterate i think were excited, results for development is not only organization doing this type of work but in the meantime kids are in School Every Day and those practitioners need to know roughly where they are. So were excited about the less rigorous but more immediate research that can be done to create trajectories where operators actually know theyre on the right path. And there is, a bottomsup and topdown approach to this i think it will be very important to see in the coming years, months and years if these sorts of engagements are getting results but, there is an opportunity to do both, to do the summit of assessments, to look back to see what has happened but simultaneously be preparing operators for hopefully a positive outcome by making sure they have the tools and resources in house, like at level of a school, to be thinking the way that researchers think and to be answering our own questions. So there is a growing need for that as well. I think both of these pieces can come together to hopefully get results, not just in private settings but also in public settings. This is kind of work we as educators need to be doing everywhere here in the u. S. And liberia and everywhere else. So i think there is another body of work that is also burgeoning that can compliment these larger studies as well. I have two somewhat contradictory thoughts i admit are contradictory but i think are both important in this context of the first is that we have started already to see results. So i think your point, the difference really between formative and sumtive. Some of this Research Needs to be formative. We need to make decisions tomorrow about the lesson we tried yesterday that didnt work and. That is research not full rct we need research to have better practice tomorrow. That es is important. Minister werner said four providers released results. Bridge as four times as many students in control, than in the treatment schools than control reading benchmarks after four months of instruction. Youre starting to see outcomes already there on the short term. For bridge in kenya, much bigger data is the, ten years of data, 83 of the counties with operate across the whole count hetry outcomes on the end of school exam, the 8th grade exam for Elementary School, students at bridge are outperforming the counties even though bridge students are dramatically poorer than the counties as a whole. Youre starting to see Great Results and results are there and important. Contradictory point i want to say at some stage we have to say to ourselves we can not wait for evidence to make change. We can not stop in a place like liberia where you have a million kids, hundreds of thousands are getting zero education every day, lets wait for the results for couple years, maybe then well figure it out. Were talking about kids who are learning nothing every single day. Kids opting out of school in many cases completely. Then wait for fiveyear rct before we scale up is a mistake. Im thrilled we have the rct minister werners instinct we need good evidence is right but that doesnt mean we need to stop moving. My boss at the department of education, one of the funny things at the Department Much education our highest evidence is investing in innovation fund. We gave billions of dollars for fund that were not about innovation. But innovation is one thing we should expect no evidence because it should be innovative. It should be thing we havent tried he have before. A thing bold, new, different. We should be informed by evidence and past practices in other countries and different contexts doesnt mean we should be paralyzed by waiting for results of longterm studies before we see these kids have to have great kindergarten next year or tomorrow. Schooling certainly can benefit from enknow he vision. It benefits from funding. For a western audience i want to talk for a moment about the cost differential. American Public Schools we spend about 12 grand a year per kid. And in liberia Public Schools they spend 50 per pupil per year, which is a 240x multiple, right . 240 times less. So first of all, how do you do that . I just cant even get my head around it. I have a couple other questions we follow up on that, how can western companies, certainly forprofit or notforprofit just survive in such a lowcost environment . [laughter]. So let me start so that others will follow, maybe. Let me give you the context for liberia. Last year our education budget was around 41 million. U. S. Dollars. Of that 41 million, 35 million for payroll. So you see where im going with that, right . So much of the 50 that nat spoke about is dedicated to payroll. You actually have nothing for what in essence contributes to quality. Teacher training, textbooks, all of these things. So that is the backdrop to the 50. So what we initiated a psl, we sought blended funding, went to private philanthropy, foundations, and then we said, look, what if you were to give an extra 50 to these operators, making it 100, right . But the 50 you give them will be for innovations to meet what we set out together that we wanted to achieve. And too because we are consolidating to areas that are more difficult than year one. Were saying 60 but you still see that is not expansive enough to cover the costs. What this tells me is all the noise about for profit i dont know who is making profit in this environment. So i just wanted to lay that context for you to get he a sense of the struggle struggle with operators to make sure children have access to equal, quality education. I can say for bridge theyre not making a profit in liberia which is the reality of working in this context but partially because the scale is not big enough. Right now bridge is educating about 9,000 students in liberia in year one of the pilot. Part of the ran the scale is so exciting me, took democracy prep, my Charter School network in the u. S. , 13 years to get to that number of students. Bridge and minister warner got to serve nearly 40,000 students in just year one. So the scale is still big but needs to get bigger to get the cost finances down. For bridge one of the cost functions is developing, designing, curriculum, technology, hardware and software used in classrooms. The marginal cost for adding each student is almost zero. There is model to get break even in place like liberia, that will require hundreds of thousands of students educated in that method. You have to get big scale to get the costs down to that number, 40 or 50 per student. It is possible but still a long way off. Right now bridge and psl are relying on philanthropy, incredibly generous thoughtful donors for investment of close to 50 a student you can heed kate a student for year, to get much better education than they were the getting before. For a western audience, one other context wall thing helpful for the bridge and other operators, using same teachers. They have been retrained. They have been evaluated differently and given different curriculum but the payroll costs are same. The payroll costs curricular tires and additional training. Add context of 50 a year, 2,000 a classroom of 40 kids for a classroom a year. Wage bill, 140 a month. 1500 a year, 500 total for materials, textbooks, technology, everything else. That sounds like a small number in a western context. The tablet dietrich gets is 50. This is doable this is absolutely possible. Weve shown it at scale in kenya. Starting to get there if liberia. But it requires a lot more students to be in systems like this rather than an incredibly intensive resources up front before you get to the scale point where it is actually sustainable. I think thats a very interesting feature of the bridge model. It was designed from inessential to operate at a scale. That scale is required for the model to work but definitely every single element from the tablet to the way that the material, textbooks, et cetera are designed, it is thought of bringing costs down to really a minimum and i think thats what made the model attractive to us when which looked into it. Let me give you one more example. I think it is helpful. In the u. S. Context we think about technology and way that it is transforming american schools. So in liberia, they dont have resources for example for infrastructure for science lax. The schools in video are bare bones. Most dont have power. Youre lucky to have 2g. There are tools in he developed world like Virtual Reality, on cost of 50, a head sate you can see a Virtual Reality science lab. In developed world we can imagine 50 per student to do science lab in Virtual Reality. In developed world we cant because that math doesnt add up. But you can get cardboard version of same thing for 3. Thinking about taking the same thing, bringing quality down a little bit, but content being delivered to my students in washington, d. C. , is actually the same exact content delivered to kids in liberia and 3 cardboard and phone the principal getting to download lessons plan. It is thinking how we spend money and what we spend money on and not let incredibly challenge, 50 per student per year how is that ever possible, to stop us from being innovative. New thinking not doing the same way weve done expecting different results will hopefully get a different set of results. I want to ask a question about lowcost private schools here. Were talking about psl schools. Theyre Public Schools, theyre paid for but in the developing world lowcost private schools are a big thing, right . I think in america we think of Public Schools as dominating the scene. Can these partnerships work in he lowcost private schools . Can you give me a sense how big low cost private schools cover the market in developing countries . So, by one estimate in africa less than 50 of the students are attending Government Schools already. Where are those students . Theyre either good chunk out of school as we talked about but theyre also in lowfee affordable private schools. When we think of private school in the u. S. And in developed world very different context. And the idea of spending 7 a month, getting a better education as happening in kenya for 100,000 students across the bridge network, that is very different way to think about what education is. A way of saying to families who might be living on 2 a day, were not talking about wealthy families. Were talking about families living on 2 a day per capita. Spends what is 10 of their income on their childs education that is a choice theyre making and one that we should admire around really talk about as an aspirational opportunity for those families that they havent had. Theyre making rational choices. One of the things that frustrates me most in this debate often critics of affordable private schools or psl saying those families dont know what theyre doing. Im arguing that the families no better than any of us very often in this room, certainly in washington, d. C. , in monrovia or liberia, in nairobi, what is best for their family and theyre choosing across africa, almost 50 to not go to governmentrun schools, instead to go to these other schools. We should be more respectful and thoughtful of about what that really is saying about the choices they have as family. I think low cost private schools are reality in many developing countries. That is really the case in Subsaharan Africa but also in other parts of the world as well. The in the case of kenya, seth, you might have latest statistics sometime ago we were talking about 500,000 or one Million Students enrolled in lowcost private schools across the country and about half of that only in nairobi. It is really a big thing. Its a reality. Why do parents decide to send children to low cost private schools . We talked a little bit about hidden costs some cases we find in Public Education, some environments. Maybe proximity issues, ability to vote with their feet that at end of their day lack of decisions, lack of capacity in some Public Schools as well but this is a room reality. It can not go unnoticed. I think there is need for governments to realize that this is a sector that deserves attention and that ultimately you have to regulate it probably in a different way as how you regulate that traditional mainstream Education Sector. Otherwise it will be, it will be very difficult for some of these schools just to operate and, again there is many, many children that are already enrolled in these schools. To bring more nuance to the context, most of these arent in chain schools. Most arent run by the big operators, momandpop schools, i think there are different policy implications for the thousands and thousands of Community Schools that are literally run by a Single Family for any number of reasons, right . As governments wrestle with the complexity what they are responsibility for stewarding in the national context, a lot of this conversation is about, about operators either local or, or international that are coming in, but in this case, in Real Partnership with the government, many governments are facing as we, many of us know, thousands of individual operators and not with a lot of visibility into what is actual happening there even though theyre ultimately responsible for the education of those kids. So i think there are lots of different angles when you, it is why getting precise about the definition of what kinds of operators youre talking about can have different implications for the policy outcomes the government might choose. Minister warn werner, in a moment i will turn it over to the audience with some questions. My question with the elections coming up, what are your concerns for the sustainability of the program, and, you know, what is your hope for the program in 2025 . So, let me tell you what were excited about first. Were excited that president surle is ending her two year term and adhering to constitutional term limits. We are excited for the First Time Since 1944 a living president will hand over to another president in liberia. These are the things that excite us in liberia as we begin the political season that ends on the 10th of october when we all go to the polls to choose our next president , but the transition of which you spoke is something that were looking at carefully as a government for all of these reasons provided. We dont want a reversal on the gains we have made together with the support of the u. S. Government and u. S. Taxpayer money. So, in education we are very carefully designing a transitional process that will allow the next education secretary or minister in our own case, to be able to pick reforms we have put together, and carried them forward. And so, with the support of the Global Partnership for education, we have developed a comprehensive Education Sector plan. That is five years, in terms of what we want to prioritize to reform. And out of that, we have drawn a threeyear plan, simply saying to ourselves, by 2021, we want to see a trained, qualified, wellpaid teacher in every classroom in every Public School. Its a challenge to ourselves. But to do that, we need a team built to make sure that those reforms are implemented now and through the next government. So, we are putting in place what we call an education delivery unit. It will be a people of experts, Civil Servants mainly, dedicated to helping the next administration shepherd the reforms forward. And there will be contracted for two years. The money we are raising is a grant through borrowing. We are planning attempts of a results based achievements. So you get some money up front to work on the priorities listed in the Education Sector plan but to access the balance of the money you must have met some targets. So this as strategies we are putting in place to make sure these reforms dont die with the next administration, and that they carry forward. But most importantly, we learn from ebola to really deal with a crisis you need to invest in the communities, right . So this cause one of the things we havent spoken about is that, we encourage operators to go into the communities, engage the communities. Have a conversation with the with with the ptas, community leadership, make sure they are involved in daytoday administration of the school. As a result of that, some schools are oversubscribed, all right . Because the parents see the value. My sense is that if the parents and communities value these schools, they will live beyond the next administration and thats what were working on. Indeed. Well, well move to some q a from the audience. We have a couple rules for questions and answers. First of all when one of the gentlemen comes around with the microphone, please give your name and your affiliation. Number two, please ask a question. If you go through with a statement, we will move on someone else who does have a question. Thank you, minister western are and rest of the panel. Your name . George. Im with [inaudible] my question sis, weve seen governments in the countries in subsaharan evolve primary and secondary education which is supposed to be free. That has increased student enrollment, maybe three, four, fivefold but however, the ppp in education is being resisted by several countries. Is there a particular reason why theyre not all coming, say, for instance, lowcost private schools . And how is liberia for instance circumvented that, as a government initiated this process . Thank you. So, look, good question. First best to say i understand it. You know this very well. I give you statistics on the population growth in africa. Fertility rates are very high. And so, there is growing demand on health and education. There are constraints in terms of the fiscal space for government to meet this demand. So we have to think outside the box to leverage other sources of funding to meet that increase in demand. But more to your point in terms why the resistance i look back in terms of lesson is i learned and would do things differently. I would strengthen communications. You cant take it for granted that the field for Education Sector reforms is still conservative. In the sense that it is stubborn to change, even though people want to see change, we disagree on what type of change is needed. So our language for change is more progressive than the actual change itself. So people need to know, an in the beginning we didnt Prioritize Communications as we should have. So the program got mischaracterized as privatization of Public Schools and the Partnership Model was not pushed. Communication, as to how we circumvent it, the pushback we have the negotiations. We try very hard to convince the beneficiaries, and, thats was one. The second thing was, i told you earlier that we went around the country. I toured 15 counties four times. And i saw the reality. That was my passion. That was my motivation. Nothing was going to stop me. That is how he circumvented it. Thank you. My name is simon. Minister, i want to know about your partnership also include feeding . Because as realize in nigeria, you can have the person to paint your school or to build it, but if the children are hungry, they leave school. Theyre trying to do a job by providing a meal a day for every student. Secondly, you talked about your project. Last year 41 million. You how watches how watches that in terms of the liberian government . Thank you. So the liberian governments budget, in the last three or four or five years has pretty much been around 500 million. National budget, 500 million. So of that, 12 is given to the, consistently to the Education Sector, and that includes, not just secondary schools but the public institutions. Of the 12 , 6 is dedicated to Early Childhood primary and secondary education. So 6 of the budget goes to International Benchmark is 20, 25 . At the time our economy was growing at around 7 annually we thought we could reach that. Then came the commodity crash on international market. Liberias main exports are iron ore and rubber. The prices dropped and then after that came ebola. We lost our investors. There was a time the imf was predicting that liberias growth would be 0 . Were on our way back now. That explains the percentage for that. On feeding you touched upon an issue that concerns all of us including the funders of the psl program. Before the program was initiated we had around three hours, because of the surge in he enrollment after ebola, many Public Schools became overwhelmed and instituted two, threeshift schools to a accommodate increase in enrollment. A School Session lasts around three hours a day. Then another session will come in. To counteract in year one we asked providers to have an extended instructional time as supported by research, six to seven hours per day. What we didnt factor in was School Feeding. The world food programme, the meals have been supported for government efforts of Homegrown School feeding, what we do want to support our farmers to grow more, so we can feed our own people. What we finding from year one is, as a result of the extended instructional time, were finding that some children are hungry. And so in year two we are building into the program an amount, i think it is around 1 point something million for School Feeding to be able to cover this. I have had the opportunity to talk to some of my counterparts across the region from rwanda and elsewhere to ask they deal with the problem of School Feeding. And essentially it is by going to parents and saying, look, if your child was at home, what would he or she be eating . If you have that, bring it to school, the government can add to it to make sure a child has food for the extended instructional time. So that is a draw back that were hoping to fix in year two. Question right here, front row. Thank you, my name is annette johnson. I have to give some background because im here in my own capacity but i lived, i was born in liberia and you i lived and worked there from 2010 to 2013 at ministry of justice setting up the first child justice program, and so i come with that context in mind and a couple of questions concerns. Given make it one question, because were running out of time. Given issue of accessibility in liberia, i heard mention of the fact that for such a program to work there is a need for government involvement but most of the Government Programs are funded by outside sources. The government has not shown a commitment to children in its budget based on what weve heard here today. So im wondering how do you envision such a program being scaled in liberia where all children do have acts is, leaving aside there is a lot of controversy in liberia if this should be the way to go . How do you give access to all children. Youre only reaching 7 now. How are you going to get to 100 . Because now were leaving one problem and creating inequality because were not accessing everyone like you said. The roads, you cant get to most of the country. So im really interested how were going to create a balanced system that reaches all children . So the problem of scale . So, annette, thank you, good to see you again. The government has a commitment to children. It is not what it should be but the government is investing in children of liberia as you well no. The question you have asked about scale is something that really i think about every night. If you want to hear radical george werner, i dream of a future, say five to 10 years, when kids leaving Elementary School can read and write critically well alongside their interNational Partners. To do that, i believe that the best way to go so to is to Leverage Private providers, to let the government achieve this. Left to itself the government doesnt have the capacity, like other governments to achieve that. At the same time you need to consider, which is what has happened to me, all the feedback from the International Community, from the domestic audience, in terms of this idea is new. You want to be caulker schuss in terms of how you approach this scale. So thats where we are. Cautiously approaching scale. We just as we said earlier we are waiting the evidence to infor Decision Making but we realize that as a friend once said, children in liberia doesnt have the luxury of time to wait. The urgency is now. If we do not do anything radical to change the status quo we will in the american way of putting it leave too many children behind. So you make a valid point about scale. It is something were considering. I would like to thank minister werner. Im afraid were out of time. I would thank also the panelists and, please feel free to have the discussion going on online. For those of you watching at home, for those who are here, we have a reception immediately joining in the hall. Police please join me in thanking our guests. [applause] [inaudible conversations]. We have more from the American Enterprise institute coming up for you later today here on cspan2. Well bring you a conversation on Health Savings accounts and tax incentives that can be used to encourage people to use Health Savings accounts instead of Traditional Health insurance. That will be live starting at 2 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan2. A little later in the day, author molly hemingway, trump versus the media. She is an editor with online magazine the federalist. Commentator on fox news channel. Well see her comment on president trumps dealings with the news media today starting 6 30 p. M. Eastern live here on cspan2. Cspan where history unfolds daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. The u. S. Senate in recess this week and on cspan2 each night beginning at 8 00 eastern booktv is in prime time. Tonight we look at technology and the internet. Scott hartley on his book, the fuzzy and the techie. A video game developer discusses her book, crash override. Coauthors Heather Cabot and sam wall havens, geek girl rising. Jennifer earl is interviewed on her book, digital enabled social change. We close out booktv in prime time with former google data scientist. Seth stevens on his look, everybody lies. Sunday on q a im not asking anybody to compromise their values or their beliefs. 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