Mzae to get here. Maze. President will be joining us as soon as we get here. Im the education reported at u. S. News. You are at the changing politics of k12 panel discussion. Thank you for being here. E w rankled a pretty awesome panelists tot discuss and answer your pressing questions, because theres nothing really going on in dc, right . I will leave the bio in your programs. I will run down the line. We have lindsey burke. She is the education policy director for the heritage foundation, which were those of you outside the beltway, it is a conservative think tank in washington dc. The president of democrats for education reform. Hes also a civil rights leader. Next in him is marty west, an education professor at Harvard Graduate School of education. He was also previously in education policy advisor to senator lamar alexander, the republican from tennessee, who is the chairman of the Senate Education committee. A quick housekeeping note. This is one of the first panels at ewa. Ewa2017. Et using everything is on the record, so it is fair game. We want you to make news. This is also being livestreamed on periscope. 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 palace into this. Nd dive i want to take a minute to set the scene we are currently in. , six months ago, how many of you guys thought we would he in this be in this politics and education environment we would be in today . No one . Ok. [laughter] so the collective we kind of missed the ball on this. I dont think many of us expected to have a President Trump, or maybe we expected a republican would be in the white house, but maybe not this republican. He is certainly doing things a little differently , as he has pledged to do. We are transitioning from an administration that really prioritized education, from the to the top, race supercharging the School Improvement grant, expanding the office for civil rights, pushing for universal k12, so on and so forth. Now we have an administration that is so far having a singular agenda it seems of School Choice, and is focusing a lot on rolling back the role of the federal government and undoing a lot of obama era initiatives. His recent budget proposal, as im sure you all know, proposed 9 billion from federal Education Programs and eliminate dozens, including things like teacher preparation and afterschool programs. We will get to all of that. We have an exit dictation secretary an education secretary who has proven controversial, whose confirmation involved in unprecedented tiebreaking vote from Vice President pence. She has really gone through the ringer in terms of the last few months, being blocked by protesters trying to enter Public Schools, has been booed giving a commencement speech at the soon but then cookman. Bethune cookman. Her main focus has been about will choice, and private School Vouchers. This is happening against the whichof states returns the decisionmaking power to stay and local School Districts. Best state and local School Districts. The law was crafted with bipartisanship that seems to no longer really exist. We will talk about that as well. Despite republicans controlling both chambers of congress as well as the white house is unclear whether, any type of education legislation or any legislation is going to be able to move, given some of the intraparty fighting. We will get to that. Where does this leave us . A lot to cover. Where does it leave the education reform movement, where does it leave teachers unions . Should we expect any movement on education legislation . What is to become of the office rights . L and what should we all be paying attention to as we go back home and cover our education . Im going to dive right into it. Please be thinking of questions. We will save at least 20 minutes at the end for all of you. I want to start off and talk about School Choice. If at the top of everyones agenda. Heritagerom the foundation, a big proponent of School Choice, the whole gamut. Education savings accounts, vouchers, tax credits. Some people in this room i feel might be interested, or maybe not expecting, the fact that you dont want the Trump Administration going there. If you could maybe talk a little bit about that, and give us a little idea of what states are doing interesting things when it comes and what should we be paying attention to. Everyone thank you for being here, thank you to ewa for having me. I think we have a great panel. On the School Choice front, you nailed it. I have been a huge proponent of School Choice. Heritage has long been a huge proponent of School Choice. It our perspective is all of the above. Whether it is Charter Schools, better options, tax credit scholarships, Education Savings Accounts, which i really think is where the Education Choice movement is going right now, we see and all of the above approach. A parentn that enables to select a school that fits well with the needs of their child i think is a good option. Having said all of that, prefacing this with the fact that i spend my waking hours thinking about how to advance School Choice, is it appropriate for the federal government to be engaged in a largescale push via a new National Program . I think that is key, whether or not it is a new program. I think that we have a fair amount to risk by engaging in a new largescale federal program. States are doing it on their own already. We are seeing state after state, year after year adopt new Education Choice options. Every session we see more states that School Choice. Then there is a practical matter that we are all aware of, that 90 of all Education Funding is state and local. Practically speaking, thats where the dollars are, unless you were to do a new program, which is what i worry about. If we are establishing a new program, it is hard to reconcile the creation of a new program with reducing federal intervention and education, which is the other perspective that i hold. At least from their conservative perspective, really wanting to advance these notions in tandem, limiting federal intervention and advancing Education Choice for parents and children in the states. Starting a new National Program gets problematic in that regard, but i think it continues to solidify significantly high levels of federal intervention and local school policy, and could have unintended consequences. I think we will get into this ther, but the word on street is maybe it is a federal tax credit approach that might be under consideration. Every opportunity to make a decision about what the program looks like, the federal government would likely regulate it. And the impact on the larger private school movement, what that looks like down the road. I think maybe the view isnt worth the hike on the federal School Choice push. I want to ask about the viability of this in congress, whether it is politically possible. We heard President Trump pledge on the campaign trail to direct 20 billion in federal spending toward this big umbrella of School Choice. We saw on the budget a 1 billion boost for title i for School Districts that promise to allow those dollars to follow the student to the school of their choice, also a 250 million private School Voucher program, which we dont know how it would be structured. And also potentially a tax credit scholarship down the road. How does this work in congress, what should we be watching for . Is it a reality . Republicans now control both the house and the senate, and i think that let a lot of people to expect it would be politically very easy to push a major School Choice and gentle agenda from washington. Mention,idnt heritage is located like 73 feet from the senate, working very hard advocating for its position in congress. They have been very effective. There is not overwhelming republican support for major efforts to expand School Choice from washington, because of concerns for what that means for the federal role. Thats why we have seen in the past the house often being reluctant to even bring up for a vote proposals to allow title i First Student choice, because they dont want to it exposed there is not support for that in the republican congress. That creates obstacles to an administration that is trying to take advantage of its control of the federal government to advance School Choice proposals. As you mentioned, if you ideas a few ideas, they are all relatively small ball ideas. There is a weighted student funding pilot program. This is a provision that exists within the law to allow up to 50 districts to apply to use that basically combine federal, state, and local funds, and allow that to follow children to the Public School they attend. The Trump Administration currently seems to want to incentivize participation by taking a bit of existing title i formula funds and proposing adding about half 1 billion to that, and encouraging states to participate. But even that is not necessarily a School Choice program. It is really a way to try and model out a different way for administering federal aid programs, that is more compatible with School Choice, but really doesnt go beyond that. That theres an uphill battle facing a lot of these are puzzles. Proposals. And so far we have heard a lot about empowering states to make these decisions on their own and not relying on the federal government to do them you do that for them. Shavar, i wanted to ask you to talk about what you have seen in , how of the implementation the stakes are sort of getting higher at the state level, the local School District level, as some of this shifts back to their realm. Of course, we are on the heels of this Epic Campaign spending on the out school board runoff. Districters, local reporters, what should we be thinking about as some of that turns to their responsibility versus the federal government . Mr. Jeffries im very happy to be here. I think reporting should focus on the core issues and the core work of Public Schools. Obviously, the choice conversation is relevant and significant, but it really deals with a relatively small number of kids in terms of the overall scheme of things. Particularly, outside the Public Charter School sector i would push. Withe, particularly implementation plans, standards accountability. What are the standards states will include in terms of what they expect of kids . Are the standards aligned with ensuring that kids are college and career ready when they graduate from high school . By the standards aligned with the ongoing shifts in our labor market, which is changing at a pretty rapid rate . How our School Districts going to hold individual schools, and our Schools Holding teachers accountable, to make sure kids are educated against those standards . What does the accountability mechanism look like . Weve had a history and this is where people like me would support a federal basic equity but we have a history where kids generally have not met those standards, particularly lowerincome kids and kids of color. What are states going to do to hold School Districts accountable and make sure that all kids learn . Whether the child has a disability, low income, maybe an immigrant, what sort of interventions are states going to choose . Schools are consistently not meeting those benchmarks or individual disaggregated populations of kids, or in meeting the benchmarks, what are the states going to do . Will they just put a letter up and say the school is a c or d, or will they actually do something tangible . How are states going to make a sufficienthas number of highly qualified teachers in those classrooms . We do a lot of work to reimagine teacher preparation to really push graduate schools of education to have more clinicalbased approaches, some educators can hit the ground running from day one when they had the classroom. How are states ensuring that they have a strong supply of teachers and School Leaders . What are states doing to make sure that universities in their state are admitting meaningful numbers of Pell Grant Eligible kids . Universities, kids similarly situated with academic universities many not accepting pell grant numbers. They would rather admit and upper income kid. Im talking about kids with the same academic profile. That upper income kid can pay. Many states are under revenue pressure. States push universities to make sure what are the states went to do to push universities to make sure its available to all . At the end of the day, we have 400,000 kids in this country attending better schools, over 300 million attending Charter Schools, over 50 million in Public Schools. We support choice through the Public Education system, Public Charter Schools with theres a strong track record of results. It also has builtin mechanisms to ensure equity, and have the same capacities so as not to discriminate against populations. We think its important not to lose choice track of that. We have so much daytoday nuts and bolts work that we cant afford to lose track of. Ithow much more important is for us to cover local School Board Elections . Sort of moving from focusing a lot on the federal government as years prior, its trying to rewrite no child left behind. Shiftingince done that back toward state and local School Districts. What pointers can you guys give us for vetting candidates that we might see coming up, things like that . Burke if im a reporter, what shavar said is right. There are 400,000 kids roughly in private schools today, including doctors, Education Savings Accounts, and tax credits. But we had just seen several states adopt effectively universal options. There isok at nevada, an injunction issue currently going through a legal battle right now working out financing. Works itself out, 470 3000 kids in nevada will be eligible for an Education Savings Account this fall. It immediately doubles the number. Eligibility will be 473,000 kits for an esa. Arizona just took their savings account universal. There is still an aggregate cap, thats the trend we are seeing. States adopt education security , and families love them. Yes, you can focus on and it is important to focus on school mayoralections and elections, but we are, i think, genuinely getting to a Tipping Point, particularly if nevada works itself out, if texas finally gets a School Choice program in place, i think we will be at a Tipping Point where the focus will eat on kids who are exercising private School Choice the focus will be on kids who are exercising private School Choice. There are things the federal government can and should do on absoluteoice, and the first thing they should do is look at the 1. 3 billion impact aid program. Instead of just sending that to districts, to give it instead to military having connected children, children of military families, of service members, in the form of an Education Savings Account. Immediately, were talking roughly 800,000 kids who would immediately be eligible to exercise School Choice. Choice for military families in desperate need. Make d. C. And all choice district. There are things 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 will embrace the crux of your question, which is the state and local level. Those have always been the importance of education for american kids. I would say theres only so much we can learn from the plan stage. Really, when it comes to how those plans are implemented and in particular, what is done in schools that are identified as underperforming, the federal government says nothing except that you need to take evidencebased actions to improve the bottom 5 of schools at this point. Really, power is in the hands of states and School Districts to make those decisions. We have dozens of states in the process in response to Obama Administration policies, of implement and teacher evaluation systems. It will be interesting to see what decisions they make Going Forward about continuing with that pro