Strength in Diversity Act of 2019

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Speaker, school segregation is inseparable from housing and the persistence of segregated communities, communities segregated by race largely due to decades of purposeful law and policy that supported White homeownership while denying people of color the same subsidies, things like the ways that Black World War II veterans were denied the use of GI Bill-guaranteed mortgages in suburban neighborhoods; purposeful policies and restrictive covenants allowing open and rampant discrimination in lending and homeownership; and policies like redlining that robbed Black and Brown Americans of access to public resources to grow wealth and opportunity--all of these things embodied, I think most clearly, by the underfunding of neighborhood schools serving communities of color that were on the wrong side of the red line. These purposeful policies, housing policies, created tremendous inequities in education.

Now, some of my colleagues across the aisle claim that the underlying bill ignores the opportunity, the issue, of school choice. Well, my amendment brings these two things together. This amendment makes it clear that, where school choice supports diversity, it should be encouraged. And, indeed, there are great examples of this across the country.

Public school choice is the most effective means of achieving racial and socioeconomic integration in K-12 education in diverse schools across the country today, supporting parents to enroll their children beyond their neighborhood schools.

Public school choice did not exist in 1954. It did not exist in 1968. It did not exist at scale in the 1990s, but it does today. The problem is just that, all too often, school choice policies ignore the pressing issue of segregation by housing.

When school choice is not intentional, it can serve to exacerbate inequity instead of remedying it. This has been confirmed by decades of research here in the U.S. and across the world.

Many school choice systems are overly complex, parents aren't supported, and, too often, only the wealthy and well-connected take advantage of open enrollment policies.

My amendment would support school districts in using public school choice to improve school diversity and, in turn, equity of opportunity. This commonsense amendment would ensure that districts receiving grants can use the funds to design or improve public school choice systems, while prioritizing diversity in school assignment, and make them easier for parents to navigate. These all should be bipartisan priorities.

We have more public school choice now than we ever had before, yet our schools are more segregated by race and class than at any time since the 1960s. But it doesn't have to be this way.

My amendment, a relatively small change, would make a big difference because it would say that the use of public school choice policies, like open enrollment across and between districts, that match parent choice with purposeful diversity planning can be used successfully to accomplish all of these goals.

It is time we support school districts in using responsible public school choice as a tool to achieve equity of opportunity, a fundamental right in our Constitution.

When public school choice controls for diversity in school assignment, we see not only improved diversity of the student body, but also resource equity among schools, higher parent and teacher satisfaction, and increased achievement for all students.

I urge my colleagues to stand with me in supporting the use of public school choice to decrease racial and socioeconomic school segregation, and I urge a bipartisan ``yes'' vote on my amendment.

Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for her support and for understanding that, yes, this is not perhaps the sweeping change that we would all like to see to fix these truly historic inequities in our education system, but it is an important step in the right direction.

And there are great examples across the county of school systems that have been able to use public school choice in positive ways to improve educational opportunities for all. It is simple common sense that access to these programs should be simple, it should be easy to navigate, and these programs should not effectively discriminate against certain families that do not have access to all the information or wealth or other opportunities to navigate them successfully.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Republican colleagues for their support on this amendment, and I particularly want to thank the leaders of this committee, Chairman Scott and Representative Fudge, for continuing to push to recognize the fundamental values of our country and our education system. That opportunity should be equal for all, that education should be the great equalizer because, if we can do that, we will live up to our Founders' ideals.

Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments, and, as I said, this is a very small step in the right direction. I wish that there were more people in the gentleman's party who wanted to see this. We have tremendous evidence that school choice is the tide that lifts all boats in education. It does everywhere.

It breaks my heart when I see places like New York City where people there--particularly, the mayor there, has done everything he can to snuff out choice and to snuff out the opportunities that exist there, such as Success Academy, which not only has provided extraordinarily high-quality education to the students, but has really helped raise the level in a very minor way in the other public schools there.

We have way too many situations in this country where the teachers unions want to stop all opportunities for choice. And I will take a tiny, tiny step as a good faith movement in the direction of providing all students, particularly low-income students, with the opportunity for choice, because we know where there is choice, the quality increases.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source