Success and Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROKITA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman and the ranking member as well. Both the chairman and the ranking member have a great bill here, and it deserves the support of this entire body, in my humble opinion.

As chairman of the colloquially called K-12 Subcommittee on Education, it has been my high honor to travel throughout Indiana, and really across the country, to see our public school system, our public charter school system, and the entire framework of how our great American children are educated.

I have come to the conclusion early on, and it is the same one that the chairman and the ranking member have come to, that is, charter schools empower parents to play a more active role in their child's education. It opens doors for teachers to pioneer fresh teaching methods. Charter schools encourage State and local innovation. It helps students escape underperforming schools. The charter school program facilitates the establishment of high quality charter schools and it encourages choice, innovation, and excellence in education.

The current Charter Schools Program, however, does not support the funding for the replication and expansion of high-quality charter schools. The ranking member said it himself that charter schools are here to stay. And we are not about to have a debate over whether or not they should exist. They do. It is about the replication and expansion of them because they work.

This bill is a commonsense approach to updating the Charter Schools Program by streamlining multiple charter school programs, improving their quality, and promoting the growth of the charter schools sector at the State level. The bill also consolidates multiple funding streams and grant programs that support charter schools into the existing State grant program, eliminating a separate authorization for charter school facilities funding.

By consolidating the funding streams into the existing State charter school program, the bill removes authority from the Secretary of Education to pick winners and losers and control the growth of the charter school sector. This authority is placed largely in the hands of States, frankly, where it belongs in the first place.

The bill updates the Charter Schools Program to reflect the success and growth of the charter school movement. States are authorized to use funds under the program to support the replication and expansion of high-quality charter schools in addition to supporting new innovative charter school models.

Finally, Mr. Chair, I would say that this is not a new issue, in fact, this is not a new bill for us. This bill is very similar to charter school provisions included in H.R. 5, the Students Success Act, and to H.R. 2218, the Empowering Parents Through Quality Charter Schools Act, the latter of which passed the House by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote 365-44.

So for all these reasons, I simply urge my colleagues to support H.R. 10.

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