'We Have An Allocation Issue': Bill Cassidy Questions Witnesses On Decreasing Education Scores

last year

During a Senate Health Committee hearing last week, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) spoke about falling education scores despite an increase in funding.

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00:00Just to make the point because people have spoken about children not being

00:04able to being hungry or not having glasses that sort of thing but I will

00:09point out that we have a federal programs which provide free lunch and

00:12breakfast for high-poverty districts and there is the early and periodic

00:17screening diagnosis and prevention program part of Medicaid which screens

00:23for vision. I'm not minimizing the challenges but I'd also don't want to

00:28ignore that which has already been done and Dr. Crow and I know you we both know

00:32that Maryland has both these programs. Ms. Neely, look at that. Spending is way

00:40up relative to inflation. Oh I should also say I ask unanimous consent to

00:44enter into the record a report from the Illinois policy showing that Chicago

00:49public school spending has increased 97% while student achievement has dropped by

00:5463% in reading and 78% in math.

01:03Ms. Neely, look at that. How do we begin to restore the trust when folks say we

01:08need to spend more money but we see so much more money being spent and yet

01:12scores are falling. Well let's remember that this illustrious body spent 187

01:17billion dollars in the wake of the pandemic to address learning loss. In the

01:20state of Wisconsin, 28.2% more than one out of every four dollars of

01:25Wisconsin ESSER money was allocated towards new additions or renovations

01:28despite that not addressing learning loss. When all those bills were passed, I

01:32think many parents, myself included, assumed that it would be to help reopen

01:35schools for masks, for air purifiers, for sanitation. That is not what that ESSER

01:39money was spent on. It was spent on pet projects, it was spent on social-emotional

01:43learning, it was spent on things like that and in many cases districts did not open.

01:46Children in inner cities were set back years and years and years. I mean I

01:50remember seeing from Virginia, one of the Virginia's Education Association

01:54speakers said that the nice thing about this is that everyone went back equally.

01:58That's not true. Everyone wasn't set back equally by the pandemic. Those who were

02:01more set back were families that didn't have the time or resources to help their

02:05children read, to pay for tutors or things like that. This hurt, this

02:08disproportionately hurt low-income students more than anyone else. You have

02:12more money that has been thrown at schools, they can't spend it fast enough.

02:15All this ESSER money is running out at the end of the September and yet now we

02:19still see teacher shortages. Let's talk about in Hartford, they're about to lay

02:22off 300 teachers. In San Diego, they just laid off 234 and are announcing that

02:26they're laying off 60 more. There are teachers coming out of our ears. They're

02:29not in the right places right now. So we don't have a teacher shortage, we have an

02:32allocation issue and that is what is hugely concerning, particularly when we

02:36look at the fact that our children cannot read. They are not thriving, they

02:39are doing very, very badly.

02:41Mr. Pandis, you're nodding your head yes as she spoke. What would you add to her

02:49comments? As a former teacher, now policy advocate, I remember my first days in the

02:59policy world and it was a surprise to me, then and still is, how little those of us

03:04who think of ourselves as policymakers spend thinking about what kids do all

03:07day. Curriculum, instruction, school culture. Perhaps it's because I'm a

03:14former teacher, that's the focus of my work and I think that is,

03:16we give insufficient attention to that. I would call your attention to a

03:22remarkable series of reports over the last couple of years produced by a woman

03:25named Emily Hanford of American Public Media, who has documented the frankly

03:31appalling way that we teach reading to children in America. And it's fascinating

03:37because it says something about our expert class, it says something

03:41about teacher training, that we know how to do this, we've trained teachers badly.

03:46Her reports were called hard words and sold as, please. It seems as if you are

03:51indicting teacher training, very much so, that universities, colleges are doing a

03:58poor job of preparing teachers for the classroom. No question, no question. Is

04:05there a statistical relationship between some universities and their

04:09Department of Education's and poor performance by their graduates in

04:13certain schools? Oh, I'm sure there is, but I think the, perhaps the, at the risk of

04:19painting with too broad of a brush, the larger problem is that I'm not sure

04:22that our colleges of education view it as their job to train teachers. In my

04:28written testimony- I'm sorry, that just strikes me as odd. Yes, that's correct

04:32Senator, and it should strike you as odd. In other words, they may be more concerned

04:35with your professional disposition and with theory, as opposed to the practical

04:41means of controlling a classroom, of curriculum, of instruction. And in my

04:46limited time, Mr. Keyes points out that some of the kids do present with

04:49emotional disorder, etc. You point out that teachers are being asked to wear

04:53many hats, and so therefore it distracts them from their primary function. But

04:58granted that some kids, now granted, maybe the kids who are from a poorer

05:02background, what do we do about that kind of set of issues that are there?

05:08And I don't want to diminish the reality of that, Senator. It's absolutely a

05:12fact. The question that we seldom ask is why is it, or why are we asking what in

05:16many cases is the poorest performing institution in a community to do more, to

05:23be a social services provider, to, you know, to provide services beyond their

05:30core function? In other words, are there other NGOs, are there other

05:33organizations in a stressed-out community that would be better suited

05:37to be a mental health provider, to be a social services provider, than asking,

05:41putting all of this on the back of our teachers? So a school-based clinic with

05:43mental health professionals embedded within a school with a high need would

05:46be a better alternative than asking teachers to do that? That's

05:49complicated, whether it should be based in the school. Again, the need is real,

05:52whether you want a low-functioning institution, with all respect, to be the

05:58service provider and supervise and hold that service accountable, is the

06:03question to be asked. Thank you. Senator Baldwin.

'We Have An Allocation Issue': Bill Cassidy Questions Witnesses On Decreasing Education Scores

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