Hearings to examine meeting the individual needs of all students, focusing on the role of charter schools.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will please come to order. Um, this committee is about the parents' perspective on finding the best educational option for a child. Period, end of story. How do you help the parent, typically the mother, find the best education option for the child? 'Cause there's nothing, nothing that a parent wants more for their child than for that child to succeed and to realize their potential.

And I can tell you from my own experience, but I think the experience of others, that beyond a parent and a grandparent, teachers have the greatest impact on a child's future. Education is powerful. It can inspire. It can sharpen. It can lift entire generations out of poverty.

One person does well, their children, their grandchildren, it just goes. That's the power of education. It opens up opportunities they otherwise may never have had. We speak of the American dream. Education is the pathway to the American dream.

The better education system, the better the education system, the better the future of our country. Charter schools are a critical part of that educational system. They can tailor curriculums and teaching methods to an individual child's need, and every child is different. Unique talents, interests, styles, and skills. And unlike a traditional public school, charter schools are not restricted by bureaucratic red tape or zip codes.

They can provide personalized learning, which leads to better outcomes. By the way, there are great traditional schools with fantastic teachers. I attended those schools and am blessed by them, and now I am a doctor because of public education.

If a parent is pleased with their child's education, keep the child in the school where they are. But some thrive in conventional public schools, but others struggle. And I think we're going to hear the story about maybe a child's struggle. A parent recognizing their child's need not being met at a school, I think, should have the power to find a school for that child which better addresses their need. Try something which is a unique prescription for that child.

Hope McDonald's child is dyslexic, a woman from Shreveport. At last month's roundtable, she shared that her daughter's public school refused to recognize dyslexia as a real disability. So she sent her child to Louisiana Key Academy, a charter school specifically for children with dyslexia. Full disclosure, my wife is the CEO of the board or the whatever of the 4 charter schools for children with dyslexia, Louisiana Key Academy, that Hope's child attends.

And just like many parents, Hope and my wife are passionate about charter schools because they had to fight for the best education for a child with dyslexia. Their own. Ohio's Oakmont Center is another charter school specializing in meeting, quote, at-risk students where they are in order to help that child achieve the student's academic achievement. Other charter schools are skills and career-focused, preparing a child to enter the workforce. Alabama's Aerospace and Aviation High School provides each student a customized flight plan.

As they call it, hands-on experience through aviation apprenticeships, internships, ground school training. By the time someone graduates from this charter school, they have worked alongside airplane mechanics, they've learned aircraft systems, and they've been prepared for credentials like commercial pilot or a drone pilot license. Now, it's easy to see why a parent would find this appealing. Since 2003, charter school enrollment increased 370% from 700,000 to well past 3.3 million students nationwide. But charter schools are still under-resourced.

They often lack adequate facilities. My Equitable Access to School Facilities Act enables charter schools to access public properties to address the situation, to ensure that a student learns in a quality facility, and to acknowledge, to acknowledge that parents who pay taxes sending their child to a public charter school maybe could have access to some of the public properties not being used that they pay taxes to do, but unfortunately are not, unfortunately are not having access to now. The Empower Charter School Educators to Lead Act, which I co-lead, expands opportunities for charter schools, making it cheaper for prospective charter schools to open. When it comes to the child's education, the parent should have the power. No one cares more than a parent that their child is well-educated.

Let's give that person who cares the most about her child's education the power to shape that educational future. With that, I see Senator Sanders is not here. Are you going to have an opening statement or should I just go to the—. No, I don't think they let freshman senators speak at this point. So why don't we just get straight into the—.

There's only 3 of us here, man. You can do whatever you want. You know what I'm saying? They told me that you do karaoke, so we could do that. A rap song to Charter School Week.

Okay, so let me introduce the witnesses. We're joined today by Ms. Debbie Vaughn. She was part of the founding committee for the Lakes and Bridges Charter School, a public elementary and middle school for dyslexic students in Easley, South Carolina. She was integral to the 2016 change of South Carolina law allowing charter schools to serve students with specific disabilities. I look forward to hearing from you today, Ms. Vaughn.

Thank you for being with us.

It is a privilege to be here today, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to share my family's experience with charter schools. In 2015, a family friend asked if I wanted to join a team of folks to start a charter school for kids with dyslexia. My then first grader had been struggling with reading and wasn't getting the support she needed in our zoned public school, so I didn't hesitate to say yes. Our founding team of 9 people spent nearly a year and a half preparing our charter application, and all of us will tell you that starting a charter school was the most difficult endeavor in which any of us had ever embarked. We weren't interested in creating just any charter school.

We wanted to create the best possible public charter school for kids with dyslexia, students who are frequently not served well in traditional public schools and who all too often fall through the cracks when it comes to identification, intervention, and enrichment. We also believe deeply that access matters. There are excellent private schools for kids with dyslexia, but dyslexia doesn't just impact families who can afford private school tuition. We wanted to create a public school that could provide specialized instruction regardless of income. As a part of this process, our team visited dyslexia-focused schools across the Southeast.

We met with legislators, educators, traditional public school leaders, and community members to learn how we could best serve this special population. One piece of advice we received from Dr. Laura Cassidy was especially important: find a way to prioritize enrollment for students with dyslexia who absolutely need this specialized education. South Carolina charter schools designated as alternative education campuses, or AECs, can prioritize enrollment for specific populations. At the time, South Carolina charter school law allowed for AECs to serve various groups of at-risk students, but students with specific learning needs. Our team approached our state representative and asked if he would work to amend the law so that AECs could prioritize enrollment for students with a demonstrated need for evidence-based specialized multisensory education.

Working alongside legislators in both the House and the Senate, that amendment became law, and it happened in 3 months. This is a remarkable example of what can happen when policymakers work together and recognize a genuine unmet need for their students and their families. Our charter was approved in 2017 and then began our planning year. It was filled with fundraising, grant writing, property searches, hiring, and everything else required to open up a school. And two poignant things happened during that planning year.

First, because our property search took longer than expected, we partnered with the School District of Pickens County and leased classroom space and office space inside a public elementary school for our first year of operation. Now typically charter schools and public schools do not play in the same sandbox, but we did, both literally and figuratively, and it worked. We made it work. That partnership allowed our school to open on time, and it also allowed us to serve students whom even the public school district acknowledged could be better served in a specialized environment. Second, and most impactful, we began to meet future Lakes and Bridges families.

They were desperate for help because their dyslexic children had anxiety and crumbling self-esteem because they had struggled for years without the right support. Intellectually, we knew a place like Lakes and Bridges was needed, but hearing their stories made the need deeply personal. Lakes and Bridges opened in 2018. We served 200 students in grades 1 through 8. My role as development director is part-time, but it is much needed because as a state charter school, we do not receive any share of county tax or local taxes, and we cannot issue public bonds in order for— to help with building projects.

But as a charter school, we do have the autonomy to provide individualized instruction using the Orton-Gillingham approach. We've had some great milestones this year, and I just want to talk about a few of them. Our middle school earned an excellent on the South Carolina School Report Card. This is an extraordinary accomplishment accomplishment given that 80% of our students have either an IEP or a 504 plan, and most of them entered our school at least one grade level behind academically. Our middle school students exceeded both district and state averages for growth, and this year's MAP assessment data showed that every grade level scored in the high growth quadrant for reading from fall to spring, with some students even doubling or tripling their projected growth scores.

For me, though, these accomplishments mean most as a parent. You see, 3 of my 4 children have dyslexia and are Lakes and Bridges dragons. My eldest is actually graduating from high school on Saturday. Uh, when they finally received the intervention and enrichment that they needed, they absolutely blossomed. My husband and I could not have imagined how much the right school would change their lives, and it lifted up our whole family.

My other child, who does not have dyslexia, attended a charter middle school called Youth Leadership Academy. He needed a smaller environment where he could rebuild confidence and develop leadership skills after the disruption of COVID and YLA provided just that. His experience reinforced for our family that different children thrive in different educational settings. Learning is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and school should not be either. As a parent, thank you.

Yes, sir. Hang on.

We're joined today by Mrs. Miranda Jackson, a proud mom to 7. Her youngest 2 daughters, proud graduates of GEO GEO, Next Generation High School in Baton Rouge. She is also a teacher assistant at GEO Prep Middle City in Baton Rouge, and yesterday graduated with her associate's degree from Baton Rouge Community College, got on a plane, and came here.

So So we look forward to hearing from you today. Thank you for being so committed to speaking to Congress and to the American people that you would graduate, get on a plane, and come here. Ms. Jackson.

Good morning, and thank you for allowing me to be here today. My name is Marinda Jackson, and both of my daughters attended GEO Next Generation High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Today I have Two of my beautiful daughters with me, Quintasia and Quinnise, and also, um, the founder of Geo, Mr. Kevin Teasley. I wanted to share my experience with Geo Prep Mid-City and Geo Prep Next Generation High School and how it impacted not only my children's lives but my life as well. When I moved to Baton Rouge, one of my biggest goals was to make sure that all of my children could attend the same school.

Because we were new to the area and we needed stability. My children started off at Geo Prep Mid-City in 2017, and at the time I had one child in the 6th grade, one in the 7th grade, and one in the 8th grade. My children progressed through the school and I began to see them truly excel. My daughter Quintasia became one of the leading scorers on testing by 8th grade. She worked hard and continued to thrive.

When we were told that GEO was launching its very first high school in Baton Rouge, Next Generation High School, starting with only the 9th grade and adding one grade level each year, I will admit I was terrified. I was— it was scary. Everything was new and we didn't really know what to expect. However, after graduating from 8th grade, my daughter took the placement test for Baton Rouge Community College. Through the GEO program and scored high enough to begin college courses before she even stepped in a high school classroom.

Over time, I watched both of my daughters grow to love not only high school, but also their college experience that they were receiving at such a young age. Was everything always easy? No. There were challenges along the way, but every challenge was met with support. The school made sure that the right people are in place to help the children succeed, and that the support made all the difference.

Today, both of my daughters graduated as valedictorians of the high school while earning their associate's degree. One graduated with 83 college credits, the other one 79 college credits. Both received valedictorian scholarships to Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

One of my daughters graduated at the age of 20 with her bachelor's degree, and now she teaches math and science, third grade. My other daughter is 19 and will be graduating December of this year with her bachelor's degree as well. Do I believe that they would have accomplished this if I would not have brought them to GEO? Honestly, no, I don't. I watched two of my sons attend college through sports scholarships.

While I am extremely proud of them, I learned sports scholarships can sometimes feel uncertain because injuries can happen. And when they do, students can feel like their failure— their future, I'm sorry, is suddenly at risk. What I appreciate most about GEO was that they gave my daughters another pathway, one to build on academically, leadership, discipline, and opportunity. After watching my children accomplish so much, I decided to go back to school myself. I had certifications, but I did not have a degree.

The encouragement and the environment around me inspired me to get better and more education. I completed my degree in July of 2025, but I officially walked the stage on yesterday. This experience showed me that education does not just change one child's life, but it changed my entire family.

Thank you again for allowing me this opportunity to speak and to share my story. Thank you.

Next. Oh, Senator Kim. Senator Kim will introduce— we even let freshman senators speak out loud here. That's right, but only an introduction of Democratic leaders. Special day.

That's right. Thank you, Chairman. I want to introduce Jennifer Coco, Ms. Coco is the interim executive director at the Center for Learner Equity, CLE, where she is responsible for designing policy and systemic initiatives to improve charter school readiness and capacity to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Ms. Coco is an attorney, an advocate who has spent the entirety of her career advancing access and opportunities for public school children. She's also the parent of children with disabilities.

Ms. Coco, please. Thank you, Senator Kim, Chairman Cassidy, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the privilege to testify today. My name is Jennifer Coco. I lead the Center for Learner Equity, a national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that students with disabilities have access to high-quality public schools and choices.

I've spent nearly 20 years as an attorney and advocate for students with disabilities, and as Senator Kim mentioned, I'm now living the work. My son receives preschool special education services from our district, and my daughter receives educational support through a 504 plan. And because they asked to watch this later, hi Zora and Langston. Uh, and the questions before this committee are deeply personal. As my testimony will explain, we have not consistently ensured that charter schools can access the services and supports that they need to educate students with disabilities and help them succeed.

So about charter schools, it's important to remember charter schools are public schools, full stop. They must comply with all federal education and disability laws, but what makes them different is that they enjoy increased autonomy and flexibility in exchange for a different level of oversight from their authorizers. And notably, about half of all charter schools in the United States are operating as their own local educational agency. Which means, as far as the IDEA is concerned, they assume all responsibilities of a district to meet the needs of all students who enroll. More than 8 million children in the United States are eligible for services under the IDEA.

Another 1.6 million are receiving accommodations under Section 504, which leaves us with a population of about 10 million children in America, uh, who are students with disabilities. Students with disabilities represent about 15% of students in traditional public schools, but 11.8% of students in charter schools. And this enrollment gap has persisted since my organization began analyzing enrollment trends 11 years ago. Charter schools tend to enroll fewer students with low incidence disabilities. Those are the students whose needs are the most complex.

But the conversation about charter schools and students with disabilities is too often reduced to a really unproductive binary. Is it that charter schools want to educate kids with disabilities or not? And we want to reject that framing because it's doing a disservice and missing the bigger point. It's overlooking the systemic barriers that are limiting a charter school's capacity to implement the IDEA. And we'll name 3 barriers.

The first is scale. Too many charter schools lack the economies of scale to offer the full continuum of services that students with disabilities require. Two, staffing. In many places, charter schools can struggle to compete for talent with the traditional district, particularly for special educators and related service personnel. And three, funding.

Charters receive only 75% of the per-pupil funding of traditional public schools. These barriers are actually complications that arise from that charter autonomy when it meets implementing the IDEA. A law whose central implementation premise assumed that there would be a certain size and scope of a traditional district with multiple schools. And I want to be clear, these are not arguments against charter schools, which my organization works with all over the country. They're arguments for an ecosystem that we haven't yet designed one that fully supports autonomous public schools and students with disabilities from the start, not as an afterthought.

The good news is there are solutions for Congress and policymakers that would strengthen charter school capacity and readiness to educate all kids, and I'll share four. One, we should direct our energy and resources toward advancing charter school quality in equal measure to charter school growth. This is about both funding the charter school program, but it's also about protecting investments in all K-12 Title and IDEA programs, which the vast majority of charter schools receive and need. Second, we must balance charter autonomy with intentional capacity building. We must require evidence of charter communities' proactive planning and coordination to improve their readiness to educate all students with disabilities.

Third, we must fully fund the IDEA. Congress only contributes 10% of what was originally promised to states, which was 40%. This deeply impacts charter schools around the country. And fourth, we must protect the federal infrastructure that supports IDEA implementation and the charter school program. States need an intact Department of Education that is providing technical assistance, oversight, and stability.

In closing, I wish to bring us back to the students, their value, their potential, and our obligation to do everything we can to give them a bright future. The vast majority of students with disabilities can achieve at grade level and forge a path to postsecondary education, employment, and independence when we, the adults, ensure they receive individualized instruction and support. I encourage Congress to do all you can to protect federal education programs and funding, which will strengthen and expand educational opportunities and choices. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

I will defer to Senator Dr. and Senator Marshall to begin. All right. Thank you, Chairman. And again, welcome to all of our speakers today, our witnesses. I'll start with, with Ms. Vaughn.

Ms. Vaughn, speak to charter schools preparing students in STEM fields, if you could.

So I don't know that I'm actually the best person to answer this question. Um, my charter school experience is with an AEC campus, um, for kids with dyslexia, and it only goes through grade 8. We're very focused on intervention and remediation, um, although our school does meet all of the state standards for STEM subjects. Okay, Miss Jackson, do you all do anything with STEM in your schools?

We do have students that, that does do STEM, but I'm not the best person to ask that either. I'm just here from my experience with my students. Okay, Miss Jackson, maybe speak to how do you, how do you measure success? What type of outcomes are you, are you measuring? Any metrics or outcomes that you all are following?

So I actually work at the GEO campus, and I will say this is that what I I love about the teachers is that we have teachers that are passionate about students. And I heard— what's your name? Miss Coco say about, you know, having the right people in place when it comes to students that have the 504 IEP or dyslexic. I will say this, that I have witnessed and I have watched how our children at our locations have top gang school because our students are passionate with making sure— the teachers are so passionate with making sure that those students are getting what they need. And that's what my thing is about GEO when it comes to my students, is that they didn't look past where they came from, and they met them where they were.

And that's the thing, is meeting children where they're at and bringing them further along. You bet. Ms. Vaughn, you guys have any type of metrics that you're measuring? How do you measure success? Yeah, of course.

Um, you know, as a public school, we are required to do state testing, so those are certain metrics, uh, certainly metrics. We also do MAP assessments in the fall, winter, and spring, um, and we do parent and student satisfaction surveys as well. I just like to say that our MAP assessment data— nope, I already talked about that, never mind. Um, but, uh, We're doing good. All of our state testing and all of our metrics are showing that our model works.

And maybe I was intrigued with your interaction, a charter school and a public school. Did I understand that right? So, uh, good. I explain the barriers and how you overcame those, those barriers, getting the best of both worlds. It sounds like it really was, it was extraordinary.

Um, so we had already approached our our local district superintendents and told them of our plans to start a specific charter school for kids with dyslexia. And we, you know, finding a building, as Senator Cassidy said, is one of the hardest things to do when you're starting a school. And, uh, it— our superintendent for the school district of Pickens County knew that we were having that struggle. We needed 7 classrooms and 2 offices He had 7 classrooms and 2 offices. We had a memorandum of understanding.

Our lease was in place, and we operated as a school, an independent charter school within that public school. It worked out great. Okay. Dyslexia sounds like something you all are involved with as well. I hate to ask a question I don't know the answer.

Is the incidence increasing, or is it just my imagination? Are we just able to diagnose it more? And compounded question here. What is the impact of social media and gaming and, and just the screen time in kids and dyslexia?

Uh, Ms. Coco, I don't know if you want to answer that. I have thoughts, but I'll also defer to you since you're the special ed expert. That's fine. Sure.

What I can tell you, Senator Marshall, is that in the most recent IDEA reporting, Dyslexia falls within the category of specific learning disability under the IDEA, and that is the largest share of students with disabilities under the IDEA. Thinking off the top of my head, it was about 33%. Specific learning disabilities, which includes dyslexia, has always been one of the larger footprints within IDEA, and I, I think emphasis on science of reading and really strong early intervention practices, which our organization deeply supports, I think is helping us get a whole lot more sophisticated at how we identify and give students early interventions. What I can't speak to is any research on the connection with screen time. Outside my lane of expertise.

So with, with your students with dyslexia, do you increase— encourage them to have more screen time or less screen time, or is that part of the prescription? I do not know. I apologize, I can't answer that. Okay. All right.

Thanks so much, Chairman. And I can say, Dr. Marshall, that a good longitudinal study out of Yale shows that 20% of the population has dyslexia. There's a spectrum. Some, like Toby Cosgrove, the cardiovascular surgeon who headed, who headed Cleveland Clinic, was able to overcome it. Very bright man, but he still claims it.

Others are so impaired that they literally cannot read. That I think what we're seeing is an increased frequency of identification. Former Governor Hassan began to put a universal screening program in New Hampshire, so of course their incident went up. It's more that people are not being identified, uh, but have it, as opposed to, I think, the incidents rising. So thank you.

Um, next would be Senator Kim. Yeah, thanks, Chairman. Thank you to the three of you for for coming on out and sharing with us. Ms. Coco, I'd like to start with you. Uh, in your testimony and what you just said before us, you noted that Congress, when they passed IDEA in 1975, over 50 years ago, the federal government committed to covering up to 40% of the additional cost of educating a student with disabilities.

What is that percentage right now?

Thank you, Senator Kim. Right now, that percentage is about 10%. Congress has never fully funded the IDEA. It's never reached 40%, but the particular 10% funding low is amongst the lowest that it's ever been. So what you have are states and school districts that are receiving and bearing, I think, you know, billions of dollars of overhead that could be covered by the federal government according to the original promise.

Under law. Thank you for explaining that, because I'll be honest with you, you know, that is not something I knew prior to my time in Congress. I don't think a lot of Americans understand what we're talking about here. And I think it's incumbent upon this committee and senators and those in Congress to be thinking about what is the federal government's role and responsibilities, but also how we may have contributed to the challenges that we're facing, because I liked how you framed it. You're not trying to pit the schools against each other, pit families against each other.

And I guess I would just ask you, you know, what would be different in your mind if we were able to fully fund up to 40% from the federal government? How would this hearing be now if you felt like that was the circumstance? I'm just curious your thoughts to project. When we look at— and we spend a lot of time looking at state and local budgets, and particularly for charter schools, the resourcing that they get to do special education education, they bear a disproportionate cost. And so they're left making very difficult decisions.

Are we going to invest in, um, you know, having occupational therapists on staff, or do we want to make a choice and have reading interventionists? And I envision a school where we have both, as well as social workers and school psychologists. And so I think that the funding strain that is put on states and schools, it really puts them in very painful positions where they're bearing a significant amount of cost because they're really stretching those limited resources in, in many different ways. And now we're seeing sort of this competition almost, uh, and again, that's what's causing some of this. In your written testimony, I think, you know, you pointed out in your, your remarks, you know, the enrollment gap that we're seeing when it comes to the number of students with disabilities in charter schools as opposed to traditional public schools.

But in your written testimony, you actually point out there's perhaps even more concerning data about the actual data about academic gains. So it's not just about enrollment. Would you, would you mind just kind of going into that a little bit more deep in terms of just what is the gap on the academic gains that is drawing your attention to that? This. Yeah, absolutely.

Uh, probably the seminal researchers on this are out of Stanford University at, uh, the Credo Study. Their last findings, um, I think in 2024, looked at different subgroups of students and whether their gains were greater in traditional public schools or in charter schools. And I do want to compliment charter schools who looked like in— for most student subgroups, they were showing greater gains. The one student subgroup group that did not show gains greater in traditional publics than in charter schools, and in fact showed academic learning losses, were students with disabilities. It brings me no joy to say that, but it certainly drives the why of our work, and that's a trend that we see in most charter communities around the country that we partner with.

If we're able to provide more of that federal funding, do you think that could unlock opportunities that could close some of that academic gap there? I'm just trying to think through, is just a situation where, you know, we are able to provide more that, you know, the charter schools themselves as well as the public schools can be able to increase that academic gain that the students with disabilities will have. You know, we certainly feel that more money, particularly for the IDEA, is very needed and very necessary. I also want to be mindful of critics who say we can't just buy our way out of the nation's educational outcome crisis for students. So I think where Congress is at its best is when it appropriately funds all the subparts of our education budgets, and it gives very clear instructions about how we're incentivizing the things we want to see.

And we do that with a fully staffed and fully functioning Department of Ed that's steering states and districts across the country in the right direction. No, thank you for that. And as I close here, I just want to say, you know, everything that comes before us here in Congress, it's a choice. It's a choice of what we fund and prioritize. And as a father of a third grader and a fifth grader, I, of course, I want to look out what's best for my kids.

But in this job, I'm also tasked with looking out for everyone's kids. And these choices before us, when I think about how it would cost $40 billion for this country to fully fund IDEA and think about all the other choices that we're facing right now. And I'll be honest, as I've been coming in and out of hearings about the Iran war, $40 billion is about what we spent on the last couple of weeks of that war, you know, we have opportunities here to actually be able to invest and be able to close these gaps. So I just urge our Senate colleagues here to understand the trade-offs here, and hopefully we can prioritize our kids. And with that, I'll yield back.

Thank you.

Um, hey y'all, thank you again for being here. I appreciate it. Um, Miss Jackson, you, um, had an option for traditional school, but you chose Gio, can you tell me, was it just that you wanted them all to attend the same school? I had the opportunity to put them in a public school, but I put them in a charter school. And the reason why, honestly, is because when I look at— I want to make sure I use my words correctly when it comes to this— is When it comes to my daughters, do I believe that my daughters, if they would have went to a public school, do I believe that they would have been given the same opportunity to become valedictorians or to exceed as high as they did?

No, I do not. The reason why is because most of the time in, in those public schools, in most public schools, you still deal with the minority. You still deal with them not being able to get certain things with counseling or with people looking out for them to make sure that they exceed. Hang on, hang on. I actually found a lot of agreement here between the three witnesses.

Let me just say that. And I think there's support for both educational options. But Ms. Coco would be making the point that some charter schools don't have insufficient scale by which to provide services. But you just raised the issue, and I didn't know you were going to do this, that, that you actually received more support of certain types for your daughters at the charter school than they— you felt they would have— they would have received at the traditional school. Yes, sir.

Okay, uh, because by the way, one thing Miss Coco said is that we need more accountability for the charter schools, but perhaps we also need it for the traditional schools, uh, because I think you mentioned, Miss Vaughn, that that the, um, dyslexia— was it you? I have to go back to your testimony, or I've heard this so often. Maybe it was Miss McDonald whom I quoted, um, that, that the services for children with dyslexia were not what they needed to be in the traditional school. Indeed, the kind of very farsighted superintendent in Pickens County knew they weren't meeting the need, and they actually provided you supplement. Is that a fair summary?

That is a fair summary, and you're absolutely right. My daughter had a diagnosis of a specific learning disability with dyslexia and dysgraphia, and she was not given an IEP or a 504 in our traditional public school because she was on homeschool. You don't impress me as a wallflower. You know what I'm saying? Just whatever reason, I'm just getting the vibe that you're shrinking violet.

So when they didn't give it to your daughter, I can't believe that you were just going to be, okay, my daughter didn't get it. So what did you do then? We started a charter school.

Did you ask them to give the DEA, the IDEA, or the— you see what I'm saying? We did, we did. And they didn't get it? They didn't. My daughter did get a 504 eventually, but it was actually because ultimately she ended up with a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder because her needs for dyslexia were not being met and she was having panic attacks in the classroom.

Classroom. Um, and I recall from a different conversation that her panic attacks receded, went away after she started getting her dyslexia. Yes, sir. Now, Miss Coco, you, um, really intriguing testimony, kind of a chicken and egg. On the one hand, you're saying that the charter school— and I think we could all agree that, that schools need to be held accountable whatever they're setting their own, because clearly the schools were not addressing your daughter's But you, see if I get this right.

On the one hand, charter schools are not providing the services mandated under law because they have insufficient scale, but they have insufficient scale because Ms. Vaughn would say that they've got too few resources. One of you said 75% of the resources as of a traditional school. So how do you square that? How do we, equalize funding between a child, let the money follow the student, and the same amount of funding goes wherever the student goes, whether she goes to a charter or a traditional public? Your thoughts.

Thank you, Senator. A couple policy solutions that we've, at the Center for Learner Equity, we've thought about. When it comes to that funding and resource gap, that is something we're very vocal about at the state level. Solutions include where charter schools are being denied access to state high-cost services or excess cost funds. Again, not a monolith.

In some states it works well. In too many states it doesn't. There's also services and supports that charter schools often need to reimburse for Medicaid. That's a very taxing procedural process where when charter schools are very small, it's difficult to do. So those are some of the interventions that we think of that would help.

That being said, I think you are right. I spent a decade representing students in charter schools and in traditional publics, and I can tell you I've been in good ones of all stripes and in ones of all stripes where it was really underwhelming and students' needs were very much so going unmet. I think it brings us back again to that need, particularly for a fully functioning Department of Ed that is consistently implementing IDEA oversight as well as an office for civil rights where families can file complaints if they really truly feel they're being ignored. I will point out, and then I'll go to Senator Kaine, Ms. Vaughn, it sounds like roughly 100% of your patients have a specific learning disorder, which is to say 100% of people are special needs, if you will. And so, so you are actually— and as you kind of suggested, you may even get referrals from traditional schools, which decreases I won't say their burden, but just decreases the number of kids who they have to address.

Is that a fair statement? That is a fair statement, yes. Yeah, so we can't say that you're ducking it, or schools like yours are. With that, I'll go to Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thanks for holding this hearing. It's a really important topic, the topic of making sure that students with disabilities have the same opportunities to be all they can be as anybody. You know, it's interesting, the IDEA in some ways might be one of the most successful civil rights laws that's ever passed. Even though we've never done what we should have done on the funding side, nobody ever says repeal the IDEA. Because the origin of the IDEA, that a student with a designated disability should get an individualized education plan to make sure that student can achieve more, That's such a powerful idea that even with, oh, there's too much paperwork, or there's not enough funding, the concept cannot be denied.

And if you think about the delta of what students with disabilities have been able to accomplish post-IDEA from pre-IDEA, I think you would say, wow, this has been an enormously successful law if it's implemented. And so the funding issue I think is really important. My wife and I have 3 kids who went through the public schools in Richmond. It is a K-12 system and has about 25,000 students. My wife's currently on the school board in Richmond.

It is a high poverty system. Probably 90% of the kids in the schools are on free and reduced lunch. It is a majority minority system. And yet, it's a system that works really well for a lot of kids. Certainly for my kids.

One of my kids was on an IEP. You know this, but not everybody knows, a student with a designated disability often only needs an IEP for a couple of years. In my, one of my kids' instance, it was speech therapy. You get designated as needing speech therapy, got a couple of really good years with a speech therapist, and after 2 years didn't need the IEP anymore. And so you provide that targeted service, and in my case it was done very successfully within a public school setting, and then the student advances to the place where the IEP is no longer necessary.

For others, the IEP will always be a feature of their, of their education. So we do need to do better on the funding side. What I want to talk to you about, Ms. Coco, is I'm really worried about the dismantling of the Department of Education and how it impacts our enforcement of the IDEA. So here, here's the stat. In 2025, Virginians submitted a total of 570 cases to the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education.

130 Of those 570 were connected to students with disabilities, um, 27 were for being harassed over disabilities, and 103 were the more common claim that, hey, we're not being provided the services that the IDEA says. We're not getting a Free Appropriate Public Education. Of those 570 cases that were submitted in 2025, only one was resolved. The OCR is, is being dramatically shrunk. The number of cases that the OCR takes is reducing.

Their workload is dramatically reducing. And that leaves parents, whether they're parents of a kid in a charter school or in a public school, like really without somebody to go to bat for them. And I'm very, very troubled by that. And the next thing I'm troubled by is the Trump administration has decided to defund much of the DOE and work that's done by contractors, the DOE effort to produce data. Like to produce data to show how are students in rural schools doing, how are students in urban schools doing, how are students with disabilities doing, how are how are white kids doing, how are African American kids doing, how are Latino kids or other kids who are English language learners doing.

One of the first things that the administration did, which seems to me to run counter to the whole notion that we ought to be promoting improvement, was scrap so much of the research and so much of the data that was being done. So let me ask you this, how troubled are you, Ms. Kogo, with a Department of Ed shrinking and being dismantled, including the core civil servants who are trying to enforce this really important law who— that we all support.

Thank you, Senator, for that important question. Uh, the Center for Learner Equity, along with a host of other disability advocates and civil rights advocates, we've been deeply concerned by the intentional dismantling of the Department of Education. Again, we recognize that our nation's NAEP scores show that our students are not, are not learning, and that it— there's a fire drill happening for our need to act urgently and swiftly for kids. And yet this dismantling is taking apart the critical foundations that make our public education infrastructure work. When we look at special education alone, um, reductions in staff at the Office for Special Education Programs, Those are the expertise and the experts that our state directors of special education call when they need help.

And now there's questions of, well, who, who are they calling to get that technical assistance? Um, the disinvestment in research— we can't get better if we don't know what works and we don't know who specifically needs the assistance. Amongst the Office for Civil Rights responsibilities, they also are tasked with conducting the civil rights data collection. A really unique, important set of data that tells us how different student subgroups are doing. And that data collection has not happened.

It's behind schedule and we're uncertain if it will be conducted. So we're very concerned. I'm over time, but thank you for sharing that. And thanks all to all of you for coming into the chair for calling this important hearing. Senator Kaine, thank you, sir.

And I think Husted came in first, correct? All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Mr. Chairman, thank you for hosting this committee.

It's interesting that we're talking about charter schools. The very first bill I passed in the Ohio legislature had to do with charter schools. And give you a little background. I— during one of my first jobs that I had, I worked at the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce in Dayton, Ohio, during in a very difficult time period when jobs were leaving, the city was struggling. As a matter of fact, it was 613 out of 613 in its academic ranking.

And frankly, it was part of the reason that I ran for public office to begin with, because as a community, we tried electing new school board members, hiring new superintendents, doing all kinds of things, and the public school system continued to produce the worst results. And I remember saying to myself, I'm like, well, I'll run for the state legislature because who could be against poor children trapped in a failing school district from having a choice? Well, I learned, Mr. Chairman, there were lots of people who were against that.

But the families who lived in those communities weren't against that. They wanted some other options. And we passed, I passed the first charter school legislation in the state of Ohio history, first freestanding bill, at least as it relates to it. And I will tell you, we learned a lot from it because some of those charter schools did really well and some of them didn't do well.

But I learned, but we learned along the way and I'll see if this is similar to your experiences— is that one of the things that parents wanted more than anything was just a safe place for their kid to be in school, their child to be in school, because it wasn't safe. And so the charter schools that provided a safe school right in their neighborhood where they didn't have to ride a bus across town, but right down the street, they knew where their child was, particularly for the littlest ones. They knew it was safe.

And that was the number one reason that the parents told us that they wanted to have that neighborhood charter school, because of safety for their children. And that they could, if the school was in the neighborhood and they needed to know what was going on with their child, they could walk to the school and the parent could visit and they could be involved. Ways to get parents involved in the school district and to get them in the school and to get them, get them supported. And, and that's what I learned from, from that experience. And I also know this: we talk a lot about how, uh, what's the best way to educate children.

There is no best way. There are better ways because every child learns differently, every child has different needs. I, by the way, uh, I, I don't— there's no school that can be perfect for everyone. It's not possible because children are different, and we have to— we can't have just a one-size-fits-all approach. We need different options for kids and families based on their individual needs.

They might be special needs students, they might be somebody who has dyslexia, they might— I mean, you could go through the whole list, or people who— I could go down the list of things how people learn differently, and I just am curious, um, as I see our witnesses today. Um, Miss Vaughn, do you— is that your experience? And what, what insights can you provide me?

Um, thank you. That is, that is my family's experience. Um, for 3 of my kids, they were not thriving in our public school. We love our public public school. I went to that school.

I went to public school my whole life. Yes, my children do too. Um, but they needed more support than that school could offer. Now, my, my other child, he did fine in public school through elementary school, but he just needed a little bit more in middle school, and that was our choice to send him to a, to a charter school for middle school. Um, Miss Jackson, similar?

Yes, Senator.

Well, actually, with mine, to me it was— I— with the charter schools is the public schools is different. It's totally different. I think that they don't really focus as much on kids that are in low-income areas. Yeah. Well, I know my time's almost up, Mr. Chairman, but I'll say this.

I want to tell you a good news story about Dayton, Ohio. There's now a school there called the Dayton Early College Academy. Uh, it is the best, highest-performing school in the city of Dayton, and it's a charter school, and it's thriving. And the stories of those children who previously didn't have a great place to go to school, who find themselves at the Dayton Early College Academy, uh, are now thriving. Uh, the, the success rate that these students have versus the students in the other areas of the city that they come from is so much better and so much more enhanced.

And the families are satisfied, and it's growing and has a waiting list all the time, and all this this kind of stuff. And it has spawned the production and creation of other charter schools in the city who are beginning to do similar things. And that's the power of what charter schools and school choice and, and helping to give families and parents and children choices that better fit their needs provides in places where children had no other options. And so there can be a good news story, Mr. Chairman. And I, um, I thank the witnesses for being here today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. For any senator wishing to ask additional questions, questions for the records are due 5 PM Thursday, June 4th. Thank you all for being here. I really appreciate it. Thanks for getting on that plane after that graduation.

I know you're incredibly proud of your daughter. It's really wonderful. Um, the committee stands adjourned.